Lent 4 03/26/06 Text: John 3:14-21 Title: Snake-bitten

Lent 4
03/26/06
Text: John 3:14-21
Title: Snake bitten

Please join me in prayer. Lord, we have gathered here today in your holy house to hear your words and to partake of your body and blood. You know how easily Satan can get us to focus on things other than your life-giving Word. We pray that you help us to stay focused on your words, so that we might be drawn ever closer to you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen
Our Old Testament reading for today has a lot to say about snakes. Now snakes are not your average lovable creature. As a general rule they inspire fear and that is why our Old Testament reading for today is, how can I say it? It is just strange, especially the part about looking to an image of a bronze snake to be healed.
As we read earlier we see that God is punishing the Israelites, for rebelling against him, by sending venomous snakes into their midst. As the snakes strike and the people start dying, they cry out to Moses to intercede for them, for they realize that he is their only hope, a natural expectation since God and Moses talked to each other on a regular basis.
Moses does intercede for them. God forgives them and then, here is the strange part. God tells Moses to form a bronze image of the same type of serpent that was biting the people, put it on a pole, and lift it up so that the people could see it. Those that looked upon it would be healed. I don’t know about you but that looks an awful like idol worship. It is a strange story indeed.
The Old Testament story reading for today takes place in the desert . The Israelites are there because of their lack of faith when they were at the edge of the Promised Land. They did not trust God to protect them and so they were condemned to wander in the desert for 40 years. The snakes are biting them because they are complaining of the lack of water and that they were tired of eating the same food, the food that God personally gave them fresh each morning.
Martin Luther writes that where the Israelites were there is a snake that is called an asp. When that particular snake bites a person, they swell up, they get a fever, one so high that their skin actually turns fiery red. They are quickly beyond help unless the part of the body that was bitten is amputated as soon as the serpent strikes. If that is not done the fever penetrates the whole body, and death is inevitable.
To save the people, Moses, as I mentioned earlier, was directed by God to make a form of the serpent out of bronze. In the Hebrew it is called a seraph. The word means a house which is aflame. It is the same word that is used in Isaiah 6:2 to describe the creatures having six wings that were praising God and then touched a life coal to Isaiah’s lips, symbolizing the start of his ministry.
Put yourself in the sandals of the people that had been bitten by the snake. You are going to die and then Moses lifts up the image of the same snake that bit you and tells you that if you just look at it you will not die.
What would you do? Why you would look at the image of course. That is, you would look at it, if you had faith in what Moses told you. It is indeed a strange remedy, but you have to do what you got to do when you are dying. When you think about it, it really isn’t that strange, for even today most people that are dying will grasp at anything they think will cure them and save their life.
Now they could have said, and I am sure some did say, “Ha, what a ridiculous thing it is to look upon an image of what is killing me. Moses, have you lost your senses? How are we to be helped by looking at this bronze serpent, which looks like those that bit us? We are so terrified that we cannot stand the sight of them! If only you would, instead, give us a cooling drink, salve for my skin, something to take away the venom and the fever! What good can mere words and looking up at a bronze serpent do? How can that dead and lifeless object up there benefit us?”
I am sure that there were many who refused to have faith in Moses and died in their unbelief. In fact I would say that only those that had faith in what Moses had said looked up at the serpent that day. The others very likely turned away from it, saying: “Who do you take me for, a fool? How could it help?” And they died, not only a bodily death, but an eternal death separated from God, all because of their lack of faith.
The bronze serpent did not cure anyone. It was the faith of those that believed in what God had told Moses that cured them, for without that faith they would not have looked up at the form of the serpent that God said would heal them. In all likelihood those that had faith in the promise of Moses probably said, “Moses is a servant of God. God commanded him to do this; therefore it must be as he said it is to be.”
It is a great story, full of drama, but I have to admit that until I started preparing for this sermon I can’t really say that I fully understood the connection when Jesus said, “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.”
I understood that the event was a foreshadowing of Jesus and his death, but why a snake? That part has always confused me. Martin Luther did a paraphrase of the text that helped me to understand the connection. I want to share it with you this morning. He writes as if Jesus is speaking, “This is the bronze snake; I, however, am the Son of man. Those people were asked to look at the snake physically, but you must look at me spiritually and in faith. Those people were cured of bodily poisoning; but you, through me, will be delivered from eternal poison. They recovered from a physical ailment, but you will have eternal life because you believe in me.”
You see Jesus was using that Old Testament event to show that it was in fact a foreshadowing of his crucifixion, and in doing so he is telling us the proper way to interpret not only Moses, but all the prophets. He is teaching us that all the Old Testament and the New Testament stories and illustrations point towards him.
They point to him because you see, Jesus is the center of the Holy Scriptures. It might help to understand the concept if you would picture a circle with Jesus as the center, with line of the circle going around him, representing the Old and later the New Testament writers all focusing on him. If you have never thought of the scriptures in that manner it is a good way to picture them, for it shows that for us to say we have interpreted the scriptures rightly our eyes have to have been focused strictly on him, the center of all things.
That is why it is so important to read, in fact I would say it is critical to have a good understanding of all the scriptures, but particularly verses 16 and 17 of our Gospel reading. These verses are so important that I would like you to repeat them after me. Just echo the words I say. Are you ready?
"For God so loved the world" (people respond)
"that he gave his only Son" (people respond)
"so that everyone who believes in him" (people respond)
"may not perish" (people respond)
"but may have eternal life" (people respond)
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world” (people respond),
“but to save the world through him.” (People respond)
We love those verses, because it tells us that God loves us. It is a Good News verse -- a REALLY Good News verse. But we are tempted to ignore what comes next, because the next verse isn't so warm and fuzzy. It isn’t Good News. Please repeat after me.
"Those who believe in him are not condemned.” (people respond)
“but those who do not believe are condemned already.” (people respond)
“because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (people respond)
That verse, especially the last half of the verse, clearly tells us that if a person does not believe in Jesus as their Savior, they are going to hell. We are loath to tell others that mainly because society tells us that we can’t make that kind of judgment, and so we refuse to tell them of the antidote to the poison that is killing them.
I wonder though, could there be another reason, a reason we would not admit to. Could the reason be that somewhere in the deepest corner of our mind that we believe that God surely can’t condemn good people to hell and that he must have provided other ways for those that do not know of Jesus to be saved.
I hope that is not the problem, for I can’t imagine anyone that says they love someone letting them die of a poison when they have the antidote for it. I can’t imagine it, but it seems to be happening, and in all honesty we need to figure out what the problem is, so that we can change our ways.
We need to, for if we are truly followers of Jesus we are to do his will. We can you know, not on our own power, but with his help as he has promised us, have the courage or whatever it is that is stopping us, to tell others that their only hope is for them to look upon Jesus Christ. We must do that, otherwise all those who are snake-bitten by Satan and there are a lot of them, will die an eternal death. Amen

Lent midweek 4 Matthew 27:32 and Mark 15:21 Title: Simon of Cyrene: The Cross, Now Carried.

Lenten Midweek 4
Simon of Cyrene: The Cross, Now Carried
Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21

Grace, mercy, and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
A question that must be asked by everyone who hears of Jesus is, “Who is this man, this Jesus of Nazareth?” It is certainly not a new question, for we find people asking the question throughout the New Testament, but especially in the Gospels.
The question is asked by the Pharisees after Jesus teaches in the synagogue. The crowds asked the question after he performed numerous miracles. “Who is this?” the disciples asked after the wind and the waves obeyed his voice. “Who are you?” Pilate asked Jesus during his trial. “Are you a king? Where are you from?” and probably many more similiar questions that are not recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures.
There was one thing that lay behind all the hundreds of questions that were asked of Jesus during his ministry, a question that had to be answered. “Could this Jesus of Nazareth be the Messiah?”
Messianic expectations must have filled one such pilgrim, Simon of Cyrene who we are going to look at today. Cyrene was a city in Libya which was located in North Africa. Though on the African coast, Cyrene was a Greek city in which Jews had settled in large numbers.
The Law of Moses required Jews to offer the Passover at the place that the Lord chose and Jerusalem was that place. And since every Jew tried at least once in a lifetime to make that pilgrimage, Simon was in Jerusalem on such a pilgrimage. He was a Jew who came for the Passover. As I showed you last week when we talked about Pilate, nationalistic hopes ran high during the Passover. The idea of the coming Messiah and a united Jewish nation were closely related in Jewish thought. Jews hoped, prayed, waited, and longed for their Messiah to come, so that they could be at last free of foreign rule.
As a Jew, Simon of Cyrene was probably well acquainted with the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. Not all of the Jewish people believed the same thing about the promised Messiah. One group believed that their would eventually come a wise, and righteous descendant of David who would rule the people of God in such a way that peace, harmony, and plenty would abound.
Another group expected God himself to break into human history and set up the messianic age. The Jewish people would rule over all those people that had enslaved them through the years. It was certainly going to feel good to finally get revenge.
Another group combined the expectations of the first two and said that a divinely endowed Davidic Messiah would destroy Israel’s enemies and give Israel the blessings of the new age.
The last group expected the messianic King to be the suffering Servant of the Lord referred to by the prophet Isaiah in the Servant Songs. The question that remained unanswered by them was, “How could a king suffer for the nation?” It had to happen for it was foretold by the Prophet Isaiah. “The hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain; but Moab will be trampled under him as straw is trampled down in the manure. They will spread out their hands in it, as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim. God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness of their hands”. No one had put it all together yet, for it would only be in the light of Jesus’ actual death and resurrection that anyone can see all that was there.
No one knows what kind of expectations Simon of Cyrene brought with him to Jerusalem that day. But there is one thing that I know for sure and that was he didn’t expect to be carrying a cross of a condemned criminal. But it happened. There he was, confronted with a man condemned to death. After getting over the shock of being pressed into service he was probably asking himself, “Who was this man? What had this man done?”
As he carried that cross that day, I am sure he heard what the multitudes of people who followed Jesus were saying. And then there were those women who crying as they followed behind Jesus. “What was that all about?” He might have even heard Jesus’ words of judgment spoken to the women of Jerusalem.
You see by his being pressed into carrying the cross, Simon of Cyrene came into contact with the Word of God. The Person who is the Word, his spoken Word, and the words of the others gave witness to this condemned man. All of that told Simon that this man was Jesus of Nazareth.
What Simon knew before he came into contact with Jesus that fateful day, we don’t know for certain. We don’t know how long he stayed at the foot of the cross either. We don’t even know if he became a believer, but this much is clear: When Mark mentions Simon of Cyrene, he is identified to the Church as “the father of Alexander and Rufus”. Now that might not seem important, but Alexander and Rufus must have been believers well known to the Church, or else Mark wouldn’t have mentioned them. It is quite possible that Rufus is he one greeted by Paul in Romans 16 as a leader of the Roman congregation. We don’t know for sure but it appears that the mention of these two men tell us that faith was the outcome of Simon’s encounter with Jesus of Nazareth.
Though it’s not exactly spelled out for us, Simon’s carrying the cross pointed to what Jesus said, “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”.
You see, the cross is the answer to the question “Who is this man?” He is the fulfillment of the Suffering Servant spoken of by the prophet Isaiah 53, verse 3. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not”
That word “esteemed” in Greek means they didn’t recognize who he was or what he was doing, and we’ve seen how true that was. “Surely he has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows; yet we saw him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted”.
I want you to listen closely to the question I am going to ask, for it is an important question, one whose answer will answer the question of “Who is this man?” Was the crucifixion an accident and who smote the servant? According to Isaiah he was smitten by God!
The cross was no accident. It wasn’t just a sad miscarriage of justice. It was all part of God’s plan. The Father in heaven, not men, struck his Servant. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed”.
The whole thing here is one of exchange as we are told in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”. He takes all the punishment; we get all the benefits.
The cross and the man who was hanging on it, until he died, fulfilled the messianic expectations in the way only a Jew who knew God’s Word could see. Here was the Anointed One, the Messiah, set apart to be the substitute. Walking in the footprints of the Savior, Simon carries the cross and by doing so took part in the crucifixion, which the Holy Spirit had revealed seven hundred years earlier.
In a sense Jesus Christ’s footprints are scattered all over Scripture. That is if you’re looking for them. The crucifixion and Old Testament writings all came together and say, “Truly, this is the Son of God.”
Jesus’ crucifixion was not an accident, nor was it something that happened that coincidentally fit what the prophet had spoken. No, it happened because the Word of God made it happen. As it happened, people witnessed it and believed. Simon did what God had planned. His act, his sons, the cross and yes the resurrection all answer this question: “Who is this man, Jesus of Nazareth?”
But the Jewish people with all their expectations were not the only ones who asked that question for Jesus asked the same question others asked of him, “Who do you say that I am?” And those who had a false understanding of who he is answered out of spiritual blindness: “John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets”
Jesus asks the same question of us today when he asks each one of us, “Who do you say that I am?” Essentially the same question each one of us must ask ourselves, for until we have answered the question, “Who is this man, Jesus of Nazareth?” we won’t know that he is the Lamb of God, who carried our sins, who truly is the Son of God, our Savior from sin and our Lord of life. Amen.

Lent 3 3/19/06 Text: John 2:13-22 Title: Temple Cleaning

3rd Sunday in Lent
3/19/06
Text: John 2:13-22
Temple Cleaning

Please join me in prayer. Lord, we have gathered here today in your holy house to hear your words, and to partake of your body and blood. You know how easily Satan can get us to focus on other things than your life giving Word, so we pray that you help us to stay focused on your words, so that we might be drawn ever closer to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
It has been a busy week with all the visitors in town who came to see their loved ones gear up for their departure to Iraq and the surrounding area. At times it felt like you could almost cut the tension with a knife. Everyone was trying to put on their happy face, but there were deep concerns being voiced by many. The couple that stayed with us shared their concern for the safety of their son. It has been a tough week for them and I am sure thousands of others just like them.
War, just by its nature, is a terrible thing and as is the usual case in war both sides claim that God is on their side and thus the cause of justice and right are firmly in their favor. Questions abound as to the possibility of another terrorism attack and many are afraid, all because they just don’t know what will happen in the future.
The whole world seems to be coming apart at the seams. We see evidence of it every day in the lack of civility and basic respect for each other, and we wonder if civilization has finally reached the point where only those who are the strongest are in control. It seems like rules change every day and we shudder at what that might mean for us in the future.
And because of that we ask ourselves, “Does it really make any difference to pray? And all we can say is, “We think so.”
As life gets faster and crazier we begin to ask if it does any good to go through our liturgical service, sing songs, hear God’s Word, and take part in his Holy Sacrament? Good people still die. Hurricanes happen. Fires rage. Earthquakes destroy and war seems to be spreading around our world, so we begin to wonder if it really does any good to come together and worship God?
I am standing here as your pastor to tell you it does matter that we come together as God’s people every Sunday, and during Lent every Wednesday, to hear God’s word, for it is the only hope that we can count on. It is essential for us to gather together so that we can be reminded by God’s Word of his intentions for us and His world. That is right, I said His world, for after all he created it, he sustains it, and some day when he decides the time is right he will end it.
We need to hear his Word every Sunday so that we have the strength to live our lives and carry God’s message of hope out into a world that so desperately needs to hear it. The scripture that we read earlier today are written to help us remember that Jesus is our only basis for our hope. They help us to remember that even when evil seems to be in control, God is still sovereign. Our Bible readings every week are read and studied to remind us that our relationship with God is at the very center of our being. They lead each one of us to confess all the ways we have strayed from this all important relationship and provide a way back to God.
Our Old Testament reading today reminds us that we are to be careful that our supposedly good intentions and wisdom do not take over, for the pattern of sin, as it is recorded in the Old Testament, is as old as human nature itself. God created the world and said it was good, but before long, it wasn’t. We don’t know how long it took, but jealousy came into being and murder was quick to follow.
Humans quickly realized the advantage of having a common language so they quickly began to figure out how to build a tower to the heavens. The tower came tumbling down, people were scattered all over the earth and yet they still managed to sin so much that God destroyed all but Noah’s family in the flood.
Over and over again God gave his blessing to his people and their leaders and yet they continued to rebel against him as they thought God was something they could control by their sacrifices and prayers. Over and over again Israelis leaders said God was on their side and then abused their power.
Earlier we read what we refer to as the Ten Commandments. Too many times, in fact I would say most of the time, we think of them as being commandments that take away our freedom and pleasure. That is simply wrong thinking, for God gave us the commandments to not only see that we can’t meet God’s perfect standard, so we cling to the cross of Jesus, but to also help us lead God pleasing lives, lives of freedom and joy under his guidance.
Our second reading 1 Corinthians tells us to remember God’s wisdom and God’s strength. Listen again to God’s words to us in , “1 Corinthians 1:22-25 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.”
What Paul is saying is that God and his words as they are set in Holy Scriptures are true and wise. And because of that we are to be the voice of God’s intentions for the world and not be confused by what appears to be the voices of worldly power and wisdom.
Our Gospel text for this morning is about Jesus cleansing the temple. I can’t remember the amount of times that I have heard this text used to justify a person getting angry at someone when they think that they are doing something wrong in the church, that is something they don’t agree with. Quite often you will hear the person say, “Jesus got angry, so I can too.”
The Gospel text does not say that Jesus was angry, in fact I would I think that there was a much better chance that he was sad and maybe even weeping as he cleared the temple, for he knew that his chosen people had not only rejected him, but God the Father also.
I have even heard this text used to stop people of the congregation from selling merchandise, raffle tickets, having rummage sales, or doing any other kind of fund raiser on the church property.
That is not what the story is about. Jesus cleaned out the temple for one reason only, and that reason was to show the people that they were focusing their attention on other things than their relationship with God.
John wrote down these words to tell the people of Israel who had focused their entire history on the temple that they had forgotten that the temple was not about having a wonderful awe-inspiring building. It was about their relationship with God.
They were no different than many today who build magnificent temples or as we call them churches. But congregations can also build temples out of their denominations, worship services, hymns, and pastors, forgetting the true temple, Jesus Christ, who is to be the sole object of worship.
The weeks of Lent that we are now in are to be a time of temple cleansing for each one of us, as we are all temples of God as Saint Paul tells us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” It is a time for us to have a reality check to see if something or someone other than Jesus is our temple.
My fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, especially our soldiers that are worshiping with us this morning, don’t forget that your ultimate safety, your ultimate security, does not depend on earthly things but on God.
Remember that which seems to be wisdom is not wisdom if it does not come from God’s wisdom.
Remember that that which seems strong has no strength unless it comes from God’s strength.
Remember that anything that comes between God and you is idolatry, for God made a binding covenant with each of you in your baptism, a covenant that he will not break.
It is my prayer that when each of you here today, face whatever it is that you will face in the future that you will remember that Jesus is leading you through life. Remember in the coming weeks, months, and years ahead when fear threatens to rise up and swallow you, that Jesus Christ overcame fear, death, and Satan on the cross for you. That is Good News. Amen