Believing is Seeing

Texts: Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

They use to call Madonna "the Material Girl", I think.  I'm not sure why; not being a fan of hers I have never bothered to find out.  Perhaps some of you know.  But it's an odd title anyway because the same could be said about the entire human race.  We are "material boys and girls: we are materialist, not necessarily in the sense that we all desire worldly wealth, but in the sense that we need solid objects, we need physical proof to prop up our belief in something, including our religious beliefs.  We know in our heads that the God we worship is Immaterial – or Spirit, to use a more religiously correct term.  Yet throughout our faith history we have sought solid objects as symbols of God, which, all too often, have grown into idols to be worshipped instead of God.

The classic story about all this, of course, is the infamous golden calf, which Aaron (who should have known better) made for the Israelites when they grew tired of waiting for Moses to bring down a message from the God whom no one can ever see and live to tell the table.  They wanted a solid, material god, like the other nations had, whom they could see, and keep on a shelf, and bring off the shelf in times of danger.  And those of us who find we are most likely to pray at times of heightened drama are in no position to laugh at such practices.  We metaphorically keep God on a shelf sometimes until we really need him.

Today's first lesson is another story about needing a symbol of God's presence with us; and history tells us that this symbol of a snake on a stick was later turned into an idol worthy of worship.  If, like most of us, you like to spend wet afternoons reading your way through the Books of Kings, you will find this bronze snake in a very surprising place.  It seems that by the time of King Hezekiah, one of the great reforming kings of Judah, the snake on a stick was in the Temple.  Not for long, after Hezekiah spotted it.  In 2 Kings 18:4 we find this:  He [King Hezekiah] broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.) 

Can I pause there for a moment and ask this: isn't this classic religious practice?  We acquire something for a particular purpose at a particular time.  And when it has served its purpose we put it in our holy place and it becomes an object of reverence, to be defended at all costs.  Manual objects can be great aids to prayer and reflection.  Many people find candles, or crucifixes, or icons, or stained-glass windows, or organs, or something else helps them to focus on God in a special and deeper way; and all such things are valuable when used in that way.  But all too easily they become more than symbols, they become objects of worship.  And what is true of objects can be equally true of church buildings.  Look at the argument going on at present over the old Methodist church in Hillside.  The people of the faith community say the building no longer serves to facilitate the worship and service of God, so it must be knocked down.  Others say, but it is an object of historical significance, a thing of worth and significance in itself, and must be revered and retained.

But back to the snake on the stick.  In itself the story seems to make little if any sense.  The people are once again in a bad mood.  Just when they thought their wanderings in the desert would soon be over, they were forced on a large detour because the Edomites wouldn't give them transit rights.  So they once again began to grumble against Moses, and because Moses was simply carrying out God's orders, they were in reality grumbling against God, as they well knew.  No matter how many times God provided for them or rescued them from some plight, they never quite got to the point of putting their trust in him.  The next time anything went wrong, they lapsed into disbelief (or distrust).

And once again, in God's reaction to their lack of faith, we see, as it were, both sides of God's nature in action at the same time.  The author makes it clear that the venomous snakes that attacked the Israelites were sent by God.  They weren't there by accident or in the ordinary course of nature.  God put them there to punish the Israelites for their disobedience.  And this was no mild punishment: many of the Israelites died from the snakes' venom.  So there is the wrath of God, we might say God's dark side, the side of his nature that prompted him to plan to drown the whole world and start over.

And just as God relented and provided an escape route for Noah and his family in the ark, so now God provides a mechanism for those who are now willing to believe his word.  He tells them that the cure for a lethal dose of snake venom is to look at a bronze ornament Moses has made of a snake on a stick.  Just as daft in scientific terms as poor old Naaman the Syrian army commander being told that if he made a complete fool of himself dipping in the River Jordan seven times he would be cured of leprosy.  Yet he did (eventually) and he was!

And when we think about it, the same model of healing – or as we would say in this context, of salvation – is followed in our Christian faith, as we see spelt out for us in this morning's reading.  There is no scientific reason why turning to a man crucified on a cross should have any effect on anyone else at all, except, of course, to make us ill at the sight.  Yet this is what Jesus said, according to St John: "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."  And, of course, he goes on to spell out that this is the reason why he has come down from heaven to earth: to be the one who is lifted up on the stick so that everyone who turns and looks to him will be protected from the poison in their system and given life.

And while we are on this passage, I can never resist pointing out what Jesus doesn't say.  He doesn't that those who believe in him shall not burn in hell but have eternal life; he says whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  While I must concede that other passages in the Scriptures talk of eternal punishment in the fires of hell, in this passage at least Jesus tells us that the alternative to eternal life is extinction.  Those who refuse to believe have no life in them.  They are dead for all time (and presumably beyond time).

Subject always, of course, to the grace of God!  So I want to finish this morning with this wonderful passage from St Paul.  Who can resist him when he is in this sort of form!  Not content with assuring the believers at Ephesus that, having died with Christ in baptism, they have been raised up (resurrected) with him into new life, he now goes even further and tells them (and us!) that they and we have been raised up with Christ into the heavenly places!  I don't pretend to understand that – it's all too marvellous for my mind.

But I do believe it!  Each year, each Lent, I believe it a little bit more.  And each Easter I celebrate it a little bit more.  If people bitten by venomous snakes can be healed by looking at a bronze ornament, and if Army Commanders can be cured of leprosy by bobbing up and down in a river, we can truly say that all things are possible for those who believe the word of God.  Amen.