Scripture Readings: Psalm 118:1–2, 19–29 | Mark 11:1–11

Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
 
It’s hard to believe that Palm Sunday is upon us once again. Through the last forty days of Lent, we’ve been on this journey together, preparing our hearts for the message of Holy Week, which we celebrate each year. This is my second Palm Sunday hear at St. Luke’s… and it’s also the second beginning of Holy Week that we’ve marked since the start of this pandemic. And while I hope to celebrate many more Palm Sunday’s together with you, I think we are all hoping that this is our last one with COVID-19 in the mix.
 
How many times over this past year have we said or thought: “I can’t wait ‘til this is over!”? I’m willing to guess, more than a few… hundred, that is. Despite all of the good things that we have to be thankful for, there’s a real longing for what we have lost: the sense of stability, security… what seems like at times our whole way of life. And so we look ahead for signs of hope: available vaccines, decreasing active case numbers, old routines resuming, stirring up anticipation that some change is on the way. And while there are lots of different ideas about how we should all be move forward … whether we want to get ‘Back to Normal’, or to ‘Build Back even Better’... one thing most of us agree on is that we don’t want this to go on much longer. We’d all like this pandemic to come to an end… and better yet, to end NOW!
 
This is all completely natural. A very normal response to some incredibly challenging times for our entire planet. But what if, in the midst of our anticipation, we’re also missing something important? What if our minds are so fixated on a certain kind of hope that we’re unable to notice an even greater reason to be excited?

Today, as I mentioned before, Christians around the world mark the beginning of Holy Week: the time when the most significant part of the Gospel story takes shape. It begins today, Palm Sunday, where we join along with the crowds mentioned in our Gospel passage this morning, praising God and cheering as Jesus of Nazareth arrives, riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. It is a day full of celebration, anticipation, and excitement… where hopes are raised that finally things are all about to change. Finally, life will be sorted out… it’ll all be set to rights. Finally, God’s kingdom is coming, on earth as in heaven.
 
Of course, the crowds in Jerusalem that day, were not dealing with a pandemic… (not much social distancing being practiced, by the sounds of it), but they were dealing with many challenges most of us have never had to face: the pains oppression, living under the rule of violent Empires. Though they had once had their own nations, Israel and Judah had lost it all… and now those who remained were living under the cruel kingdoms of the world.
 
In a lot of ways, that sentence describes much of the history of God’s people. Early on in their story, the Living God had rescued them from Egypt, where they had been living for centuries as the slaves of Pharaoh. Set free to be God’s people, to share in God’s reign of goodness and love, Israel was led to a land of their own, a land full of blessings. But far from ideal, their time in the land was filled with many ups and downs… of moments when they were in sync with God, but more often when they were not. Eventually, their own kingdom is divided into two, and both fall into wickedness, corruption, and unfaithfulness. Though the LORD had warned His people that this path would lead to dark consequences, both kingdoms would find themselves overthrown, and carried away into Exile.  Only the Southern Kingdom, the people of Judah, would one day return to their land, yet even then, they were still being ruled by oppressive, powerful nations: Babylon, the Medes and the Persians, the Greeks, and finally, the Romans. Yet through all this time, they were offered the hope that God faithfulness would endure… that He would not abandon them forever, but would one day rescue them again, just as He did when they were powerless slaves in Egypt, long ago. God’s promise of a Messiah, a chosen descendant of King David who would bring God’s good Kingdom at last was something that gave them courage and strength… as they learned to live as God’s people after their whole way of life had been lost… after their sense of security, and stability had been all but destroyed by centuries of living under the threat of various vicious kingdoms.
 
At the time of our Gospel reading today, in the first century AD, there was a whole range of different ideas about how to best prepare for the arrival of God’s kingdom. Some focussed on a renewed obedience to the Laws of the Covenant. If the Exile and subsequent sufferings were the result of their own unfaithfulness, then some, like the Pharisees, figured the best way to bring about God’s kingdom was to double down on strict adherence to their religious duties. On the other side of the spectrum, were those who embraced the new situation… who endeared themselves to those in power, and sought to gain their favour. Awaiting God’s kingdom for them looked more like pragmatic survival: compromising with the existing kingdoms of the world, and settling for whatever positions and status their masters were willing to offer. The Herodians, and even some of the Temple leaders had taken this route, finding security, and stability from the hands of their overlords.
 
A third approach was that of pursuing radical revolution: rising up fight against their powerful oppressors! Many would-be Messiah’s had tried this tact… but most ended up in bloodshed. Yet even so, some still thought that the best way forward was through the sword.

And finally, there were also a whole lot of people who were just hungry for change. They had no obvious politics, no agenda or plan to follow. They were just bearing the weight of oppression, and wanting that burden to end. Like their ancestors in Egypt, all those long centuries ago, many in Jesus’s day were simply crying out to God for deliverance, longing for an end to their sufferings, and for a whole new life to begin. And just like He heard His people’s cries for deliverance all those years before, the Living God had come to set them free in ways they could never imagine.
 
And so we heard today that Jesus entered Jerusalem, the capital city of God’s people, at the time when the week-long celebration of Passover was about to begin. He came along with pilgrims from all over the Near East were arriving to remember together the LORD’s great act of salvation in their past: His rescuing them from oppression in Egypt, and especially the final, terrible plague where all of the firstborn of Egypt died… while a lamb was slain so that Israelite families would be passed-over, and find a whole New Life with God. Jesus had come to what was left of Israel in those days, the survivors of the kingdom of Judah, after years of exile and suffering… the descendants of the people God had saved from slavery in Egypt, and He had shared with them the Good News of God’s Kingdom coming again, but in ways they had not anticipated, and which didn’t fit into their plans.

Jesus came among them as One who was able to bring God’s healing into their lives: miraculously restoring life and wholeness to all those who were suffering, but also pushing the boundaries, and the nerves, of those with influence. Jesus came among them teaching about what it looks like to live in God’s Kingdom here and now, but in ways which all too often exposed hypocritical hearts. Jesus came among them, offering them a whole new way of life, but instead of stability and security, he spoke about loving even our enemies, finding greatness through humility, seeking forgiveness instead of retaliation…  picking up crosses and following Him.
 
The Kingdom Christ is concerned with, the Kingdom of God… one meant to be lived out here on earth, as it is in Heaven, was simply not what they, or even we, would have imagined, but it is God’s response to all our cries of longing, and pain, and hope. “Hosanna!” ‘God Save Now!’ the crowds had called out as Jesus arrived among them. And often our own aching hearts could echo that very same cry today.
 
But the question is: how will we receive God’s response to our cries through Jesus, His Son? Even if it is not at all what we had anticipated, will we trust that the LORD knows what we need most, beyond what we could ask or imagine?
 
The rest of Holy Week reveals God’s Kingdom coming about at last: Christ’s humble service and communion shared at the table on Maundy Thursday; prayer in the midst of temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane; faithfulness even while being betrayed, with Judas’ kiss, and Peter’s denial; courage and integrity when falsely accused and unjustly condemned by the Jewish Council and the Gentile Courts; the ultimate act of self-giving love as Christ was raised up on the cruel cross; and God’s ultimate act of New Life breaking through death when He rose again from the grave.
 
It’s natural to get excited about the ups and downs of our lives. It’s good not to be too detached from the struggles and joys we all face. But let us not forget where our hope as God’s people truly rests: in what Jesus Christ has done for us and for the all the world, bringing God’s Kingdom to life, both forever, and now!  
 
Let us not lose sight of the New Way of Life Christ has opened up for us at the cross: saving us, and setting us free to be His people right here and now. To be shaped by His forgiveness; to be guided by His grace; to be caught up in His mission to share God’s rescuing love with everyone. The end of this pandemic is something that we can all look forward to, but even this pales in comparison to the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom. So today, may we lift up our hearts, and rejoice in what Jesus has done for us, and through His Spirit at work in us, may we join in His Kingdom work right now! Amen.

Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD! 

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday, commemorating Christ's momentous arrival to Jerusalem, as well as the beginning of Holy Week. 

With the season of Lent drawing to a close, and Eastertide nearly upon us, we have been reflecting upon various biblical themes that help us understand the significance of what Christ accomplished for the world at the cross.
Here is a short video from the Bible Project that can help us explore the Gospel of Mark, and see how this Gospel depicts the life and death of Jesus as the surprising Good News that it is.  

​We will be making At-Home Worship resources available later this week for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday.

Our service of Morning Prayer, Bulletin, and Sermon for Palm Sunday can be found here:

Our All-Ages Song for Lent can be found here:

​And our other Songs this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 31:31–34 | Psalm 119:9–16 | Hebrews 5:5–10 | John 12:20–33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” (John 12:20-21)
 
Do we wish to see Jesus? Do we desire to see God at work in our world?
 
It seems like a silly question. I mean, of course we would want that, right? To recognize the presence of our Saviour close at hand. To draw near to the eternal King of Kings and Lord of Lords… who also calls us to cast our cares on Him, because He cares for us. To come to know Him more completely. To experience His life. Of course we’d want to see Jesus! Such an obvious answer, right?
 
Maybe. But then again, maybe there’s more to the story than we have considered. Today, the fifth Sunday of Lent, we’re being asked to reflect on what ‘seeing Jesus’ entails… and how it might just change how we ‘see’ everything, and everyone else as well.
 
In our Scripture reading this morning from the twelfth Chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus invites us to see the surprising way in which the glory of God is made known in the world. But before we reflect on our passage, we need to set the stage a bit.
 
Right before our text this morning comes John’s account of Christ’s ‘triumphant entry’; with Jesus arriving at Jerusalem ahead of the Passover festival, riding into the city on a donkey and greeted by crowd crying: “Hosanna!” and waving palm branches. Next week, on Palm Sunday, we’ll look a bit closer at this significant part of our Lord’s story, but for now it’s important to know the context of Jesus’ words we heard today, as His controversial ministry of signs and sermons gives way to the rising tensions of Holy Week… which we are fast approaching.
 
Riding into the city, we clearly see the expectations of the crowd: they’re welcoming Him as the Messiah, the chosen One of God… descended from King David, and sent to rescue Israel for good. We’re also able to see the panicking of the Pharisees, along with the rest of the Jewish leaders who were plotting against Jesus. Having already been told in the earlier chapters of John’s Gospel that these leaders were looking for way to have Jesus arrested and killed, they looked on in dismay as the crowds of Jerusalem cheered Him on. John 12:19 says, “The Pharisees then said to one another, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” As it turns out, they weren’t really all that far off the mark. In the very next verse, we heard that “among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks”… and that they wanted to see Jesus too. This may not seem like a big deal today… but back then it certainly was.
 
There was little love between most Jews and Greeks in Jesus’ day, due to a long and bitter history of clashes and conflict. After Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon, and it’s people carried away from the land into exile, the Jews had existed under the thumb of several ancient superpowers: the Babylonian Empire, Persians and Medes, who let them return to the Promised Land, and then came the Greeks, with the armies of Alexander the Great, and his power-hungry successors, who fought for control of his vast empire… which, of course, included the region of Judea.  

And like many empires, before and since, the Greeks hoped to spread their own culture, their own language, values, religions, and their whole way of life, forcing the people they conquered to conform, either willingly or not. In Judea, especially during the second century before Christ, this all led to harsh oppression, bloodshed, and essentially cultural genocide… as their Greek-speaking conquerors desecrated the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and tried brutal ways of forcing Jews to abandon their faith and their God. Eventually, some devout Jews rose up in revolt, retaking control of Jerusalem at least for a time… before the entire region was brought under Roman rule. The Romans at least allowed the Jews to retain their religion and culture, but the tensions with their non-Jewish, Greek-speaking neighbours remained, and continued to fester.
 
Which brings us back to Jesus, riding into Jerusalem, at the climax of His deeply misunderstood mission to Israel. The crowds saw Him as the Messiah, but one who would bring about their desires: a powerful military victory over their non-Jewish oppressors. For them, the Messiah was to bring glory to God by crushing their enemies and bringing Jerusalem enduring freedom and peace at last. On the other side of things, the leadership of Jerusalem saw Jesus through the eyes of jealousy, and fear. Not only were they losing the respect, and influence, and glory they felt they deserved, as more and more of their people looked to Jesus instead of to them… they were also afraid that if Jesus succeeded in starting a revolt, the Romans would step in and crush Jerusalem once and for all. For them, Jesus was a threat to everything that they held dear. Even Jesus’ own disciples, seemed mostly concerned with their own sense of power and greatness. Seeing all His signs and hearing His words, but missing their true meaning. God’s people, it seems… the crowds, the leaders, the disciples, could not yet see Christ clearly. At this point, late in John’s Gospel, I think we’re meant to remember John’s words from the very beginning, where he says in Chapter 1:10-11, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” But we’re also reminded of this hope too, found in verses 12 & 13, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”
 
And so, as some Greeks come, seeking Jesus, He says that the fateful hour has now arrived for Him, the Son of Man to be glorified. How? By military might? By rising in fame, power, and influence? By crushing His rivals, and seizing control, like everyone else expected of Him? No. Our Lord makes clear that His hour of glory means going first to the grave. Buried, like a single grain of wheat in the ground, in order to bear much fruit, and bring new life into being. “Very truly, I tell you,” He says to us,  “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” (John 12:24-26)
 
Setting aside the praise and expectations of those around Him, He chooses instead to surrender His fate to the will of His Father in Heaven, setting His face towards the cross as the fulfillment of what He had come to do… the only means by which God’s great rescue mission would succeed. As one scholar writes: “Jesus sees his own forthcoming death. It would be so easy to avoid it, to choose the path of human glory and follow the crowd to revolution. But if the seed is not placed in the earth, “it remains alone.”… Jesus’ path to glory will also put him in the ground before he can bring his fruit to his Father.”[1] His glorious victory would be to faithfully face the cross. This is ultimately the place God’s life-giving power shines through the brightest. But what kind of ‘fruit’ was Jesus’ crucifixion and death to bring about? What was accomplished by laying down His life in the grave?
 
More than we could ever imagine, and certainly more than we can speak of today, but our text today points us to some of the ‘fruit’ of our Lord’s life-giving death. At the cross, Jesus reveals the true and glorious heart of God: a heart full of forgiveness, reconciliation, and love… which He intends to bear all sorts of fruit in our lives. N.T. Wright puts it like this: “Jesus’ death will be like sowing a seed into the ground. It will look like a tragedy… In fact, it will be a triumph: the triumph of God’s self-giving love, the love that looks death itself in the face and defeats it by meeting it voluntarily, on behalf not just of Israel but of the whole world, the world represented by these ‘Greeks’.”[2] In the words of our Lord: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself”( John 12:32). All people. Jew. Greek. All. Any who will receive Him, believe in Him… follow Him. And in coming to Him, we find ourselves drawn to each other in His love. To see ourselves, and everyone, only in the light of the cross.
 
Christ died to draw us back to God, and back together too. To bring us God’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and love… and to bring human forgiveness, /reconciliation, and love to life as well. To tear down old hostilities, and put to death our prejudices… to set aside our selfish ways, that we too can share in His glory. Not the glory of this world… the glory of fame, power, or domination… but the glory of God’s eternal love, planted in Jesus at the cross in order to take root and spread through us His people, and out into His world.
 
Do we still want to see Jesus? To draw near the Living God at work in our world? If so, we are pointed first of all to look at Him on the cross: offering His life in God’s own glorious, self-giving love for all of us, Jew… Greek… all of us, while we all were still His enemies. And seeing Him there, offering His saving love to everyone, we are pointed to our enemies… and called to love them too.  
 
How might seeing Jesus offer His life for sinners transform how we see the real people in our lives, and in our wider world? How might it call us to change our attitudes and actions towards the people we’d rather not see? Those we fear? Those we despise? Those we are struggling to forgive? What might we have to set aside if we are to reflect the holy, self-giving love God offers us all in Christ? Our own ambitions? Our bitterness? Our selfishness? Our indifference?
 
Seeing Jesus truly, coming to know Him as He really is will challenge us, and change us, and call us to let His love take root in us. Seeing Him on the cross, there’s no more enemies to overcome… just fellow human beings in need of God’s forgiveness, and New Life. To live this way, to follow Him, means letting our old life die… letting Christ bury our fear, and hate, and evil with Him at the cross. But it also means bearing the fruit of God’s glorious love: becoming the way that God’s goodness, and mercy, and healing power flows into our world, which is still being torn apart by the darkness Christ died to rescue us from.
 
So may the Holy Spirit of God help us always to see Jesus: to remember His self-giving love offered once and for all on the cross. May His love take root within us, may it change how we see and treat those in our lives, and by His grace, may we bear all the fruit that comes from following Jesus. Amen.
 


[1] Richard A. Burridge, “Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year B,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Volume Three, ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 542.
 

[2] Tom Wright, John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11-21 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 29–30.

​​Our All-Ages Song for Lent can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Numbers 21:4–9 | Psalm 107:1–3, 17–22 | Ephesians 2:1–10 | John 3:14–21

And 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. (John 3:14)

What comes to our minds when we look at a cross?

For many, crosses are simply a common Christian symbol… an image closely identified with one of the world’s religions. With a bit more reflection, of course, crosses become a lot more uncomfortable. Long before Christianity, crosses were simply instruments of death… a form of brutal execution, designed to cause all sorts of suffering, as well as to publicly display the powerlessness of the victim, all while showcasing the supremacy of those who had them lifted up.
 
This tension isn’t erased when we turn to the story of Jesus either, for the crucifixion of Jesus exposes the worst of what’s wrong with the world: as this upright, innocent man is betrayed, /and handed over to humiliation, suffering, and a cruel death in an absolutely atrocious act of injustice.
 
And yet… from the very beginning, Christians have looked back on the cross as absolutely central to the Good News of God, seeing it as the focal point of genuine forgiveness, and the indispensable pillar holding up all of our hope. The season of Lent lays before us the road to the cross, and it calls us to contemplate its deeper significance. And so today, the fourth Sunday of Lent, we’re drawn towards an odd passage from the Book of Numbers (or as it’s known in Hebrew: In the Wilderness), a story about doubt, deadly snakes, and a curious cure… a story picked up by Jesus Himself to point us to His purpose: to shed much needed light upon His mission of redemption.
 
The story takes place in the wilderness, as the people of Israel are being lead by God through Moses from slavery in Egypt into a whole new life, and new land of their own. At this point, they’ve already spent years travelling in the desert, consistently provided for by the gracious hand of God. And yet, they consistently prove themselves to be quick to turn on the LORD… exposing their lack of trust in His love for them, and betraying Him in their hearts every time they find themselves in trouble.

“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” we heard them say today, “For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” (Numbers 21:5). The scholar Elizabeth Achtemeier sums up their reaction like this: “Absent is any recollection of their gracious deliverance by the hand of God. Gone are all thoughts of the covenant they have entered into with the Lord at Mount Sinai. Forgotten is the divine promise that they are to be God’s chosen, holy nation and a kingdom of priests. Their present discomfort and suffering rob them of the memory of God’s gracious redemption and faithful day-and-night guidance of them.”[1] And so, in the face of Israel’s persistent unfaithfulness, serpents are sent, bringing to light the people’s sin… with dire consequences.
 
In this case at least, the people’s suffering seems to bring them to their senses. In Numbers 21:7 we’re told they “came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” (Numbers 21:7). In response to their repentance, the LORD doesn’t remove the deadly serpents, but He does mercifully provide their means of survival… one which requires those bitten to respond with trust in God.

“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 21:8-9)
 
How was that supposed to work?!? The story doesn’t care about unpacking the mechanics of the miracle. In many ways, it remains a strange story for us today. But there are a few points that this part of Israel’s story raises for us to ponder: First, God’s people had turned away from Him in distrust and ungratefulness, bringing about their own suffering  and death as a result. Yet God provided for them a sign which brought about salvation: despite their betrayal, they would live if they trusted in the LORD’s gift… if they looked on the serpent of bronze, which was raised up to rescue them.
 
Turning now to the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus draw this odd episode from Israel’s past into His own unfolding story, in the context of a conversation with one of the teachers of Judah. In John chapter 3, were told that a pharisee named Nicodemus came one night seeking to speak with Jesus. A risky move, considering that by this point, our Lord was already becoming a controversial figure. But Nicodemus seems open to what Jesus was up to. “Rabbi,” he says, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” (John 3:2). Nicodemus acknowledges that Jesus was sent from the Living God, the same LORD who had rescued Israel from Egypt centuries earlier, and had led them through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. He sees at work in Jesus the holy presence of God… but our Lord takes this conversation in a surprising direction. “Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” (John 3:3)
 
What follows is a back and forth between Jesus and a puzzled Nicodemus, where it becomes clear that our Jesus is presenting Himself as more than a godly teacher, but as the One sent with the unique role of revealing God work in the world. “No one has ascended into heaven” He says, “except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”  And 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.” (John 3:13-15)
 
If you blink, you’ll miss it. Just one line thrown into a complicated, multilayered exchange. But by referencing this ancient story of doubts, and snakes, and salvation, Jesus is shedding important light on what He claims He has come to do… comparing Israel’s unfaithfulness in the wilderness to the situation in Nicodemus’ day… and in our own!
 
Just as in the wilderness, long ago, where Israel had turned their back on the LORD, doubting His faithfulness, forgetting His gracious deliverance and covenant with them, grumbling against His provisions, and despising the path He was leading them on, Jesus was making the case that God’s people were again betraying the LORD, and so were headed for disaster. The leadership of God’s people at the time of Nicodemus had claimed to be concerned with being faithful to the LORD, obeying His covenant, and walking in His ways. Yet time and again their response to Jesus’ actions and words exposed their hardened hearts, towards God and their neighbours. They had become preoccupied with their own preservation, instead of pursuing their calling to be God’s people in the world. It was as if they were reliving their ancestor’s unfaithfulness in the wilderness: preferring the darkness of hypocrisy, selfishness, and pride to the light of the LORD… and by evoking this story, Christ was exposing the sin of His people. Not just in Jerusalem that day, but in our day and age as well.
 
How have we relived the sins of Israel in the wilderness? How have we re-enacted the same distrust, ungratefulness, and contempt of God’s holy ways in our own lives? Perhaps paying lip service to the commandments of God, while happy to hide much of our heart’s desires in the dark?
 
This isn’t easy to think about. It’s even harder to talk about. It’s so much more comfortable to turn a blind eye to our darkness… instead of stepping into the light so that it can all be dealt with. But just as Israel’s guilt, in the wilderness, and in Nicodemus’ day, was only the beginning and not the end of the story, our own failures and sinfulness don’t have the final say either. We too are offered hope and forgiveness from the LORD, as Christ reveals God’s merciful response to all our unfaithfulness.
 
As He did long ago in the wilderness, God has provided a saving gift, only this one was meant not for one betrayal, but for all betrayals… not for one moment in history, but for all of time… not only for one people, but for all the families of the earth… offering new life to any and all who look at the Christ, the Son of Man ‘lifted up’ on the cross, and see in Him, in His suffering and death, God’s unending love for sinners… and place their trust, no longer in themselves, but in Him. “And 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 eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:14-17)
 
In connecting His mission with the story from Numbers Chapter 21, Jesus was not simply exposing the darkness at work in all of our lives… He is pointing us to the remedy for our spiritual sicknesses: that is, His own life, lifted up on the cross, and offered as a gift of love from God to our messed up world. As one scholar puts it: “Like the dying Israelites looking to the snake “lifted up” for healing, we are to see in Jesus’ broken body “lifted up” on an instrument of torture our healing and the source of eternal life.”[2] For the Israelites in the wilderness, looking at the bronze snake, would no doubt be deeply uncomfortable: a clear reminder that they had brought about their own misery. But if they responded to the invitation to look at it anyway, trusting in God’s mercy, it was transformed from a reminder of suffering, sin, and death into a gift meant to ensure their survival.
 
For you and I, looking at Jesus on the cross, we are forced to remember the reasons for His suffering: our sin, but ultimately God’s love. We are invited to look at Jesus lifted up on the cross and see much more than the brutal result of human betrayal and unfaithfulness… we’re invited to see the merciful love of the Living God for sinners like us, and looking at Him in faith, we are offered forgiveness, reconciliation, and God’s everlasting life, which we now know that even the grave itself is powerless to stop.

Jesus endured the cross for us as an act of God’s saving love. His whole mission was not to condemn, but to offer us His life, once and for all. As we draw nearer to Holy Week, to the suffering of Christ on the cross, may we remember that, for us, it is always a sign of God’s great love: drawing us out of the darkness and into God’s life-giving light, where everyone can find forgiveness, healing, and hope.  
Amen.


[1] Elizabeth Achtemeier, “Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Volume One (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 120–121.

[2] Richard A. Burridge, “Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Volume Three, ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 500.

Today we mark the fourth Sunday of the holy season of Lent. 
It is a time of repentance, renewed obedience, and preparation for the celebration of Holy Week: the crucifixion and saving death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday, and the joyous resurrection of our Lord on Easter. 

The season of Lent draws together a host of important biblical themes. Here is a short video from the Bible Project that can help us explore the theme of The Messiah. 

​Our All-Ages Song for Lent can be found here:

​And our other Songs can be found here:

​Our All-Ages Song for Lent can be found here: