From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. (Numbers 21:4-9)

Jesus said: "Just 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.

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 everlasting life.

Indeed, God did njot send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. (John 3:14-21).

Two events this weekend have colored my interpretation of these important texts today. First, I was with our youth group on retreat this weekend in Pennsylvania, and they have as their theme: "Christian Community." The 20 youth and adult mentors have participated in some active projects, such as a high ropes adventure, to help them understand the importance of teamwork and community building. They have had discussions about those things that build community and those things that are destructive to community.

Second, a young man, who is as close to Erika and me as a son without actually being a son, was severely injured when he crossed Jericho Turnpike and was struck by a car. He had been drinking and probably walked into the road when/where he should not have. He was air-lifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, and has suffered a fractured skull, 2 fractured vertebra, and a badly injured leg, and is now in a medically induced coma.

Reflecting this weekend, I was reminded that we walk through life as if we are walking on tissue paper, and at any moment it might break, and we fall through. The uncertainty, the tenuous nature of life, became evident to me. I thought about priorities in life: Am I spending my time on those things that are important, or am I using my time on stuff that doesn’t really count?

These experiences inform my sermon this morning.

The Children of Israel had fled Egypt to the accompaniment of mighty signs and wonders and had come to the boarders of the Promised Land. Twelve spies were sent across the river into this lush and fertile land, but the reports with which the spies returned were not as promising as the land itself. The country across the Jordan was indeed rich and fecund, they said, but it was also filled with mighty warriors – giants almost in their size and strength. Ten of the scouts said there was no way the Children, a rag-tag band of exhausted migrants, could conquer, much less evict, such warriors.

But two the spies filed a different report. Joshua and Caleb said the Children must cross over and enter, for Yahweh, who had pledged them this land, would be their strength and the defender of their lives. Ten almost always takes precedence over two, however, and the Children of Israel, freshly come from the glory of the parting seas and a Passover angel, decided to follow the advice of the ten fearful scouts. They broke camp and returned the desert across which they had just come.

Yahweh was angry, furious, at this faithlessness and decreed that the Children of Israel were to wander for forty years in that desert they had chosen for themselves, until every single one of the Children, save only Joshua and Caleb, was dead. So they wandered and tested God, and one by one, they died, until indeed only their children survived.

It was those Children’s children, then, whom near to the end of the forty years, Moses, along with Joshua and Caleb, began to lead back toward the Promised Land. But like their progenitors, the men and women of this second generation began also to doubt and complain. They said things like, "Let’s go back to Egypt. At least there we were fed, had homes we could live in one place." They said, "Who of us has seen God? To which of us has he spoken? Who among us can say he or she believes the tales our fathers and mothers left us? Who?!"

And the wrath of Yahweh lashed out against them again. This time, the story says, Yahweh sent snakes into the camps to kill his apostate children...snakes in the tents, snakes in the breadbaskets and the cooking pots, snakes in the bedrolls and snakes in the cribs. Then Moses, falling on his knees, petitioned God’s mercy on the Children. God told Moses then to take a consecrated brass vessel at the door of the Tent of Meeting and hammer it quickly into the image of the serpents that were attacking the Children’s children. Moses did and he wound the brass snake around the cross piece of his staff and then he ran through the camp, holding the staff aloft and calling out to the people in the throes of their agony, "Look up! Look up and be saved! Look up! Look up and be saved!"

And the Bible says that those who believed Moses, those who stopped looking down at their snakes, who stopped trying to pull them off themselves and their children, but looked up instead at the brass snake...those men and women did not die, but they were saved. This does not mean that they were not bitten, but simply that those who looked up and not down did not die of their wounds. Eighteen months later, it was these men and women who saw the Jordan part before them and who walked across its dry bed to claim the land of milk and honey promised them by God.

It is a good story, in fact, a very impressive story. What the story recognizes is that all of us are going to be bitten – painfully bitten– in this life. Most of us learn that truth fairly quickly, just from experience. But, according to the story, it is not the being bitten that we in this imperfect world can do anything about; it is only the how we respond to being bitten that we can control. When we look up, we are saved by that very act of faith; it is when we look down and struggle with what is tormenting us that we most often empower it by the very attention we give it.

The favorite Bible verse of Christian scripture for 88% of the American public is, and always has been, John 3:16. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have eternal life."

Those are good words, but to Nicodemus, they were troubling. For John 3:16 is preceded by John 3:14 & 15, where Jesus said: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."

The minute Jesus said, "as Moses’ snake on a cross a plan to release people from death, so is my death on a cross a plan of salvation," the minute Jesus did that, he stepped into God’s mystery, beyond psychology, beyond human wisdom. Jesus took the First Testament and applied a new and scandalous mystery to it, a mystery into which Nicodemus at that time could not follow, a mystery of so great a creating love and so eternal, so daring, and so intricate a plan for us humans, that only grace can make it palpable and only faith can receive it.

When the snakes are biting at the feet, look up. Look up, and live.