The Feast of the Holy Trinity
June 12, A + D 2022
Look to Jesus,
Lifted Up for You (John 3:1-17)
Again with the
serpent raised on a pole.
In the year 2000, we moved from Pennsylvania
to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I began studying at Concordia Theological
Seminary. My first class, as it is for most, was Biblical Greek, a six-week
make-or-break intensive course, the traditional summer baptism by fire at Fort
Wayne. A bunch of men, ages ranging from
mid-twenties to middle age, thrown into studying a strange language with
complicated grammar, and even a different alphabet. It’s quite the challenge.
To relieve stress from class, many of us
used to go to the seminary gym to play basketball. One afternoon, I stood
looking at the logo of the seminary, which was painted in the center circle of
the court. It consists of a biblical verse, in Greek of course, a globe, a
cross with three circles, and next to it, a serpent. I understood
everything, except the meaning of the snake.
I asked a second-year seminarian who passed by about the snake. He looked at me in surprise and said: “It’s a
reference to Jesus. You know, like He says in John 3.” “Oh yeah, of
course,” I nodded. But I did not
know.
In 2000, I was 34 years old, 34 years mostly
quite active in the Lutheran Church. But I had no memory of this biblical
account. I went to find the reference,
and, as we heard 5 minutes ago in today's Gospel, it’s true. Jesus makes a
comparison between the time when Moses raised a bronze serpent on a pole and
his own death on the Cross of Calvary. How strange that I had no
understanding nor memory of this serpent reference, especially considering that
it is mentioned only two verses before the most famous verse in the entire
Bible, John 3:16: For God loved the world in this way, that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life. God's act of love, the giving of his Son, was
not giving Him to us as a friend or teacher or counselor, although Jesus is all
those things. No, in John 3:16 Jesus is talking about how the Father
gives the Son into the suffering of the Cross. This is Love. This is Salvation. Like
the snake on a pole. How strange! But maybe not so strange that
I had forgotten, or perhaps ignored this story.
Maybe I found it uncomfortable.
With human logic we cannot understand how the
one true God can also be three distinct persons. This can be disturbing to
our small minds. But perhaps not as off-putting as the story of the fiery
serpent, made of bronze, put up on a pole by Moses, to rescue those rebellious
Israelites who had just been bitten by poisonous snakes. These punishing serpents were sent by God
when Israel complained against the Lord and his representative, Moses. A horrible death penalty for rebellious
sinners, very harsh. Then it is undone simply
by a glance at a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole.
Do you remember the story? We heard it
just three Sundays ago, the Old Testament reading for the Sixth of Easter, from Numbers
21: 4-9. Let's hear it again: The Israelites were continuing
on their pilgrimage in the desert, and the people became impatient
because of the journey. 5 So the people spoke
against God and Moses: “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the
wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we are disgusted
with this miserable food.” They were referring to the manna,
the daily bread the Lord gave to them with the morning dew, bread from heaven,
sent to sustain them in the barren desert. The LORD was not pleased with them.
6 Then
the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the
people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 So
the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against
the Lord and against you; intercede with the Lord, that He
will remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. 8 Then
the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and put it
on a pole; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, and looks at
it, will live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze
serpent and put it on the pole; and it came about, that if a serpent bit
someone, and he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
What a harsh and strange episode. Which is harder for you, to contemplate that
the one true God is, at the same time, three persons, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, or to consider that God did this thing with the serpents? And then He inspired Moses to record this
strange story, a story about the sin of the Israelites and the wrath of God, wrath
which was reversed by a simple glance at a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole.
However this fiery serpent story strikes
you, Jesus used it. Jesus himself
connects the bronze serpent
with His central work, His being raised up upon a
Roman cross to fulfill the justice and love of God, and thus save the world. If you are a mathematician or you really like
logic, perhaps the fact that God is one being, and at the same time is three
persons, bothers you more. Or perhaps snakes are scary and disgusting to
you. Either way, the good news today is
that the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the story of the fiery serpent on a
pole are inseparably intertwined.
Ok, maybe I should say this is the Law and
the Gospel of today. That is, the
complete proclamation of the will of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, this
Law and Gospel is what cannot be separated from the snake on a pole, which
points us to the Cross and the substitutionary death that Jesus Christ
suffered.
Although it is difficult to contemplate,
Jesus Christ is our serpent. He isn’t
made of fiery bronze, but He did cloth and hide the fiery reality of God’s
glory within the human flesh He took from His mother, the Virgin Mary. In the person of Jesus, the Holy, Holy, Holy
God became a human being, to take our place under the wrath of the Holy, Holy,
Holy God. He was raised on a pole with a
crossbar, lifted up to suffer the wrath of God in our place. Look at
Him! The message of the Holy Spirit,
today and every day, is that in the once for all raised serpent named Jesus,
God has given us salvation. As Saint Paul explains: God
made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Through your baptism, the Spirit has united
you with Christ, joined you to his Cross, and to his Resurrection. Look at
your Snake, who has saved you. For you, Jesus swallowed the venom, down to
the last drop in the chalice, so that now, the chalice of the Lord carries the
medicine of immortality, the New Testament in the blood of Christ that forgives
all our sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, Amen.
So look to Jesus, lifted up. Do you think of sin but lightly? Have you been taken in by the lie that all
these laws in God’s Word are really no big deal? Look to Jesus, lifted up, suffering in your
place, and see how seriously God hates sin.
Have you fallen into habitual sins, so much that you can’t imagine life
without them? Do you gossip and run
people down all the time? Do you mock others,
other souls for whom God died? Are you
engaging in sex outside of marriage, whether in the flesh or on a screen? Do you steal from work, or cheat on your
taxes? Woe to me, and woe to you: for sinners cannot stand in the presence of
God, and live.
Jesus was lifted up to set you free from
sin. He does not set you free to
sin. Jesus lifted up calls you to leave
sin behind and walk with Him in holiness.
Look to Jesus, lifted up for you, and repent. Repent of your sins and your sinfulness; ask
the Holy Spirit to help you leave them behind.
Repent, look to Jesus, and be healed.
Forgiven. Right now, for
real. In Christ, you are forgiven and set
free from bondage to sin. Stop clinging
to your sins and look to Jesus, lifted up, to take away your sins, and set you
free.
Are you lonely, isolated, even in the middle
of a room full of people? Even in the
midst of your family? Satan and the
world and especially today the digital unreality that so entices us, these all
seek to isolate and separate you, from other people, and from God. Isolation leads to death. Loneliness is crushing, but you are not
alone. Look to Jesus, lifted up, for
you. God’s Son, who from eternity enjoyed
perfect love and community with the Father and the Holy Spirit, became utterly
alone, dying on the Cross, rejected and cut off from humanity. Even more, for an intensely dark time, Jesus
was separated from the love of God.
Jesus was completely alone, abandoned by His own Father, so you don’t
ever have to be.
Jesus loves you. He has given you His Spirit, and He has made
you a member of His family, the Church of the formerly lonely, this messy bunch
of sinners, who are just as afraid of loneliness as you are, but who, like you,
have been found by Jesus. Look around at
your forgiven family, and look together, to Jesus, lifted up, for you.
Are you tortured by guilt? Or maybe by another person, who is supposed
to love you? Do you feel you are you
losing at life? Look to Jesus, lifted
up, for you, and know that His loss is your victory. His death brings you life. His suffering wins you glory.
Look to Jesus, who by the Holy Spirit has
given you the new birth of Water and the Word, washing you clean and claiming
you for His Father at the Baptismal Font.
Look to Jesus, ascended on high to the Father’s right hand, and yet also
present, invisibly but truly, in the bread and wine, present to forgive,
restore, and empower you to live another day, another week, as His beloved
disciple, His little brother or sister, a Christian, bound for eternal joy and
glory, come what may.
Look to Jesus, lifted up for you, and know
that God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has loved you, in this way. God has loved you, and does love you, and
will love you, in Christ Jesus, for eternity.
To Him be the glory, dominion and praise, today, and forever and ever,
Amen.
The Feast of the Holy Trinity
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