Sermon: Snakes!

The following is the sermon I preached at First Presbyterian Church in Petersburg on March 15, 2014.

• Lectionary: Year B, Lent 4
• Text: Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:(10-) 14-21
• Audio as it was preached (30 minutes)

Introduction

The Bible is full of different kinds of stories. Some are feel-good, others are more challenging. Some are peculiar, and a few are quite bizarre. Today’s story about the snakes attacking the Israelites falls into the bizarre. Not only bizarre, but also quite challenging because the picture of God is not particularly flattering; and it wouldn’t be at all irresponsible to say that the God here resembles a petty, vengeful, and capricious deity of the nations surrounding Israel.

What do we do with this story? It’s in the Bible. Two common ways of dealing with this text are: We can ignore it – that’s an option. Or, we can take it as a factual description of God – that’s another option. Neither is particularly appealing.

Another option is to ignore the details found in Numbers 21 and rather go straight to John 3 where Jesus takes this story and applies it to himself. But that too, on the surface raises some problematic questions. One is that it completely ignores that Numbers speaks of God causing death. Another is that the snake and Jesus appear equated to one another.

Yet another option is to read it strictly as something that happened in the past with no bearing upon our present-day view of God and on our lives. There is value in this method. For example, the Hebrews – the Israelites – were a strict monotheist, where the only heavenly power was YHWH. In a setting where all events, particularly unexplainable ones, were attributable to a deity, the Israelites had no choice other than to attribute both good and evil to YHWH. The other nations and peoples had multiple gods and spirits who could be responsible for a subset of acts, but the Israelites did not. It was only late in Hebrew history, perhaps as late as after the Jewish exile, in which the concept of a devil or Satan first appears in concrete form.

But what about the serpent in Genesis that caused the Fall of Adam and Eve? Good question. In ancient mythologies, serpents were ambiguous creatures. They could be both good and evil, a bringer of life as well as a source of death, they could be wise but also cunning. Even during Jesus’ time, the “good” aspects of serpents were recognized, with him making a statement, “Be wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” In later times including ours, the symbol of the medical profession is that of a serpent wrapped around a pole. The point here is that the serpent found in Genesis 3, as it would have been seen from the ancients’ eyes, could not be considered unambiguously evil and the connection with Satan certainly was not present. It was only in the Christian era that the connection was finally made as fact.

But I noticed something interesting when I re-read the story of the Fall in conjunction with the story of the attack of the serpents in Numbers. They seem to have a number of characteristics of being parallel accounts. Genesis tells the story from a broad perspective that includes all humankind. The Numbers account reads like a similar story, but told in a context specific to the Israelites.

The Fall, Revisited

In our modernist, individualistic, Western minds, Adam and Eve represent two individuals. But they are actually archetypes, or symbols that represent the beginnings of humankind. They may have been individuals, but that is not the point of the Genesis account. The points of the Genesis account is that humankind is responsible for their own troubles, because they sought to take control of their own destinies. To us it doesn’t seem fair that the decisions of individuals so long ago affect us today. But this wouldn’t have troubled the original tellers and readers of Genesis because all humankind continue to succumb to the desire to be in control of themselves.

Likewise the story of the Israelites complaining in the wilderness is a story about them wanting to wrest control away from God. They were tired of the provisions from God – the manna. Not only tired, but they detested it; they called it worthless. They wanted to return to Egypt, the thing that was forbidden to them. This is similar to Adam and Eve rejecting their God-given food and desiring the one thing that was prohibited to them. Notice too, that both stories revolve around what God has given to the people for their food.

As in the Genesis story, was it literally everyone that complained and asked to return to Egypt? Perhaps, but even if not, in the collectivist, group culture of the ancients, the idea that a select few’s actions negatively impact the entire tribe or nation was not a problematic concept. We see this concept illustrated many times in the Old Testament – e.g., Achan’s sin at Jericho, David’s sin in taking a census. This is similar to the idea that Adam and Eve’s sin infected all humankind for all history.

What happens when the people decide that they no longer want God’s directions and provisions? They encounter serpents. In both cases the results of their encounters are given as death. In the Genesis account, physical death is not immediate, but their ultimate destiny becomes certain. In the Numbers account, physical death comes swiftly for those bitten by the vipers.

In both cases life is forfeited and there is no way back. The curse of death falls and envelops humankind and the Israelites.

God Intervenes

However, God’s love compels him to reverse the curse.

The details are different in each story. In Genesis, it is God who takes the initiative. In Numbers, it is the people who ask Moses to intervene with God on their behalf. But in both cases, it is God who provides the means to break and reverse the curse of death. And in both cases, just as the curse was brought on by a serpent, the curse will be broken through a serpent.

In Genesis, God curses the serpent. Its status will be lower than that of all the other creatures. God also describes how humankind will continue to struggle against sin and its effects, but gives hope by giving them the possibility of defending themselves against the curse of sin and death. This is the most appropriate reading of Genesis 3:14-15. The idea that the serpent represents the devil and the striking of the serpent’s head represents Christ’s defeat over Satan, is a late interpretation; one that is not present in the text of Genesis. In fact, the word “crush” so often seen in translations is not in the text; rather the word is “strike” or “bruise” in both lines of 3:15b – hardly a fatal blow. So at this point, Adam and Eve are not given a prophetic vision into the future destruction of evil, but are given a picture of an ongoing battle between humankind and the curse. They are given enough hope so that they can continue on with their immediate lives.

Likewise in the wilderness, the Israelites receive a hope of reversal of their curse of death. But the curse itself is not removed – the vipers remain to trouble them. God commands Moses to create a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, and raise it up so that anyone bitten by a viper can look upon it and have the curse reversed. This is almost a magical action because people of this time believed that in some cases a representation of their problem could be the cure or solution. It shows how God is willing to accommodate misunderstandings that people have, in order to be merciful.

It is interesting that the word that is often translated as serpent in Number 21:8 is literally, seraph, meaning “fiery” and a word that is found elsewhere (Isaiah 6) in the Old Testament to represent an angelic being. Perhaps it isn’t coincidence that seraph appears in Numbers and cherubim (kerub), which can be translated “winged creatures wielding flaming swords” (CEB) appears in Genesis 3:24.

In both cases then, the curse falls upon the people but God intervenes to make a way to reverse the curse and bring hope. But will the curse always remain with humankind and with the Israelites?

Jesus becomes the curse to destroy it forever

I think that what I discussed so far is the appropriate context in which to finally understand Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus that is found in John 3:10-15 and Paul’s exposition found in Galatians 3:10-13.

John 3:10 "Jesus answered, "You are a teacher of Israel and you don't know these things? ¹¹ I assure you that we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you don't receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Human One. ¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One be lifted up ¹⁵ so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. (CEB)

Galatians 3:10 All those who rely on the works of the Law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone is cursed who does not keep on doing all the things that have been written in the Law scroll. [Deut. 27:26] ¹¹ But since no one is made righteous by the Law as far as God is concerned, it is clear that the righteous one will live on the basis of faith. [Hab. 2:4] ¹² The Law isn't based on faith; rather, the one doing these things will live by them. [Lev. 18:5] ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us—because it is written, Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed. [Deut. 21:23] (CEB)

Just as Adam and Eve are archetypes that represent the entirety of humankind, Jesus is the new archetype that represents all of humankind. It is, in this sense that Jesus Christ is our substitute. Jesus did not go to the cross to satisfy some kind of God’s wrath or to intervene in some supposed penalty imposed by God. Rather, Jesus willingly took upon himself all that the curse of sin and death represents, and destroyed it by becoming the archetypal curse itself and taking it into the realm of death. Through his resurrection, Jesus Christ demonstrated that the power of sin and death would remain in the grave, and that the power of love and sacrifice survives. This power of love is the power to restore and redeem all humankind from the curse that has infected them.

Thus we can see now how it is appropriate that Jesus represents himself as a serpent. The serpent represents the curse, and Jesus becomes the curse. In physics when matter and antimatter collide, both particles are annihilated and great energy is released. When Jesus, the source of life, took upon himself the curse, the very opposite of who he is, could a similar thing have happened? Both the man Jesus and the curse of death, as they were before, are annihilated and no longer exist. In its place a new archetypal man, Jesus Christ, is resurrected with the unlimited energy to restore, heal, and re-create all who come to him and trust him. (The details of the metaphor aren’t perfect, but I hope the illustration suffices.)

Summary: We are Part of the New Creation

I think 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 provides a fitting summary and conclusion.

2 Corinthians 5:14 The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: one died for the sake of all; therefore, all died. ¹⁵ He died for the sake of all so that those who are alive should live not for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised.

¹⁶ So then, from this point on we won't recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn't how we know him now. ¹⁷ So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!

¹⁸ All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ¹⁹ In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people's sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.

²⁰ So we are ambassadors who represent Christ. God is negotiating with you through us. We beg you as Christ's representatives, "Be reconciled to God!" ²¹ God caused the one who didn't know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God. (CEB)

We are no longer captives to the curse of sin and death. We are part of the new creation. We have this message to spread to the world: that God’s love compelled him to take sin and death upon himself so that all humankind could be rescued from it. If God is like that, who or what do we have to fear? What is stopping you from trusting God and being reconciled to him?

Let us pray…