Reflection: "Our New Lives in Christ"In the passage from Romans, Paul tells us that:
“if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Last week, we looked at the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the disciples on that Pentecost day. They were baptised in the Spirit and then went out into the world as new men and women, empowered by the Spirit to spread the Gospel of Jesus. This can be our mission, too, if we accept Christ’s call on our lives and renounce the ways of the flesh. But today, we're going to delve a bit deeper into the familiar passage we read from John’s Gospel (ch 3:1 - 17). We need to go on a journey into the distant past - all the way back to the Old Testament book of Numbers, where the Jewish people are in the Sinai desert, following Moses on a circuitous trek, out of slavery in Egypt, toward the land that God has promised them. It’s taken so long that they’ve begun to doubt their leaders and even wonder if there is a “promised” land at all. They begin to murmur about their hard life of the desert, the strange, God-given diet of manna and quail, and the uncertainty of their serpentine route.Serpentine in more ways than one! For here, in Numbers 9, somewhere out in this seemingly God-forsaken land, there’s a plague of poisonous snakes. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't particularly like snakes and seek to avoid them, whenever possible. But for the Hebrew people, it was far worse, because the snakes were many, and they were poisonous. People began to die and so they went to Moses, suspecting that the snakes were some kind of divine retribution for all their complaining and they asked Moses to intercede for them with God. In response, God tells Moses to fashion a serpent of bronze and put it on a pole. Then if any of the people are bitten by a poisonous snake, they should gaze at the bronze serpent and they will be healed. And, of course, God’s suggestion actually worked. Later on, in 2 Kings 18, we read that for 500 years after Moses, the people have been settled in the Promised Land and they are clamouring to have a king - like other nations had. Many of the kings were disappointing and corrupt, but one king, Hezekiah, was different and he cleaned things up. One of the things Hezekiah did was to remove the “high places”, breaking down the pillars and cutting down the sacred pole, thus destroying the pagan worship places, which had cropped up around the land. Then we read these words: "He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it. They called it Nehushtan." Do you see what had happened? Five hundred years after Moses had made the bronze serpent as a means of healing for the people, they still had it - and it had become an idol. That is, what had been a means to an end had become an end in itself! Instead of pointing toward the God who had ordered it made, it now pointed toward itself - and the people worshiped the serpent, instead of the God who had made it help them in a time of need. Sometimes, we Christians are guilty of worshipping what is old, but no longer precious, or useful. We have our traditions, and we rebel against change. These two Old Testament passages about the bronze serpent illustrate a necessary point. What had been helpful and healing in one era had become an idol in another. I can't help but wonder: how many things in the life of our churches used to be helpful and healing, but have now outlived their usefulness and how many old traditions have we turned into idols? Good King Hezekiah smashed the bronze serpent, and in so doing, proved to be an example of the spirit of reform. So, are we done with our serpentine ancestry? Have we seen the last of the bronze serpent? Not quite. In today’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus visited by Nicodemus, under the light of a candle. Nicodemus was a respected member of the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders of Jerusalem and he came to Jesus under cover of night - the purpose of this clandestine meeting was to quiz Jesus. In whispered tones, Nicodemus asks: "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, apart from the presence of God." With these few words, a door is opened and Jesus steps through. "You must be born from above," Jesus says. But Nicodemus misunderstands him because the Hebrew word for “from above” can be taken two ways. Nicodemus thinks Jesus has said, "You must be born again", but Jesus was actually meaning: “You need to be born on two levels - water and spirit. You must be born from above!” So here comes that well known passage John 3:16, "For God so loved the world" - the Gospel in a nutshell. But how many remember the verses that comes just before it, where it says: "No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man (i.e. Jesus). And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life." There it is! The bronze serpent has come back in the New Testament, in today’s gospel reading! That bronze serpent - made by Moses and smashed by Hezekiah - has come back at the end of this serpentine story. Jesus is not saying that a serpent on a pole can heal you; he’s saying that, just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness to heal, so he, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a cross to be able to save us. From the desert wanderings of the Israelites to the hill of Calvary. And there we hear the call to lift up our eyes and see the one who saves us and gives us abundant life. So now the snake of Moses has led us to that favourite verse, John 3:16, but also to this great, final word in verse 17: "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him". God sent Jesus to earth, not to condemn us for all that we’ve done wrong, but to save us from those very wrongdoings, by giving up his mortal life on the cross, that our sins could be forgiven. Maybe you've been in church all your life. Maybe you're a person who ticks "none", in the census when asked about your religious affiliation. Or maybe you're a seeker, like Nicodemus, checking Jesus out under the cover of night. Whoever you are, remember this: Jesus didn’t come to condemn you, but to save you and give you new life. So lift up your eyes. Lift up your hearts. The story has come to this: "For God so loved the world" and because of that, we can live new lives in Christ. Blessings Pastor Rick
1 Comment
Beryl Blok
28/5/2021 06:45:06 pm
Thank you again, Rick for your thoughtful and challenging message.
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