TITLE: “Look to the Cross and Live”

 

In the name of the Father, and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read, with particular focus on the words, Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life (John 3:14-15).

Our Gospel text for today contains perhaps the best-known verse in all of the Scriptures.  John 3:16.  Who has not memorized it by heart?  Who has not been comforted by its words of hope and salvation for the downtrodden?  Some has called these words “the Gospel in a nutshell.”  It is therefore appropriate that we reflect on these words during Lent, and on the words surrounding John 3:16, as we see Jesus reveal the message of salvation through the Cross to Nicodemus and to us.  Jesus invites us in our text to look to the Cross and live.  This is the message of Lent, and this is the message of the Christian faith.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council.  By all rights he was one of the leaders of the Jewish people.  He came to Jesus by night so that no one would know that he was going to see this teacher from Galilee.  Jesus almost immediately started to teach Nicodemus about the nature of faith and about baptism.  While talking with Nicodemus Jesus said, Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life (Jn. 3:14-15).

Jesus here compares His journey to the cross to an episode that had happened to the people of Israel many generations before.  It was one of the lowest points in the history of Israel.  God had saved them with a mighty hand from the Egyptians by parting the Red Sea, and sending them across on dry land.  He had provided for them with manna, the bread from heaven.  As they were traveling around Edom because the king there would not let them pass through, the Israelites got impatient along the way.  They began to rebel against God and against Moses his servant.  Rather than being thankful for the gifts God had lavished on them, they wanted more.  They said to Moses, Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert?  There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food! (Nu. 21:5)

Doesn’t that sound familiar to you?  How many of us have wished for a different life.  Every one of us can find some way to be unhappy with the gifts God has given us.  Just like the Israelites before us, we rebel against God, and are impatient because things don’t happen as we wish them to be.  Not enough money, too many debts, things could be better in school, at work, or at home.  Every one of us has our own list of complaints against the life God has given us.

This rebellion and complaining is really a symptom of the greater rebellion within us.  As our Epistle text for today says, you are dead in trespasses and sins.  We are all filled with unbelief.  Sure, we may put on a good face sometimes, but unbelief is always under the surface, ever waiting to emerge at the worst possible time.

God recognized this in his people Israel, and so he sent poisonous snakes to bite them.  They cried out in repentance and terror, and begged Moses to pray that the Lord would take the snakes away.  Moses did so, and God commanded him to make a snake out of bronze and put it on a pole, and anyone who was bitten by a snake could look upon this bronze snake and live.

If you think about it, this really is an odd sort of way for God to save Israel from the poisonous serpents.  Why didn’t he just make them all healed?  And why make them look at the snake, the symbol of their own impending death?  Why not make the image something beautiful to look at?

The reason he used the brazen serpent to save them was because it pointed to the greater work that Christ would do on the cross for us.  Christ said, Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life (Jn. 3:14-15).  Moses lifted up the snake on a pole.  The snake, the symbol of poisonous death became for the people of Israel the source of their very life.  This brazen serpent on a pole like a man on a cross drew the people of Israel from wherever they were to gaze upon it and live. 

As much as this brazen serpent gave life to the people of Israel, so much more does the cross of Jesus bring life to you.  Right before our text Jesus said, No one has gone into heaven except the one who came down from heaven —the Son of Man  (Jn. 3:13).  This Son of Man, this Jesus, came down from heaven in the form of a man.  For unlike the snakes that killed the Israelites, we are the source of our own death.  Jesus came down to earth in the fashion of a man like you or I, to redeem us from the death we brought upon ourselves.  Only the Son of God could save us from ourselves.

Look to the Cross and live.  That is the message of John 3:16, For God so loved the world that He handed over His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life (Jn. 3:16).  Already Jesus was looking to the cross, to his own death for the life of the world.  God the Father, in His great love for you, was willing to hand over his own Son to death, for your life.

This looking to the cross is not an easy thing.  It means your own death.  As one church father (Gregory of Nyssa) put it:

“The end of all our faith in these mysteries is to turn our eyes to the Cross of him who gave himself for us.  For the Passion means the Cross, so that whoever looks upon it is not wounded by the sting of sin.  To look upon the Cross is to make oneself dead to the world and crucified” (XLIV, 413, C-D).

This really does fly in the face of our human nature.  The cross is the last place that we by nature would look.  Where would you look for life?  In the hands of technology?  Many people believe that with human cloning almost on the horizon, that we human beings really will be able to play God over life and death.  Others would rather look to some sort of inner strength for life.  Whether this strength be called “character”, some sort of spirituality, or whatever, Americans have a great love for the image of the self-reliant person, ever in control.  And today’s false notions of self-esteem would try to convince us that when you believe in yourself, then and only then are you truly healthy.

God in this text says no to all false pretensions of life and salvation.  There is only one place that we can look for life, and that is to Christ’s death on the cross.  As contradictory as it may seem, that is the place where God absolved the world.  Just as Israelites of old looked on the brazen serpent and lived, so to we look to the cross of Calvary and live.

God loves to act through earthy, human ways to bring about his greatest deeds of salvation.  Eternal life is won through death and resurrection; the gates of heaven are opened through simple water and Word; healing is brought about by the words of forgiveness by Christ’s undershepherds; and all of heaven comes down to earth through bread and wine.  These are the mysteries of the Christian faith.  God working through lowly means to bring about the mightiest acts of salvation.  It all points to Christ and the work He accomplished on the cross.

Many people would have us put other goals and purposes forward in the Church.  Some of those goals may be noble, but whenever something is trying to draw us away from looking to the cross and looking at ourselves, it is of Satan.  That is the lie of Satan.  He would have us do or believe anything rather than the cross of our Lord.

This Lententide we journey with Jesus to the cross, where his death is our death, and his resurrection is our resurrection to eternal life.  Just as the brazen serpent drew the people of Israel to look and live, look to the cross, the work of Jesus for you, feast upon Christ and his work, and live-forever.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep you hearts and minds in true faith unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Lent IV-B (April 2, 2000)

John 3:14-21

 

 

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Last Revised: April 10, 2000