Snakes and Faith
based on John 3:14-21, Numbers 21:4-9
Rev. Karen A. Goltz

            By and large I’m a fan of the three-year lectionary.  Those who developed it did a fairly decent job of including a large part of the bible, and of organizing the narratives around the seasons of the church year in a way that encourages greater depth of understanding and contemplation.  It provides the average church-goer a good exposure to the breadth of the Word of God, and it forces us preachers to wrestle with difficult texts we probably wouldn’t choose on our own, and not just preach over and over again on our six favorite passages.

            But there are some choices the lectionary people made that were just ill-conceived.  Today’s gospel lesson, the way it’s presented, is one of them.

            Many pre-printed bulletins begin this reading with the words, “Jesus said” in brackets.  OK, fair enough to indicate who’s speaking if the verse you’re starting with doesn’t specify it.  But what isn’t fair is suggesting that the first verse of today’s reading is the beginning of something.  In fact, the word that the bracketed “Jesus said” replaces is “and.”  Our reading actually begins, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”  Who begins a sentence with the word “and?”  Someone who is in the middle of saying something important.  Today’s gospel lesson begins in the middle of a conversation between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus.  But you’d never know that from the way the lesson is presented.

            Nicodemus came to Jesus by night with some questions.  Unlike most of the exchanges between Jesus and the Pharisees, Nicodemus isn’t trying to test or trap Jesus in his words, and he’s not trying to challenge Jesus in any way.  He acknowledges that Jesus is a teacher who has come from God, reasoning, correctly, that no one can do what Jesus is doing apart from God.  Jesus tells him that no one can see the kingdom of God without being born an-o-then, which can be translated as ‘from above’ or ‘again.’  Nicodemus understands this literally and questions how this can be possible, given that a person cannot re-enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time.  So Jesus clarifies and tells him that no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.  He goes on to say, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’  The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” [John 3:6-8] Nicodemus is confused, and asks how these things can be.  Jesus answers him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?  Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.  If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  No one has ascended into heaven except the one who has descended from heaven, the Son of Man.  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 may not perish, but may have eternal life.” [John 3:10-15] Our gospel reading for today picks up just as Jesus is getting to the crux of what he’s trying to explain to Nicodemus.

            With his words, Jesus is suggesting that he can tell people about heavenly things because he himself is the Son of Man who has descended from heaven.  He’s been there; he’s seen it.  He knows what he’s talking about.  He also knows that he’s going to be crucified, and he compares himself to the serpent on the pole erected by Moses in the wilderness. We heard that story a few minutes ago, in our reading from Numbers.  In that story God instructed Moses to craft a bronze serpent and place it on a pole high above the Israelites, who were dying from a plague of poisonous snakes.  Because God willed it so, anyone who looked at that bronze serpent would be able to withstand the lethal dose of toxic venom in his or her body.  The idea of looking at a metal snake for a miraculous cure may seem silly, but it worked.  Even sillier is the idea that belief in a convicted criminal nailed to a cross might free someone from death and provide eternal life.  But that’s exactly what Jesus is suggesting by that comparison.

            Do we need to know that Jesus is talking to Nicodemus in order to understand that bit about the snakes?  No, we don’t.  But it is important when Jesus gets to the part about people loving darkness, rather than light, and that people who do evil hate the light and do not come into the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.  Remember, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, under the cover of darkness, probably because he dared not risk being seen talking to Jesus.  After all, Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews, and could not be seen conversing seriously with this crazy man who had just upended all the tables in the temple and berated those who sold sacrificial offerings.  So he hid himself in darkness and sought out Jesus.

            Seeking Jesus is not an evil act.  Nicodemus feared that it might be perceived as such by his peers, but his peers are not the ultimate authority.  Sure, they could make his life miserable; he could lose his job, the respect of the people, his social standing.  But what is all that compared to the promise of eternal life?  Jesus said, “Those who believe in the Son of Man are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only son of God.”  God does not condemn those who do not believe; they live enslaved to the opinions of others, the lure of wealth, the fickleness of popularity or public opinion, and the fleeting sensations of instant gratification.  Believing in Christ would free them from all that, but they choose to remain in their own, familiar prisons.

            So how does one believe?  How can someone make themselves believe in something?  I remember when I was a child I read the book Sara Crewe by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  She later expanded it into The Little Princess.  I remember being struck by the description of Sara’s relationship with her doll, Emily, who was Sara’s only friend and companion.  The book said, “She wanted to believe, or pretend to believe, that Emily understood and sympathized with her.”  Sara’s pretending was what got her through some very difficult times.  But as much as she wanted to believe that she was a little princess living in comfort, she knew that she was in fact a forlorn, neglected orphan being mistreated by the mistresses of her former boarding school, and that in the end she was only pretending.

            Can pretending to believe lead to real belief?  Not exactly.  But one can act in faith, even when the act seems ludicrous, and that act can make it easier for us to receive the gift of belief.  For example: Nicodemus comes up in John’s gospel again.  After the crucifixion, after Jesus has been condemned and executed as a criminal, he and Joseph of Arimathea go to Pilate to request Jesus’ body, take it down from the cross, anoint it with about 100 pounds of spices and aloes, wrap it gently in a linen cloth, and lay it in a tomb.  The risk to him and his reputation is no less; if anything it’s greater.  Jesus is dead; there’s nothing left to believe in.  Yet in the light of day, Nicodemus comes to Jesus and tends him.  He came into the light, so that it could be clearly seen that his deeds were done in God.  I don’t know if he actually believed, or, if he did, what exactly he believed in, but he remembered the words spoken to him by Jesus in the darkness, and he acted in faith.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

            We are surrounded by poisonous snakes.  The venom from their bites courses through our veins.  But God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  Act in faith.  In the bright light of day, in clear view of everyone, do something ludicrous.  When logic and reason argue against it, put your trust in the one who was condemned as a criminal and crucified on a crossbeam two thousand years ago.  Because while the metal snake had no power of its own, the one who was crucified does, and he turned the instrument of his torture and execution into a symbol of victory over death.  That crossbeam did not have the final word; and Jesus rose from the dead and continues to live to this day.  Logic cannot comprehend it, but logic is an earthly thing.  Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ transcends earthly things, and invites us to experience heavenly things.  The snakes will still surround us; their venom will still infect us, but snake venom has no power in heaven, and the Son of God has brought heaven down to earth, into our everyday reality.  This is what he offers to us.  Will you act in faith and look up to him?  Or would you rather keep your eye on the snakes and dance with them yourself?