A sermon preached by the Rev. Scott D.
Nowack on March 18, 2012
at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore,
Texas.
The Way Out
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21
We
didn’t make it to the Danville corn maze this fall. I know.
It’s right around the corner from our house. Still, we didn’t get there. I have some familiarity with corn mazes. I like the challenge of finding my way
through the numerous paths cut through corn stalk walls that tower over even
the tallest amongst us.
There’s
one in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, just off the Pennsylvania turnpike in
Lancaster County. You may have seen it
on “John and Kate Plus Eight”. They
visited this corn maze on one of their episodes several years ago.
I
took our youth group there on a Friday night in early fall to go through the
corn maze. We all had maps of the maze. We split up into groups and entered into the
maze. After an hour or so, we were lost, even with a map. It wasn’t a precise map. It was hand drawn, so some of it was a little
bit off. I eventually lost my group and
proceeded to get through the maze to the finish line. I was the only one to get through the whole
thing. In fact, I could hear my kids screaming,
“how do I get out of here?” and “where’s the exit? Where’s the entrance?” They were so turned around and mixed up they
couldn’t find their way out. One of the
other adults and I went in to round them up and show them the way out. As hard as they tried, they couldn’t save
themselves from the maze. They needed
someone to show them the way out.
Have
you ever gotten so lost that you couldn’t find your way out? Have you ever gotten so mixed up, turned
around upside down that you couldn’t find the right way to go? Unless I’ve missed my guess, at one time or
another, we have all found ourselves stuck in a moment that we couldn’t get out
of on our own; one we couldn’t solve by ourselves. Times when we needed help; when we needed
someone we could trust and rely on. We
need a savior.
Our
Old Testament reading this morning draws from the story of Israel’s wandering
through the Sinai wilderness. It depicts
yet another complaint story; an incident in which the people of Israel become
their own worst enemy by rebelling against God. With their complaints against
God and against Moses, they succeed in provoking God to punishment. When they
repent of their behavior, God in turn provides them with the means for escaping
the consequences of their own deeds. God’s mercy delivers those who turn to
God.[1]
God
provides the people a way out of their situation – the bronze serpent; a
serpent-on-a-stick. What’s up with
that? A serpent-on-a-stick? Anthropologists would have a field day with
this one! They'd flip open their notebooks and write it up as a totem, a
fetish, a talisman. "Such things are prized by primitive cultures,"
they would pontificate. "These sticks were used to ward off plagues and
evil spirits. Displaying an image of the thing one most fears unleashes a
certain sympathetic magic that causes its maker to feel protected." If you
want to keep the lions away, you carve a statue of a lion and hang it outside
your tent. Primitive peoples the world over practice this sort of sympathetic
magic -- but it's a shocker to discover it here, in the Bible.
Serpent
worship was found throughout in the ancient world. Many ancient peoples believed there was a
direct relationship between snakes and healing.
It was widely believed in ancient times that snake venom was a substance
that, when injected into the bloodstream in sufficient quantities, could kill,
yet which in smaller doses could have a therapeutic effect.
To
this day, the anti-venom used to combat snake bites is prepared from the actual
venom of snakes, diluted and injected into a domesticated animal such as a
horse or sheep. The animal develops an
immune reaction to the venom, producing antibodies that are then harvested from
the animal’s blood and turned into medicine.
Fight fire with fire, as the old saying goes; the bronze serpent was
used to fight off the poisonous living serpents.
Moses
raises the bronze serpent in the wilderness so the people have a way out. If they looked upon it, they would live. The people needed only to have faith in God’s
instruction and commands regarding the statue.
When we have faith in God, we are lifted up from our despair, our sins,
our insecurities, our wretchedness, our secrets, our anxieties, our need to be
perfect, our expectations of ourselves and those placed upon us. We get trapped, we get stuck, and we need a
way out. And the way is faith in Jesus
Christ.
God
is always willing to act to save us from ourselves and from the places we find
ourselves in. Let’s face it, life is
hard, very hard. You make one wrong turn and you’re headed in the wrong
direction. Make one wrong decision and opportunities
are lost and squandered.
Just
one more bet, you justify to yourself, because you know you’ll win it all back
and more. Just one more time viewing
porn on the internet because you know you’re not addicted to it. Are you?
Just one more donut, one more beef brisket, one more chicken burrito;
I’ll start my new diet tomorrow. Just
one more is all it takes to a lot more; when we begin heading down the wrong
path in life; to get stuck in a place you can’t get out of yourself.
Every
time we head down the wrong path, every time we find ourselves hiding our evil actions,
thoughts and feelings, every time we sin against God and one another, we live
in darkness. We are in the darkness so
our sinful actions are not exposed or seen by God or others.
But
every time we do what is right, what is true, we shine the light of Christ. When we love God and our neighbor as
ourselves we shine the light of Christ.
When we give our money, our time and our talents to help the church and
others in need, we shine the light of Christ.
When we shine the light of Christ, the light breaks through the
darkness, turns our mourning turns to dancing, our tears into a new song and
God’s love in Christ Jesus shows us the way out of darkness, for he is the way
out. Jesus is the way out.
The
forcefulness with which these passages recall God’s actions for human salvation
evokes the question, “Why?” Why does God persist in saving humankind, when humankind
will itself persist in rebellion and sin? The answer comes in the familiar
language of John 3:16: God acts again and again for the benefit of human beings
because God loves the world in spite of itself and God is the only one who can
give us the way out. Even as the world resists and opposes God’s Son, God
persists in loving the world.[2]
Maybe
God raises Jesus on the cross for all to see, so the people of the world may
look on him and live. Maybe if the bronze serpent is a way for ancient peoples
to deal with their fear of snakebite, then maybe the cross of Jesus Christ is
the way believers of every era deal with their fear of death. In the
wilderness, Moses elevates an image of the thing ancient Israel most fears. On
Calvary's hill, God raises up an image of the thing we most fear. Somehow, in
gazing upon God's crucified Son, we understand, in a way beyond words, that
there is no pit we can fall into; no condition we can suffer from; no suffering
of any kind, beyond the reach of our Lord's healing and sustaining love.
God
has given us the way out of our sinful life to a new life in Christ because God
loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.[3]
[3]
Barclay, William. The Gospel of John
vol.1, Daily Study Bible Series.
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977) p. 138.
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