Second Sunday in Lent

Second Sunday in Lent (A)

March 5, 2023

Text: John 3:1-17

            “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” (John 3:14-15; ESV). 

            Delivered from Egyptian slavery, brought out in exodus with the plunder of their enemies, rescued by Baptism in the Red Sea, manna in the wilderness every morning, quail every evening, water from the rock, God’s chosen people, the children of Israel, receiving from Him, grace upon grace.  Yet “the people became impatient on the way.  And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food’” (Num. 21: 3-5).  Of course, their complaint betrays the lie.  The LORD has delivered them, but they accuse Him of killing them.  The LORD is miraculously feeding them, but they don’t want the food He gives.  The LORD gives them water from the rock, but they have NO water, they say.  Ungrateful.  And more to the point, unbelieving.  God has done all of this, but it isn’t good enough.  God has done all of this, but He surely won’t continue doing it.  God has done all this, but it was better before He did all this, and we’d rather He’d never done it. 

            Enter the serpents.  Sent by God, but they remind us of the chief antagonist in our Old Testament and Gospel last week, don’t they?  Serpents.  Who bite the people so that they die in a fit of agony.  That’s where you are apart from the LORD’s deliverance and merciful presence.  In the fiery fits of death, resulting from Satan’s mortal bite. 

            But there is a solution.  “‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’  So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole.  And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (vv. 8-9).  The image of that which causes death was raised up before the eyes of the people to be the life-giving cure.  Incidentally, this is why on ambulances and emergency medical vehicles you often see a logo, the Star of Life, with a serpent on a pole.  Don’t tell the secularists that’s from the Bible.

            When our Lord converses with His nighttime visitor, Nicodemus, about salvation and the Kingdom of God, the Savior connects the dots for us between this episode from ancient Israel and His own saving work for us by His death on the cross.  The serpent on the pole is a type of Jesus on the cross, a foreshadowing, a prophecy in action… “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”   

            Now, this is a recurring theme in John’s Gospel, the idea of the Son of Man being “lifted up.”  In Chapter 8, Jesus says to the Jews, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he”… that “I AM”… “and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me” (v. 28).  In Chapter 12, Jesus says to the crowd, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (v. 32).  John tells us, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (v. 33).  In each case, the lifting up of the Son of Man refers to Jesus’ crucifixion.  Remember?  Jesus “went out, bearing his own cross, to the place call The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.  There they crucified him” (John 19:17-18), that is, they nailed His hands and feet to the wood, and lifted Him up high into the air for all to see this naked, torn, bruised and bloody corpse of a dying Man.

            Now, we may say, the serpent on the pole was, indeed, the image of that which caused death to the Israelites, the snakes that were biting them.  And it is, indeed, the image of that which causes death to all humanity, the serpent in the Garden, Satan, who bit us with temptation, prompting our fall into sin.  But surely this is where the image breaks down.  How is Jesus, lifted up on the cross, the image of that which causes our death?  After all, He is the sinless Son of God.  That is true.  But here, on the cross, in His body, He bears the sin of the whole world.  Your sin.  My sin.  The sin of the Israelites, and Nicodemus, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Chief Priests, the Roman soldiers.  “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  When we look at Jesus, lifted up on the cross, we see the Sinless One who became THE Sinner, not by His own sin, but by taking on ours, making atonement for our sins, and redeeming us for Himself, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and by His innocent suffering and death. 

            He is the cure for death.  Because He is the cure for sin.  “For God so loved the world,” loved it in this manner, “that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him,” whoever looks at God’s Son lifted up on the cross, knowing that the Son is lifted up precisely for the sinner’s healing and salvation, “should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  God loved, and so He gave His Son.  Salvation by grace alone.  Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have life.  Salvation by faith alone.  All in Christ alone. 

            Now, what of Nicodemus.  He is a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin.  Thus, he is representative of all Israel.  He comes to Jesus in the dark of night.  Because he is afraid, undoubtedly, of being seen with Jesus, and so harming his reputation, and perhaps provoking ridicule and rebuke from his fellow Jewish leaders.  But the point is, he’s in the dark, as is all Israel, and all humanity. 

            Now, Jesus wants to turn on the lights for Nicodemus, and for all Israel, and for all humanity.  He teaches Nicodemus about Holy Baptism and entrance into the Kingdom.  As Israel was baptized in the Sea, and so became God’s Covenant people and royal priests at Sinai (followed, incidentally, by a royal meal in God’s presence), so one must be born from above, of water and the Spirit, to enter the Kingdom of God.  Frankly, the light confuses Nicodemus.  He is the teacher of Israel, but in the darkness of his mind and heart, he cannot understand these things.  Paul says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).  But Jesus gives Nicodemus a sign to look for.  Watch for the Son of Man being lifted up.  As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

            And that’s just what Nicodemus saw.  The lights were coming on for him, gradually.  He saw the unjust plotting of the Chief Priests and Pharisees to lay hands on Jesus and arrest Him.  “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” Nicodemus asked the Jewish council (John 7:51).  And here he got a little taste of the cross for himself: “Are you from Galilee too?” they retorted (v. 52).  Then, where do we find him next?  With Joseph of Arimathea, taking the body of the crucified Jesus down from the cross on which He’d been lifted up, anointing the body with myrrh and aloes, and binding Him with linen strips, to bury Him in Joseph’s new Garden tomb (John 19:38-42).  Nicodemus not only saw the Son of Man lifted up like the serpent on the pole.  He embraced Him, and carried Him, the blood of Jesus oozing all over him.  And Nicodemus loved Him.  Look what he does for Him.  No longer worried about reputation or Pharisaical censure, he lovingly tends the body broken and lifted up for him.  And for Nicodemus, and for us all, the lights would be turned on fully in three short days, when the Son of Man, once lifted up on the cross, is lifted up forever from His grave.

            To be for us the cure for Satan’s bite, the cure for death, the cure for sin.  To be for us, Righteousness, Life, and Salvation.

            Now we are born from above, of water and the Spirit, in Holy Baptism.  The Lord has delivered us from our bondage to sin, death, and the devil, and brought us out in exodus through the waters, red with Jesus’ blood.  He feeds us manna in the wilderness, and gives us to drink from the Rock that is Christ.  We are His chosen people, His children, and we all receive from Him grace upon grace.  Our praise proclaims the truth.  God has done all this, and it is eternally good.  God has done all this, and He will continue doing it, our whole life long, until the end of the age.  God has done all this, and we should never look back.  Instead, let us give thanks, and eat and drink in His presence.  For we are His people, His blood-bought children.  And as for the serpent?  His head is crushed (Gen. 3:15).  Just look at the spike piercing Jesus’ heal.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.