fire-breathing serpents
(Free Version)- The Fourth Sunday in Lent- Year B; Numbers 21:4-9 Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21
Painting by William Blake, “Moses Erecting the Brazen Serpent,” About 1800-1803
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In Lent, we come to grips with the sickness of sin, our own complicity, and the ways in which we do not live into the fullness of our baptismal identity. Yet, we also remember the good news: we are not left alone in our sin.
In our Old Testament reading (Numbers 21:4-9), the children of Israel tell God that they are sick of manna, of the provision which he has given them. This turning from God leads to a plague where they are bitten by serpents with fiery venom. Many of them die. As an antidote, God tells Moses to make a poisonous serpent and place it on a pole. Whoever looks on it will live. For some reason, God takes the object of their pain and suffering, lifts it up and invites them to look upon it and trust him, which brings about their healing.
In our New Testament reading (Ephesians 2:1-10), Paul reflects on the nature of salvation. Before Christ, all were sick, following only our passions and desires, living as wrathful creatures. But God did not leave us alone. He is rich in mercy and love. He made those who were “sin-dead” to be “resurrection alive” (Peterson). This is only by God’s gift—by who God is—that he has been gracious. This is not because of anything that we have done. Because of God’s great love, we are transformed, like a poem, an intricate sculpture, sheet music ready to be played. We are made for good works. Our work is no longer our own. We are God’s work.
In our gospel reading (John 3:14-21), Jesus, in conversation with Nicodemus, reflects back on the story of Moses and the serpent. Jesus places himself in the place of the serpent, saying that he must be lifted up. Why? Because Jesus has taken on the venom, all the venom, in order to bring about our healing. It is only by looking upon him that we receive our healing.
In the third installment of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace is a young boy who is self-centered, spoiled, and bratty. One day in Narnia, after discovering a dragon’s treasure, with which he has become obsessed, he wakes up and finds that: “Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragons thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”
The gold bracelet from the dragon’s lair which he had put on his own arm when he was a boy was now cutting into his dragon arm. In addition to the pain, he feels isolated and alone. Aslan the lion (the Christ figure in Lewis’s story) shows up and leads Eustace to a garden and to a well at the center of the garden. Eustace looks at the well and knows that he would be relieved of pain if he could just get to it, but Aslan says that he must get undressed first. Eustace is confused, but then remembers that dragons have skins (like snakes) that can be shed. So, he begins tearing off his dragon skin. After he peels off one layer, he finds another nasty, scaly layer underneath; then another. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to get rid of the icky dragon skin. Eustace recounts.
"Then the lion said — but I don’t know if it spoke — ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was jut the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund. “Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on — and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment.
After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. . . .” 4
I love this story because of it’s layers. In Christian baptism, the candidate is invited to “renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God,” “to renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God,” to “renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God,” and to “turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior,” “to put your whole trust in his grace and love,” to “follow and obey him as your Lord.”
This is what is depicted in this scene. The dragon (the “fire-breathing” venomous one)—an image of our pre-baptismal selves, must yield to the Redeemed, allow the layers to be taken off—not on one’s own, but by the Redeemer himself—and be thrown into the well.
Our healing is not found in ourselves, but in God. But that requires a radical trust. And it hurts because it means peeling off the layers of sin, the comfort, the idols that we often turn to. But, in the water is who we were created to be. It is the way to being “a boy again,” to being truly human.
My hope for us today is to see that God so loves the world and has not given up on you or on her. Our hope is rooted in the love of God.
When we look at the brokenness in our own lives, and the brokenness in the systems and structures of our world our tendency is to do one of three things: 1) to sigh and say “that’s always how things will be.” 2) To react with condemnation and shame towards those who sin, thus creating an “us vs. them” 3) To feel like there is an earthly solution that can be a final answer: “If people would just be more educated…If we all would just listen more…”
Our only hope is to look upon the cross, to trust in the one who has conquered sin and death. I know that a statement like that can sound very vague and existential. What does that mean? The challenge is to remember our story, remember our baptism, to remember who we are as the people of God. We have been saved by grace, and we have been saved for something. Do not give way to apathy, condemnation, or quick fixes for your life or for the world. We need a deep healing.
Where do I even start? The good news is that you are not in this alone. You are part of a family. The physical presence of Christ in the Church is what keeps this from mere self-help propaganda. The calling is not merely to more positive thinking, but to a root system.
In a couple of weeks, we will enter Holy Week, a time when we walk out the story of Christ’s passion. The word “Passion” comes from the word “to suffer.” In this week, we remember that the one true God, who could have stayed far away, did not have to suffer, chose the human condition, chose to suffer for us. He did so as our healer.
The early church father Gregory of Naziansus said,
He lost nothing in his divinity when he saved me, when like a good physician he stooped to my festering wounds. He was a mortal man, but he was also God. He was of the race of David but Adam’s creator. He who has no body clothed himself with flesh. He had a mother who, nonetheless, was a virgin. He who is without bounds bound himself with the cords of humanity. He was victim and high priest—yet he was God. He offered up his blood and cleansed the whole world. He was lifted up on the cross, but it was sin that was nailed to it. He became as one among the dead, but he rose from the dead, raising to life also many who had died before him. On the one hand, there was the poverty of his humanity; on the other, the riches of his divinity.
May know the great love of God who sent his son that whoever might trust in Him would live with him forever, overflowing with this love for all the world.