FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

March 14, 2021

St. Uriel’s Church, Sea Girt, N.J.

Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 

Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

Today’s readings highlight God’s mercy. Psalm 107 exhorts God’s people to “give thanks to the Lord for his mercy, and the wonders he does for his children.” And in the reading from Galatians, Saint Paul describes God as “rich in mercy.”

A good definition of mercy might be “undeserved favor or forgiveness.” The well-known judicial ideal of “justice tempered with mercy” suggests a certain tension between justice and mercy. If we follow Aristotle in defining justice as “giving everyone their due,” then mercy is opposed to justice, because when we receive mercy, we don’t get what we deserve. The astonishing paradox, however, is that God embodies both perfect justice and infinite mercy. And today’s readings afford us glimpses into this wonderful mystery.

The episode in today’s Old Testament reading from Numbers occurs near the end of the Israelites’ forty years of wandering in the wilderness, just as they’re poised to make their final approach to the Promised land. For much of their wanderings they’ve camped near oases where food and water have been at least available if not plentiful. But now, traversing an arid desert known as the Wilderness of Sin, they begin to grumble and complain.

In the past, these incidents have fallen into something of a standard pattern. First, a threat to the people’s survival emerges, such as hunger or thirst. Second, the people find fault with Moses and accuse him of leading them out into the desert to die. Third, in desperation and fear for his life, Moses prays to the Lord. Fourth, in response to Moses’ intercession, God provides a miraculous deliverance in some such form as manna from heaven, or water from the rock. And then, fifth, the people cease complaining and the journey resumes.

This time, however, events take a slightly different turn. In response to the people’s grumbling and complaining, God sends a plague of fiery serpents, which bite the people so that many of them die. (That particular area is home to several species of venomous vipers, whose bites can be life-threatening. The description “fiery serpents” most likely refers to the burning sensation their bites cause.) 

It turns out, however, that the Israelites have actually learned something during their forty years of wandering, for now they recognize without being told that they’ve sinned. And they’ve also learned that the right course of action in this situation is to entreat Moses to pray to God on their behalf.

God answers the prayer, however, not by taking away the snakes, but by providing a remedy for the snakebite. The underlying theological point is that even though sins can always be forgiven, the consequences of sin cannot always be undone. In any case, God directs Moses to make a bronze image of a snake and set it on a pole, so that anyone who’s been bitten may look on the image and live.

Anthropologists have a field day with this story, pointing out how primitive religions often use images of dangerous animals to protect against those animals, and also how, in many cultures, snakes symbolize medicine and healing. But in the Bible the serpent has a deeper significance still. Remember that in the Book of Genesis, it was the serpent who first tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God.

In the wilderness, the Israelites are disobedient to God and suffer death by fiery serpents, just as in the beginning Adam and Eve became subject to sin and death by the serpent’s temptation. So the Israelites’ grumbling in the wilderness figuratively symbolizes human sin in all times and places, and the fiery serpents symbolize sin’s poisonous consequences.

Why, then, should healing come by means of a bronze serpent on a pole? One compelling explanation is that in order to be healed, the Israelites must face up to the reality of their sin. The bronze serpent brings them face to face with a visual symbol of their transgression, so they can look upon it, acknowledge their sin, and repent—in response to which God, in his mercy, will forgive and heal them.

This background helps explain the significance of our Lord’s words to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel reading from Saint John: “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.”

The healing of the snake-bitten Israelites by means of the visual image of a bronze serpent on a pole foreshadows the healing of our wounded humanity by the cross of Christ. There’s no more vivid symbol of sin’s horror than the cross. When the Son of God came into the world, this is what we did to him. For this very reason, however, the cross becomes the most powerful remedy ever for sin. The image of the cross confronts us with the consequences of our rebellion, so that we may gain the opportunity to avail ourselves of God’s mercy.

To do so, we need only turn to God in repentance and faith. Notice that the indispensable prerequisite to the healing of the snake-bitten Israelites was confessing their sins and casting themselves on God’s mercy. As the psalmist sings, “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.” 

The key reassurance for us is that God desires only our eternal salvation, and he’s willing to go to any lengths to get us there: even becoming incarnate as a human being and dying on a cross for our sakes. As Jesus says to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel, “God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

So, then, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross simultaneously fulfills both God’s justice and his mercy. In today’s Epistle, Saint Paul emphasizes that the gift of eternal salvation is given by God’s grace and received in faith: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

In other words, we cannot do anything by ourselves to merit eternal life; we can only accept in faith the salvation that Christ has already won for us at such great cost to himself. But then, out of gratitude for such amazing divine mercy, we shall want to devote our lives to the service of God and our neighbor—again, not to earn heaven, as if that were possible—but to glorify God for the salvation that he’s already bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord.