Peace be with you.
Friends, we come now to the Fourth Sunday of Lent,
and I mentioned before, the readings are
so rich for Lent, they always are.
And we’re meant to have kind of a heightened attention
as we attend to these.
And the reading for today, the Gospel,
is one of the most famous texts in the Bible.
In fact, less so now.
But when I was coming of age, you saw it all the time at
sporting events and all that.
People would hold up a sign
saying “John 3:16.”
And the reference is to a line from the Gospel today
—namely, “For God so loved the world,
he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him
might not perish but might have eternal life.”
Now, you see why people have held that up,
because in many ways, it’s the Gospel in miniature.
If someone were to ask,
“Well, what’s Christianity all about?”
and you had one verse from the New Testament,
that’s not a bad candidate to point to.
“God so loved the world, he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.”
Okay, I’m going to get there,
but I want to attend to what’s right before it
because I think, in many ways,
we can isolate that phrase too much
and we miss the real import of it
because we don’t attend to what happens right before.
It’s the famous speech to Nicodemus, by the way,
this elder of Israel, this teacher of Israel
who comes to Jesus at night so he wouldn’t be detected.
He’s fascinated by this rabbi
who’s been performing miracles and preaching
in this extraordinary way,
and he comes with these searching questions.
So this conversation is of enormous importance
for Christian theology and spirituality.
But here’s how the Gospel for today opens.
It’s the verses right before
the famous John 3:16.
Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so the Son of Man must be lifted up
so that everyone who believes in him
may have eternal life.”
Now, the reference, which nobody in the first century
would’ve missed if they knew the Hebrew Scriptures,
the reference is to the Old Testament scene:
the Israelites are making their way from
slavery to the Promised Land that at one point
they’re being bitten by seraph serpents
—just means fiery serpents,
so probably some kind of poisonous snake—
biting the people, killing many, making many sick.
They come to Moses complaining,
“What are we to do?”
And so Moses goes to the Lord and he says,
“Look, I want you to make an image of the seraph serpent.
I want you to mount it on a pole.”
So think of this maybe bronze sculpture mounted on a pole.
“And I want you to hold that up,
and all those who look at this image of the
serpent will be cured.”
So it happens, and you say,
“Well, okay, that’s a peculiar story.”
The people are sick from being bitten.
Why in the world would holding up an image
of the snake that harmed them, why would that cure them?
Well, I think in many ways that story is way ahead of its time,
that story is way ahead of the curve,
because we, now, who’ve inherited the wisdom some of the
founders of psychology,
we understand this dynamic very well.
If someone is suffering because of a fear,
they’ve been bitten by a seraph serpent.
There’s something in their experience that frightens them,
it’s hurt them.
They cry out to God,
“Save me from this.”
What does the Lord say?
“Don’t run from what frightens you;
rather, look at it.
Look at it, and you’ll be cured.
Look at it and your fear will be conquered.”
Now, I don’t mean this in some kind of automatic way,
but you know, psychologically.
You’re afraid of public speaking.
Well, don’t run away from it.
No, no.
Get up there and accept invitations to speak publicly.
Look your fear in the face.
You’re afraid of going out and meeting people.
Well, don’t stay at home cowering in fear.
No, no.
Accept invitations.
Go out.
Meet your fear.
You’re afraid of failure.
Well, I know you can spend the rest of your life
stuck in your room or you can go out and try again.
You fall off the horse, you get up on it again.
So we know that both in terms of folk wisdom
and psychological reflection.
Same dynamic here, it seems to me.
What has bitten you in life?
What’s wounded you, poisoned you?
Look at it and you’ll be cured.
There’s something in the Buddhist tradition I’ve always liked.
There’s a little adage that says,
“Invite your fears in for tea.”
It’s a comical image, but you see the idea is
your fear of failure, your fear of sickness,
your fear of dying,
your fear of losing your friends.
You could become so identified with those fears
that they define you.
When you invite them in for tea,
“Well, okay, there’s my fear of death,
there’s my fear of failure.
Welcome.
Here’s a cup of tea for you.”
What you’ve done is you’ve
effectively distantiated yourself from your fear.
You’ve disidentified yourself from your fear,
and you look at them,
you entertain them.
You invite them in for tea.
Something similar here.
Now, this is the scene, everybody.
It’s so important.
This is the scene to which Jesus draws Nicodemus’ attention.
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so the Son of Man must be lifted up
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Now, what’s the lifting up of the Son of God?
The cross.
When Jesus is lifted up from the earth
and displayed on his cross.
You look at the seraph serpent,
you are cured.
You believe in the Son of Man lifted up on the cross
and you’ll find eternal life.
Can I suggest, everybody,
the same dynamic obtains here.
What do you see on the cross of Jesus?
Absolutely everything that frightens you.
Think of the course of your human life.
What are you afraid of?
Well, how about cruelty?
How about deep institutional injustice
that you become a victim of?
How about the denial of your friends,
people you thought were in your inner circle
and they deny they even know you?
In fact, in your moment of greatest need,
they say, “I don’t even know that guy.
I got nothing to do with him.”
How about betrayal by someone in your inner circle,
someone that you trusted, a dear friend
who then turns on you and harms you?
You see that in the cross of Jesus, don’t you?
Violence, I mean awful violence.
Think of the process of crucifixion,
all that that involved.
Horrific violence.
Physical suffering.
Look, every one of us, every one of us,
of course, we’re afraid of physical pain.
Well, a crucifixion, literally “excruciating” pain,
the worst kind of pain.
The Romans who mastered the art of this
horrible form of execution.
There’s Jesus at the limit of physical suffering.
How about psychological pain?
Being abandoned, to be alone.
The heartbreak that Jesus must have felt on the cross
as everyone ran from him.
And then humiliation.
How contemporary it begins to sound.
Today, with social media, false accusation,
and then that false accusation multiplied everywhere,
all over the world through social media,
where you’re publicly humiliated.
Well, Jesus felt that on the cross.
As there he was exposed, naked on the cross,
a sign mocking him over his head,
people spitting at him as they go by,
public humiliation.
And then the last step,
it’s almost too awful to state,
but when Jesus says on the cross,
“God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
is that deep spiritual suffering,
that sense of being abandoned,
yes, even by God.
Now, you see the point, everybody.
When the Son of Man is lifted up,
he’s just like the seraph serpent in the desert.
Why?
Because those are all the things,
that I just named, those are all the things that
bite us and poison us and harm us.
All the things that we’re afraid of.
What don’t you do?
You don’t run and hide from them.
You don’t cower in fear because of them.
Rather, you look at them.
When the Son of Man is lifted up,
he’ll give eternal life to all those who believe in him.
See, what are you seeing on that cross?
Yes, all the suffering and fear that bedevils us.
At the same time, and here’s the heart of the Gospel,
at the same time, you see the God who accompanies us
in and through all of it.
What can separate us from the love of God?
“Nothing,” St.Paul says,
“Neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities,
neither height nor death, nor any other creature
could separate us from the love of God.”
Why?
Because Paul saw the Son of Man lifted up,
looking at everything that poisons us,
but seeing the God who accompanies us
in and through and despite all of it,
the God who thereby
effectively disempowers all of it.
Okay.
That’s all that comes before the famous John 3:16.
So with all that in mind, listen again.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
See, gave him how?
Gave him in what sense?
He gave him into our suffering.
“Go all the way down,”
the Father says to the Son.
“Go all the way down.
Go into everything that frightens them
—everything—
and show that the divine love accompanies us
even as we look at all of these fearsome things.”
See, and that’s why in that cross, everybody,
we find salvation
—“salus” in Latin just means health—
salvation means healing.
How do you get healed of your psychological fears?
You’ve got to look at them.
You’ve got to face them.
How do you get healed
of everything in the spiritual order that frightens us?
Look at the Son of Man,
who’s like the seraph serpent in the desert.
Look at the Son of Man, listen,
bearing all of the sin and suffering of the world.
And in that act, we find our fear conquered.
We know nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Friends, with that image now let’s move,
as we’re getting very close now to Holy Week,
let’s move into this contemplation
of the Passion and death of Jesus.
And God bless you.