We hear of two people mentioned in our scripture readings this morning, Abraham and Nicodemus in the context of faith in God. One has it, the other seeks it.
It is the kind of faith that is proclaimed and acclaimed in the psalm—faith that asserts that my help comes from the Lord—the maker of heaven and earth. A trust that God will not let your foot be moved, he always watches over you, is your protection on your right hand, preserving you from all evil, keeping you safe, watching over your going out and your coming in from this time forth for evermore.
Isn’t that the kind of faith we want to have, a faith that is more relationship than merely religious? To know that God is with you in all things– that he will direct your life—he has a purpose for your life and when you get off track he will knock you back on–he will never abandon you—and whatever you go through no matter what it seems like to you –he is there working things out. It is a faith that is intimate, personal, and confident.
That is the kind of faith Abraham seemed to have. God called him and he left everything to follow where God led. He left family, country, life to be obedient to God. That is the witness of the lesson from Genesis, and Paul’s witness in the epistle.
The two operative verbs in the old testament passage are go—God’s command, to which he obeyed, and the other verb, will be—will be a blessing—a promise that God had a plan to make him and his life something great and significant. Abraham obeyed—he had faith—trust—and God does the work to make him something different.
Now if you have read the Old Testament at all you know that Abraham was certainly not perfect but the trajectory of his life, the aim-point of his life, you guys who were at Range Day
remember my little sermonette– was to be obedient to God—to trust God—the focus of his life was on God. Abraham lived his life for God. And God made something of him.
I think this is what Nicodemus was looking for when he came to Jesus at night.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, an inheritor, caretaker, and practitioner of Abraham’s religion. He was a member of the Sanhedrin; the highest governing body of the Jewish people.
But something seemed to be missing. He was probably living a good life. As a Pharisee he was probably meticulous in his following the law, both morally and ritually. He was as close to God as he could get on his own. Yet something was missing. He wasn’t close enough. He saw the signs that Jesus did and it raised the question for him: was there more? Whatever it was, he suspected that Jesus had the answer.
I think that Nicodemus is a kind of religious Everyman here—most of us want to believe that our lives are significant to God, that our lives have meaning and purpose, especially those of us who come to church, we practice our faith, we participate but sometimes feel that there must be more.
I had that kind of experience. I grew up in a fairly traditional Irish catholic home. My grandfather Stephen Conlon was the patriarch and ensured that we were in church every Sunday—because it was a mortal sin with both a spiritual and practical consequence. Grampa would not let my mom date my dad, an Episcopalian, until he became a catholic and agreed to be married in the church and raise the kids in the Roman faith. But he was a great man of faith, and prayer. To this day I can still remember him kneeling in the church on Sunday, as the mass
went on in Latin, he prayed his rosary, with the beads gently rattling against the pew in front.
I attended the parish school, St. Mary’s, from kindergarten through 8th grade, taught by an order of nuns: the Sisters of Mercy of whom I discovered some were—some were not.
I was an altar boy for a couple of years. I got kicked off. It was either for missing the 7:00am Sunday mass on a regular basis—I didn’t think God was awake that early, or it could have been when I broke out laughing at a funeral—must have been the stress—or accidentally spilling the coals out of the thurible and burning holes in the wood floor; that sounds familiar to some of us here!
There was also the thought that I might become a priest. My family took me to visit a seminary when I was in eighth grade. I remember thinking after that visit that nobody seemed to be having fun in that place, they looked like they were in prison—and do I want to be a priest or have fun? And that as they say was the end of that. But looking back at that from where I am today I can’t help but see the irony in all of this!
I grew up in a very religious environment—the worship was full of wonder and awe, I knew all about God, was encouraged to live a life of prayer and piety. I was doing all I could to get close to God but I always seemed to come up short…. something was missing.
I think that was where Nicodemus was, it may be where some of us were—maybe some of us still are there; something missing, life feeling somehow incomplete… that there must be something more.
In his encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus tells him what is at the heart of having that richer life—he says to Nick— you must be born again or born from above: Born of water and the spirit. Jesus is talking about a new type of life, a new way of life that is anchored, sourced and purposed by God. It is related to being washed clean from sin, and having a kinship relationship to God. It is not something we create or that we can accomplish. It is given by God, to be received by us.
But how do we receive it?
Jesus takes Nicodemus to the book of numbers 21:4-9. There Israel rebelled against God.
They sinned by their constant complaining about God, and in their rebelliousness God responded.
“Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘we sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.’
So Moses prayed for the people.
The Lord said to Moses, “make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’
So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.”
Jesus was emphasizing that Israel sinned against God, and consequently their sin brought poison and ultimately death into their lives. And only God has the antidote.
When I was in the Army at Fort Bragg, NC there seemed to be more snakes than trees there. We gave them a name, called them Jake no-shoulders.
Well there was a story of a sergeant and a private doing a night navigation course together one time and the private sat down on a log to take a rest, a log unfortunately that was home to a rattlesnake of one sort or another that took exception to him and bit him right where he sits down.
The sergeant calmed the private down and then called the medic on the radio for instructions on what to do. The doc told him to clean the wound as best he could, take his knife and cut an x across the fang holes as deep as he thought the fangs went, and then suck out the poison. as he returned to the private, the private asked: what did the doc say, Sarge? Sarge replied: Sorry boy, the doc said you’re gonna die.
Jesus was telling Nicodemus that his problem was: he was snake bit, he was poisoned, and there was no cure; no antidote unless God provided it.
That’s our problem: we are sinner. Our default setting is to live our lives our own way, not God’s way. It is nice when our plans and God’s plans intersect at times but we want what we want most of the time, regardless of what Gods says. We are snake bit, and our sin has brought a painful venom into our lives that poisoned us, sometimes to death.
But Jesus said there is a cure: he quotes–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
As God provided the only way for the Hebrew’s to be healed through focusing on the snake Moses lifted up, so also God provide the only way to be healed of our snake bite — through focusing on Jesus himself being lifted up on the cross. It is Jesus on the cross who heals us,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For he says: God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent the son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.
It is Jesus who is our healer: Jesus who gives us life.
The operative verb Jesus gives us is: believe—to make a willful decision to trust, to hand over control, to focus our eyes and aim our life on Jesus.
The Hebrew were dying from bites by poisonous snakes. God told Moses to make a sign of a bronze serpent on a pole and raise it up and all who gazed on it would be saved.
Jesus promises that his raising up on the cross would likewise bring healing to all who have been bitten by the serpent, if we believe in him. We are all snake bit—poisoned by sin—and to be healed we look to the Cross—where Jesus was lifted up—and trust him.
As Abraham had a relational faith in God and his life reflected that life changing faith. So we are directed to focus upon Jesus and his cross, that we might receive that antidote for the snake bite in our lives and experience that same type of life changing faith.
During this Lent let us look to the Cross—look to Jesus. His cross is the supreme act of God’s love for us –and that is our healing.
Let us consider our snake bites—what sins do we need healing from? What impedes our belief, our trust, our focus on Jesus? Let us seek that more intimate relationship with Jesus and his cross and have our lives transformed.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Richard C. Marsden
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
2nd Sunday after Lent
16 March, 2014