Numbers 21:4b-9 Philippians 2:6-11 John 3:13-17

The 4^th scroll of the Torah, the Book of Numbers, is among the less appreciated Old Testament books if for no other reason than it’s title. In the Hebrew text, the title is “In the Wilderness” which hints more appealingly towards the lore and legend of the desert adventure of God’s Chosen People. It was precisely while the Israelites were in that wilderness, i.e., the Sinai Desert, that they came to know that the Lord God – who saved them from slavery in Egypt – did not merely render them free only to abandon them. This Savior God dwelt among them, or as was sometimes written, “tabernacled among them.” God’s Ark of the Covenant was housed in the Tabernacle Tent in close proximity to the camp of the pilgrim people. Their Savior God was therefore close at hand, familiar, readily available, and literally among them! From the ancient Hebrew perspective, no other god among the pagans was so fond of or intimate with a people as was this God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants. This book is about a time of idyllic intimacy between God and Moses, Moses and the Israelites, and God and the Israelites. God’s Chosen People’s desert era was the Jewish spiritual Camelot!

Today’s festival focuses on the Cross of Jesus Christ. This is about the literal, historical cross on which Jesus ben Joseph of Nazareth was crucified under the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate (AD 26-36). It is also about the fundamental Gospel Cross metaphor which describes the burden of engaging life’s reality for Gospel disciples. The Cross is an exhortation and a command to embrace life as fully and wisely as humanly possible. It represents the adult Jesus’ Incarnation of living life by announcing and embracing the Gospel message, even the most difficult and messiest parts of life, i.e., those parts which cause suffering, pain, inconvenience, challenge and occasionally even a martyr’s death. The artistic dimension of Church life has also described the Cross in hope-filled, post-Resurrection terms as a sign of victory over sin and death. Some disciples wear crosses or crucifixes as jewelry, adorn their homes and rooms with images of Jesus on the Cross (the Crucifix) or plain Crosses – all as a reminder of the great Paschal Mystery of the Incarnate Jesus Christ’s full and balanced life, suffering, death and resurrection.

Today’s Gospel text uses the imagery of the bronze serpent fashioned by Moses in the desert as a parallel and foreshadowing image of the “raising up” of Jesus on the Cross. Of course, there is actually a series of “raisings” involving Jesus’ life and ministry. First, there is his being raised up on the Cross as the ultimate saving sacrifice in terms of Jewish temple-cult vocabulary and ideas. The second raising is his resurrection from the dead never to die again. This is the glorious raising which overwhelms all evil in the universe. Finally in the Gospel narratives, there is the Ascension of the Risen Christ and his raising to the fullness of God’s Presence in the Kingdom of Heaven. In today’s narrative from the Book of Numbers, the mere glance at the bronze serpent which Moses had fashioned and raised up on a pole was itself a saving antidote for the Israelites against the poison of snakebite. This was likely a religious practice reasonable to Moses who had been raised in Pharaoh’s pagan household. He would have been conscious that he was ethnically a Hebrew, but he would have been in practical terms religiously Egyptian until after his divine call from God at the Burning Bush episode and thereafter from his subsequent rather intimate mystical and administrative encounters with God. Indeed, the bronze serpent episode in Numbers seems to be precisely what was prohibited by the First Commandment of the Decalogue. The Numbers narrative suggests that the Israelites themselves (not only Moses), after having spent generations in Egypt, retained a residual cultural tendency towards idolatry and superstition, like cultures still do today. Egyptian religious society was imbued with popular belief in scores of divinities and spiritual powers. To describe this behavior as a human temptation – that is, to concretize and make visible that which is essentially mystical – might be the most complimentary explanation we can put on the event. But, in this episode Moses succumbed to the same superstitious, impatient and fearful social pressure which Aaron (his brother and high priest) had succumbed in Exodus 32. According to 2^nd Kings 18:4ff, this bronze serpent was preserved for centuries and became an object of popular devotion under the kings of Judah. It eventually found its way into the Jerusalem temple precincts. It was finally destroyed precisely as an idolatrous temptation by King Hezekiah (who’s birth was famously predicted by Isaiah in Isaiah 7:14 (used liturgically in Advent) in the late 8^th Century BC. By that time, the bronze serpent had even come to have a name, Nahushtan, and incense was burned before it as a devotional offering. Thus, do we see that devotional practice both in the Old Testament era of the Ark of the Covenant and the Jerusalem Temple maintained some pagan-superstitious practices. The Church in our era maintains numerous practices which likewise are arguably superstitious if measured by the near magical expectations placed in them (e.g., the discrete burial of a statue of St. Joseph in the yard of a home for sale in hopes of securing a real estate sale at favorable terms). Popular religion is not always reasonable, intelligent or rational, and it frequently allows itself to be overly concrete to the point of reducing the indescribable Divine Mystery of God or the glorified saints into childishly over-simplified, magical totems and mini-idols. Even the best and most balanced among church ministers today hesitate to engage and correct such popular and misguided beliefs among those who are arguably religiously superstitious. Ignorance, superstitious fear and cultural religious practices consume very great amounts of human energy!

The Philippians’ Hymn is very nearly the diametrical opposite of the bronze serpent image. Scholars still debate whether or not Paul himself composed this beautiful poetry, but it follows an exhortation to the Christians of Philippi to live lives of humility, to participate in the gifts of God’s Holy Spirit, and to practice self-less generosity as daily ways of life. The reason for them to appropriate such self-effacing generosity is that Jesus himself had taken on that style of life. He was both one and the same with God in humble human form, and he deliberately chose to empty himself of all that impeded such unity with God and God’s will. This poem is sometimes called the “Christ Hymn” or the “Kenotic (Self-Emptying) Hymn.” Simply put, it glorifies Jesus Christ and God as the fulfillment of the saving Incarnation and Paschal Mysteries. In Paul’s day, both Jews and Gentiles had difficulty accepting that one who was called God’s Son would or could be subject to the most degrading and demeaning form of human death, crucifixion. Paul rationalized that degradation into a self-donated price freely and willingly paid by Jesus in order to overcome and conquer all perceived evil. This Christ in all his human humility offers a supreme glory to all who embrace the Gospel and strive to live it humbly, generously and selflessly. Thus did Paul remind and appeal to the Philippians to glory in the metaphorical Cross of Christ, that enthusiastic and humble engagement of life as fully as possible.

To return to today’s Gospel text, note that it includes that line referenced by fans at nearly every football game ever televised: John 3:16, i.e., “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” While impressive as merely 12 words, this is a theological assertion leading to the very next verse which has been and still is too often overlooked, neglected and even denied by the self-righteous: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” As a principal theme all through the New Testament, and as even in some of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament, the idea of universal salvation is significant. The more fundamentalist, literalist or controlling among Christians tend to be rather selective of their favorite scripture texts, often conveniently removed from their proper contexts. But, “being saved” is not a mechanical operation (as in glancing up at a bronze serpent on a pole or even uttering the words, “Jesus is my savior”). Salvation is always and fundamentally a gift from God, bestowed by God, and bestowed we believe rather generously, even universally, i.e., over everyone! This takes some human consideration for us to reconcile in multiple directions. But, remember, Christ’s love and grace is supposed to be easily and totally superior to all evil and sin in the universe. Hence, logically we must allow God’s infinite generosity to take precedence even over our human and personal ideals about fairness, justice and what we presume to be morally required.

The Cross of Christ is exalted when we embrace life wisely, fully, freely, generously, humbly and lovingly. It is exalted when we embrace even the messiness of life to the best of our abilities. May you know the Cross of Christ from holy and loving experience!

“Behold! Behold, the wood of the Cross! On which has hung Our Salvation!” (The sung invitatory at the Good Friday Liturgy’s Veneration of the Cross)