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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the texts for this morning are both the Old Testament and the Gospel reading. You may be seated. Now, even though I may fancy myself to be a theologian, I would have never made this connection. Because this connection was truly made and defined by God Himself through Jesus Christ who said these words. In fact, nobody saw this coming. That God would use an example of the wilderness wandering serpent event to define His Son’s death as a type. Did you hear it? Chapter 3, verse 15: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”
Do not skip over that to jump to 3.16. 3.16 does not have any meaning whatsoever without 3.15. 3.17 does not have the deep meaning that 3.17 has without 3.15. 3.18-20 does not have the deep and profound meaning without 3.15. 3.18-20. Let me share with you. In the Gospel of John, this is the one place, but there are two other places where Jesus repeats this theme of being lifted up. So he’s not making this comparison kind of as a sidebar issue. He’s making it a central issue to what it means that God so loved the world. Here are the two other statements that go along with verse 15. He said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He.” Well, the only thing that means that He’s been lifted up is on the cross. How can you know that that grotesque figure is He who is the Son of Man? It doesn’t have a bit of meaning without 3.15.
Jesus goes on again, repeats Himself what He said in this morning’s text. He says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He doesn’t draw people to himself with a glorified, beautiful, pain-free body. He draws all people to himself in a wretched, sin-wrecked, pain-filled body, abandoned by the Father on the cross. Now you may think, “Pastor, you’re just talking out of the side of your head.” No. I wish I could say I was. This is God’s word that he’s doing. Like I said, I would have never made this comparison.
Think about it. Could not have God said this? Just as I put up a great pillar of cloud by day that led you, so I will lift up the Son of Man. He could have said that. Or maybe he could have said this: “Just as Moses lifted up his staff to part the Red Sea, so Jesus must be lifted up.” He could have said that. Of all the things that he could have said, he didn’t. What he did say was exactly what happened in this morning’s reading in the Old Testament.
So think about this. If he was not lifted up as a sacrifice, then God’s gift of his Son has no meaning. I mean, it’s like giving you a present that looks beautiful. This is the present that God gave you, which is not a beautiful sight. And yet, it is your beautiful sight because it’s your God for you. This would have no meaning without John 3.15. So John 3.17 says, Him being sent by the Father. That’s like a mail or a package being sent by FedEx or UPS. You’re opening it, and every time you open up the package, there’s something that you want inside, God willing. You open up this package, it’s not something that’s appealing to your senses. So John 3.17 doesn’t have meaning without John 3.15.
John 3, 18 to 20, the latter part of the gospel reading. Salvation is basically found in no one else. This light has come into the darkness, and the darkness has not been overcome, did not overcome the light. Everybody who is of the light wants to come to it. Everybody who doesn’t, he makes this very strong differentiation. That would not have any meaning if this was not what it is.
Well, let’s get into what this really is. I’ve given you some hints, but let’s unpack it with the Old Testament reading. In the Old Testament reading, the people were grumbling. Now, it’s not just normal grumbling. They were going down a path of grumbling, as you heard their words, that was downright denouncing of their God. “We despise this food.” They didn’t have to work for their food. They were on the dole of the government of God. And they didn’t have to work for their food. They were given their food free of charge. And what did it do to them but turn them into being ungrateful? So God sent poisonous serpents to do what to the people before they died? To move those people to R-E-P-E-N-T before they died. Repent. That they would be free of their grumbling and receive God’s forgiveness before they succumbed to the poison of the serpent.
They cry out, “Save us, Moses! Save us!” Well, let’s also remember, unto whom also did they grumble against, besides God? Moses. So now the very person that they’re grumbling against – would you pray for me now, please? Yeah. Out of great love did Moses pray for the people, and God sent this sign that Jesus ties into himself.
Now think about this sign of all the things that God could have done to have healed these people in the wilderness with the poison coursing through their veins. He could have done something as miraculous as all of a sudden having Moses wave his staff and everybody’s healed. Could he not have? Would that not have been in line with what God had done with Moses and the staff in prior? And throughout his wilderness journey? Yes, it would have been right in line with it. He chose not to.
God chooses to put before the face of every one of those people the very symbol of their sin. He chooses to put before their face the very symbol of their sin because the serpent was a symbol of their sin. And the poison that the serpent gave them is a symbol of sin in every facet of their cells throughout their entire body. So not only did they see the symbol of their sin, they experienced the symbol of their sin and the poison of the serpent within themselves. Suffering.
That’s like taking a child who’s just been ravaged by a dog and saying, “Here, look at this little puppy, and you will be healed of your bite wounds.” The very thing that scared the bejeebers out of that little boy or little girl now is being used to bring healing? That’s exactly the utter queerness of God using the serpent as the symbol. And yet, I’m not the one who’s making this connection. This is Jesus telling you this connection in this morning’s Gospel reading.
God chooses to use an earthly object, and of all the objects that He could have used, He wants to use the very symbol of their sinfulness, that serpent. Then He ties something to it, His oral promise: whoever looks to it and believes shall be healed. If you grew up in a Sunday school, and this was taught to you in Sunday school, you probably saw the little CPH poster that had the serpent on the pole, had everybody looking at it. And in that same CPH poster was a woman holding up her baby to look at it as well. Maybe you don’t remember it. That’s okay. Point being, that means you’ve got too many gray hairs.
Point being is that everyone who looked at it and believed were saved. Now, when Moses told this to the people, did everybody go, “Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense, Moses. Oh, look at that bronze serpent”? There were many people whose graves they had to dig and died because they didn’t believe the promise. There were many graves that they had to dig and bury the people who did not look at that serpent, believing, and died. Just like there are many people who do not look at this serpent.
Now, why would I call my Lord Jesus a serpent? Because He called Himself a serpent. Just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so the Son of Man may be lifted up. Here’s the connection. If the serpent in the wilderness was a symbol of the people’s sins, and if the serpent in the wilderness was a symbol of their grumbling and the punishment that came through their grumbling, why would we not call Jesus the serpent? Because that’s what sin and punishment looks like.
There’s what sin looks like. Ravaging the very sinless Son of God. He took the full bite of the serpent Satan. He swallowed all of the poison of the serpent Satan, becoming sin on the cross, that you would never be bit eternally. That you would be healed of having been bit by nature. That you have been just like the people in Israel. This is an amazing thing that God has done.
You know and have heard the Scriptures talk about cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Then we’re looking at the cursed one, aren’t we? If we’re looking at the cursed one, then that’s why he could make the comparison between himself as the cursed one and the serpent on the pole, the cursed one in the story of the Old Testament. And just as the cursed serpent on the pole brought life to the people in the wilderness, so the cursed serpent on the cross brings life to you.
This is not my comparison. This is God’s. The problem? There are a lot of cemetery plots that are filled with the bones of people who looked at this and said, “This is cockamamie.” And they die with the poison in their veins and end up in hell. Just like the people of the Old Testament who listened to what Moses said, heard the message to look upon the serpent on the pole and believe you will be saved, and said, “Nah, can’t be true.”
And in the same way, the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of the people who were bit looked upon the serpent and lived? No. You better believe that story was told to their children and to their grandchildren so that they would not die with that same bite that has infected us all. So that we would look upon the cursed serpent, cursed for us, bitten for us, dying for us, and giving us life from that very cross.
I’ve been corrected, unfortunately, by a Lutheran: “Why are you wearing a cross with Jesus on it? Jesus has already died and rose again. You don’t need to wear a cross with Jesus on it.” John 3.15 is why we wear crosses with Jesus on it. That’s why there’s a cross in front of your church. That’s why there’s a crucifixion scene upper left-hand corner in your church. That’s why Paul said we preach Christ crucified and risen for you. Because Jesus said, “Anyone who looks at me, who has been lifted up, believing, shall have life in me, the one who has been crucified for thee.”
So just as those Israelites were healed, so you have been healed, and we will not stop preaching the crucified serpent for us. We will not stop proclaiming and sharing with the rest of the world this queer and unorthodox way that God brings salvation to the world. So next time you love to quote John 3.16 in your head, never forget 15. It’s what gives 16 its deep, profound meaning.
And so it doesn’t end up just being sweet little sayings, but there’s sweetness in the death of Christ for you. Sweetness in the one lifted up for you. And sweetness in the life that you have eaten and drank.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
