Sermon -- 4th Sunday in Lent (March 10, 2024)

NUMBERS 21:4-9

THE REMEDY FOR DEATH IS LIFTED HIGH.

In the name + of Jesus.

      The people of Israel had been in the wilderness for over three decades.  It was their own fault.  The Lord had intended to bring them straight from Mt. Sinai into the Promised Land.  But the people became convinced that they could not take this land no matter what promises God had made.  For their stubborn unbelief, the Lord told them that they would be banished to the wilderness for forty years where all the adults would die.

     Even though Israel was banished to the wilderness, they were not abandoned by the Lord.  The Lord provided what they needed to live for that entire forty years.  Sometimes it was miraculous, such as having enough water gush forth from a rock to satisfy a nation of about 2 million plus flocks and herds.  When the people complained, “There is no food,” they had in mind the delicacies which Egypt offered.  The wilderness land could not be cultivated.  They could not grow their own crops.  But God daily supplied manna, bread flakes that appeared daily on the ground.  The Lord had faithfully remained with Israel on their forty-year journey in the wilderness.  Nevertheless, the people grew discontent with God and his blessings.

     “The people became impatient on the way.  And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food’” (Numbers 21:4-5).  They despised God’s gracious blessings.  The people had had enough.  They were sick of Moses and the Lord.  I don’t know what their plan would have been if the Lord withdrew his blessings from them.  If life was hard while the Lord was blessing them, what would it be if he abandoned them? 

     Rather than abandon them, the Lord got their attention.  “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died” (Numbers 21:6).  Did you catch that?  The Lord sent the serpents.  This was no coincidental infestation.  The Lord was showing the people of Israel the reality that we are always only a step away from death.  We like to think that life will always go on and everything will be fine.  But sin has come into the world, and death comes because of it.  Death does not ask your permission.  It does not negotiate a convenient time.  It comes when God is pleased to bring our lives to an end. 

     When the people began dying from the serpents, the people were no longer begging Moses for a better menu.  They only cared about being delivered from death.  “The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.  Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us’” (Numbers 21:7).  We only care about death when it feels real, but it is always real.  That is why God lets us feel it from time to time.  That is part of why tragedies and hardships hit us.  This world is broken, and it is dying.  We are sinners, and we are dying.  When we recognize this, we also cry out to the Lord for mercy.

     The people of Israel prayed that the Lord would take away the venomous serpents.  But do you know what?  He didn’t.  The Lord did not take the serpents away.  Instead, the Lord provided a remedy for the death.  This is what the Lord told Moses, “‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’  So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole.  And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live’ (Numbers 21:8-9). 

     The remedy for death was lifted up high.  The Lord had attached a promise to that serpent.  All who trusted God’s promise and looked to the bronze serpent lived.  The persistence of the serpents in the camp were a continual reminder that death is always close at hand.  But the Lord provided the remedy for death. 

     The Lord Jesus said that the lifting of the bronze serpent was an image that prefigured his own death.  Jesus said, “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 3:14-15).  Just as the serpent was lifted up by Moses, Jesus himself would be lifted up.  This refers to Jesus’ crucifixion.  He would not be stoned to death.  If that were the case, he would be on the ground and the people would cast down stones on him from a higher place.  He would not be stretched out to be beheaded like the apostle Paul was.  He would be lifted up on a pole with a crossbeam, and he would die suspended above the earth. 

     Now, crucifixions were common.  The Romans issued this torturous death to any who posed a serious threat to the authority, order, or peace which the Romans established.  When Jesus was crucified, he was lifted up between two criminals.  So, Jesus being lifted up to die on a cross was not unique to him.  Jesus’ death was on public display.  That was common in crucifixions, too  They were done in a prominent place so that many people would see them.  This display of cruel torture would deter people from daring to repeat what the condemned person was sentenced for.  What was unique about Jesus’ crucifixion is that Jesus is the only one who had a promise attached to it.  For, this is what the Lord says, “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 3:14-15). 

     The remedy for death is lifted up high.  Jesus’ death was no secret.  In fact, it is a proclamation.  Jesus’ suffering proclaims the anger that God has against those who ignore his words and turn from godly living.  Jesus’ agony proclaims the curse that sins deserve which Jesus accepted for all mankind; for, all are sinners.  Jesus’ willingness to suffer and die like this proclaims the love that moved God to deliver us from the guilt of our sins and the curse of our death.  This is what God the Father was willing to sacrifice to save you.  The remedy for death was lifted high—just as Moses lifted high the snake in the desert so that everyone there could see the remedy for their own death.

     Saving faith is not knowledge that Jesus died on a cross.  Even atheists know that.  Saving faith trusts the promise attached to Jesus’ death.  Jesus declared, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).  There will come a day when each of us will close our eyes in death.  When that day comes, our soul and body will separate.  The body will decay and return to dust.  But what becomes of the soul?  It returns to God who created it.  We will go to be with the Lord.  When we close our eyes to this world, we will open them and see Jesus.  So, we will not die.  We simply depart from this world of sin and enter the kingdom of glory.  Jesus is the remedy of death who was lifted high for all to see.

     And Jesus’ promise continues.  Because sin has corrupted our bodies, these bodies cannot live forever.  They are marked for death.  But Jesus is the remedy for death.  He has conquered death by his resurrection.  Jesus’ resurrection proclaims what will be the future of all who believe in him.  As he promised, “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 3:14-15).  On the Last Day, Jesus will raise up these bodies.  For, our souls and our bodies were not created to be separate things.  Jesus will raise up our bodies, reunite our bodies with our souls, and we will be wholly restored and renewed to live with our Lord forever.

     For now, we are like those Israelites who were wandering in the wilderness for decades.  We are not home yet.  We live with difficulties, with sorrows, and with blessings that are flawed and that fail.  Sometimes, God sends calamities to us like he did when he sent the serpents to the Israelites.  They prove our frailty and our mortality.  And sometimes, he does not take them away.  They are constant reminders that this world is broken, and it will die.  They are reminders that we are sinners, and we will die.  Death is always real, and we are only a step away from it. 

     But you do not need to live in fear of death, and you do not need to be haunted by how close it is.  Consider what St. Peter wrote, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21).  What baptism corresponds to is the Flood and Noah’s ark.  Can you imagine how unnerving it was for Noah and his family to have the ark battered by rain and pounded by waves?  To hear the ark creaking from all the stress put upon it?  Do you think they had to be convinced that death was close at hand?  How many inches of ark wood separated Noah and his family from certain death?  It did not matter, because the Lord had promised to deliver Noah and his family from death.  While the Flood destroyed everything wicked, it also lifted up the ark above the destruction to save the people in it. 

     So, there may only be a step between you and death.  But you have been baptized into Christ.  You have been brought into the ark of the Christian Church.  Everything outside of the Church will perish, but those who are in the Church, that is in Christ, will be saved.  The one thing that stands between you and death is Jesus.  He is the remedy which has been lifted up high to save you.  And as St. Paul wrote in our epistle, God has “seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).  That is, he lifts you up above all that will perish so that you remain safe.

     And as you trudge through this life on your way to that heavenly Promised Land, recognize that the Lord gives you everything you need to live right now.  He supplies you with food and drink, clothing and shoes, house and home, family and friends.  You may suffer hardships.  The Lord may choose to not take those hardships away from you.  They remind you that everything here is passing away.  Death is close at hand.  But Jesus sticks closer.  He remains our remedy from death.  He will deliver us into that heavenly Promised Land where we will lack nothing.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.