Lifted Up Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21 You know this story, I expect. A man named Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. Nicodemus is not just anybody. He is a prominent person. He is a powerful person. He is an inquiring, intellectual sort of person. Maybe that s why he comes to Jesus in the dark of night. Maybe he doesn t want anybody to see him with Jesus. He is referred to by Jesus as a teacher of Israel, and sometimes people who teach don t like to admit that there is anything they can be taught! But let us look at Nicodemus more positively. He comes to Jesus at night, out of the dark. Jesus has been introduced to us in John s Gospel as light, light of the world, light coming into our darkness. Throughout his account, Jesus is encountered by people like Nicodemus who look at Jesus but have trouble seeing him for who he really is the light of God coming into the world. Yet for those who dare to look upon him as the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus will draw them to himself in the magnetic field of his love, even as he has drawn Nicodemus out of the night and into this enlightening conversation. Some will remain in the shadows Jesus says in (3:19). But Nicodemus comes to Jesus to be enlightened. He engages Jesus in conversation. He asks Jesus repeatedly, How can this be? Nicodemus seems to want Jesus to explain himself. In the course of this report of their nocturnal conversation comes that great statement of faith, For 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 (3:16). But, what does that mean? Today we see it held up on signs at sporting events, tossed out as the answer to all of life s problems, or held over our heads as the only way to find true peace. Like Nicodemus we cry: How can this be? How can this enigmatic, wandering, homeless Rabbi be God s 1
answer to what s wrong with humanity? How can this be? If Nicodemus was seeking some straightforward, simple explanation, he is disappointed. Jesus responds to him by alluding to a strange event back in the book of Numbers as the Israelites were making their exodus out of Egyptian slavery, through the desert to the promised land. The people complain about the actions of God and of Moses. Even though God and Moses have brought them out of Egyptian slavery, they are now wandering in the wilderness and they don t like it. They pour out numerous complaints about God, as if God has not delivered them and saved them from the Egyptians. In punishment, Numbers 21 says, God sent poisonous serpents who slew many of the people. The people let out lamentation again and in response, God tells Moses to construct a bronze serpent, put it on the top of a pole, and let the people gaze upon it. And when they do, they are healed of the poisonous snake bites and saved from the serpents. Jesus tells Nicodemus that just as the people of Israel were saved by gazing upon that bronze serpent, so Israel and the whole world will be saved. Even as the bronze serpent was lifted up in the wilderness to save the Israelites, so the Son of Man will be lifted up. And you know how, in just a couple of weeks, Jesus will be lifted up. He shall rise, but not in glory, rather on a humiliating, gory cross. Jesus does not give Nicodemus an explanation. He does not offer a clear definition of who he is as the Messiah or how he shall save the old world as Saviour. Rather, he offers a strange, mysterious image, an image that links us back to the history of the salvation or liberation of Israel. What happened out there in the wilderness as the people gazed upon the serpent is something that is beyond explanation. And so is the cross of Christ. Poisonous serpents, a strange snake on the pole that heals, a crucified Saviour of the world. 2
I m sorry, if you have come here this morning seeking straightforward answers, simple explanations, or clear explication of the mystery that is the Christian faith, I don t think you get it from the Gospel of John, and I don t think you will can get it in the sermon! Sometimes contemporary preaching sees itself as simplifying the complexities of scripture, boiling everything down to three points delivered on a screen or a snappy slogan that can be printed on a bumper sticker. It is as if John s Gospel believes that the truth which is Jesus Christ cannot be boiled down to a few principles, a couple of abstractions, or three points on the screen. This truth is wonderfully rich, mysterious, and incomprehensible, for it is a truth about a God whose love for us is rich, mysterious, and incomprehensible. So what you might get is a vision, a glimpse into the heart of God, a peek at God s intentions for us and our world. It seems to me that here, Jesus says, we are not to attempt to analyze, define, and explain him and his saving work. We are to do what the Israelites did with that bronze serpent in the wilderness. We are to look upon him. We are to gaze at this mystery and allow it to have its way upon us. In a classic, creative sermon, Fred Craddock made a Pauline doxology into a personality named Doxology. He then artistically depicted a day with Doxology, thus showing that there is some truth (perhaps like the truth of the cross of Christ) that just can t be conveyed without symbol, metaphor, and art: I was leading a group of students in a study of Paul s letter to the Romans. The class soon discovered, however, that in this weightiest and most influential of all Paul s letters, the argument was often interrupted by Doxology After a very lengthy treatment of the tragic situation concerning the Jews from whom came the Christ but who had not believed in him, Paul breaks off his argument suddenly and begins to sing: O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How 3
unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Time and time again Paul breaks the line of thought with a doxological reservation Is there ever a time or place when it is inappropriate to say, For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen? It was from the class on Romans that I was called to the phone. My oldest brother had just died. Heart attack. When stunned and hurt, get real busy to avoid thought. Call the wife. Get the kids out of school. Arrange for a colleague to take my classes. Cancel a speaking engagement. And, oh yes, stop the milk, the paper, the mail; have someone feed the dog I think I packed the clothes we need, the wife said as we threw luggage and our bodies into the car. All night we drove, across two states, eyes pasted open against the windshield. Conversation was spasmodic, consisting of taking turns asking the same questions over and over. No one pretended to have answers. When we drew near the town and the house, I searched my mind for a word, a first word to the widow. He was my brother, but he was her husband. I was still searching when we pulled into the driveway. She came out to meet us and as I opened the car door, still without that word, she broke the silence: I hope you brought Doxology. Doxology? No, I had not. I had not even thought of Doxology since the phone call. But the truth is now clear: if we ever lose our Doxology we might as well be dead. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Fred B. Craddock, Doxology, in As One without Authority 4
In today s scripture you are not asked to do anything heroic for God. Rather, you are simply asked to behold what God has done, is doing, and will do for you in the cross of Christ. You are not asked boldly to step up and testify to what you have decided for or against Christ. You are simply asked to look up and see the crucified Christ with his arms outstretched toward you and allow him to embrace you. Some Sundays, particularly in the season of Lent, you are enjoined toward self-examination. This Sunday, in overhearing this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, we are urged to look at Christ. We are not to understand him, but rather to behold him, to adore him, and to allow him to draw us into the scope of his salvation. As I said at the beginning, I think you know this story. Maybe you know this story because it is a story you are living out in your own life right now. Into whatever darkness you dwell, light has dawned. The Son of God has been lifted up before you, lifted up on a cross. There you see hanging in mortal agony the best person who has ever lived. How could one like him end up on a horrible cross? How could his cross be the solution to the problems between us and God? Such questions are beyond explanation. Perhaps we are not to attempt to explain the use of mysterious images of our salvation. Rather, we are to look upon the cross, to allow this searing image to have its way with us, to penetrate deep into our souls, and thereby to be drawn to Christ, drawn near to God, that we should not perish but have eternal life. You know this story. Thanks be to God. Amen. 5