Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for March 11, 2018

Moses and the Brazen Serpent (1640). Oil painting on oak panel by Adriaen van Nieulandt the younger (c,1586–1658). Dayton Art Institute. (Click image to enlarge.)

Our Sunday readings begin with the strange account of poisonous snakes sent by God to punish an ungrateful people, and the bronze serpent that God directs Moses to create to heal the deadly snakebites. We may be tempted to laugh off this ancient legend, but note that the metaphor, and its teaching, continues through the day’s readings, concluding in John’s Gospel where it sets the context for the famous words of Jesus in John 3:16! This makes the serpent story a little more difficult to ignore. Here’s one way to view it: When you think you’re surrounded by snakes, look up. Remember that God is with us.

Psalm: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

The message that we hear in Sunday’s Psalm offers soothing balm after the shock of venomous snakes and bronze serpents in the first reading. Now we are invited to repent, to turn, to give thanks for God’s mercy with shouts of joy. Even when we are foolish, when we rebel, when we sin, when we are afraid, as soon as we cry out for God, God will respond to us as beloved children, granting us healing and salvation.

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

This letter, likely written to the people of Ephesus and other communities by a later Christian leader writing in Paul’s name, does not actually invoke deadly serpents, but it imagines something just about as frightening and potentially deadly: A shadowy spirit, a “ruler of the power of the air,” stands ready to lure in those who prefer passion and the flesh to a saving life in Christ. Like those healed by gazing at Moses’ bronze serpent, those who follow Christ are saved by God’s mercy and raised up by the gift of grace through Jesus. We are saved by grace only, not by anything that we do to try to earn salvation.

Gospel: John 3:14-21

“… 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.” For many Christians, this week’s lessons could start and finish right there. But wait! Did Jesus just begin by comparing himself to Moses’ bronze serpent? This passage is part of Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, who came to visit him by night. Surely Jesus is teaching from the Torah, with which they are both intimately familiar; Numbers is his text. We cannot yank John 3:16 out of its context without reading the verses that precede, and those that follow and make clear that we all have power to choose between darkness and the light. Just as God provided the Israelites a way to repent and be healed, so God offers us healing grace through Jesus.