4^th Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2009

Numbers 21:4-9 - They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

PROGRESS! That’s one way success in life is often defined. Our congregation may not have completely eliminated our debt, but we want to see progress. The economy may not turn around overnight, but as long as there’s progress. Our child may not be getting straight A’s in math, but there needs to be progress. It’s good to see progress. There’s nothing wrong with having goals. And there is no reason to feel bad if we are excited about progress.

It is, however, the height of folly to imagine that our world has made progress when it comes to a person’s relationship to God by nature. But isn’t that what people want to tell us? They try to persuade us that the world is getting better and better all the time. They try to convince us that babies aren’t born sinful. They try to argue that the morals of today are far and away better than they were years ago. If only, they say, we try real hard and do our best, this world can become a heaven on earth. The problem is, after we hear things like this enough, they have a way of sprouting their own false delusions in our minds. We start thinking to ourselves, “You know, I’m not really as bad as the Pharisee’s during Jesus’ day, or the heathen nations of the Old Testament that sacrificed children, or even these stubborn and rebellious Israelites.” Then arises in us that oh so subtle, but oh so damning thought, “I don’t need a Savior quite as badly as others do.” That is why we need to study sections of God’s Word like the one before us today. To look at these Children of Israel and see ourselves, to see that we are no different, and that WE STILL NEED A SAVIOR! We still need him to discipline our impatience and disrespect, and we still need him to forgive all our sins.

God does need to discipline us, as he did the Israelites in this section from the book of Numbers today. It can rightly be said that impatience and disrespect show the sinful, selfish nature we are all born with in this world. Our baptism liturgy in the hymnal speaks to that fact when it reminds us that by nature we are without true fear of God and true faith in God and are condemned to eternal death. We inherit a sinful nature from our parents, who inherited it from theirs, and the human race will never change that fact and we will never make any progress on our own to fix that situation. That nature shows itself with our attitude toward the very first commandment, one that we probably proudly feel we have kept pretty well. But there we are reminded to hold God in a position of honor, to hold him in the highest respect and awe and reverence, and to willingly place ourselves under his authority. Have we always done that, or are there times when we have said, whether with words or actions, “I’m doing pretty well on my own, I don’t need you today God?” Are there time when we tell God to follow our plans and ideas? Are there times we think, or speak, or act in such a way as to imply that God isn’t doing a very good job?

The Israelites in this lesson fell victim to that exact temptation. They had convinced themselves that God wasn’t caring for them enough, or at least wasn’t providing for them in the best way or with the best things, and in general not doing a very good job of being God. Now, if a teacher doesn’t teach, they may well lose their job. If a coach doesn’t coach, he will be replaced. If a general doesn’t train his soldiers, he will find another job. But could the Israelites really make such a charge against God? Well, let’s review the context of this section of Scripture:

The whole nation of Israel left Egypt, by God’s grace, after 430 years in slavery. As God orders things, the Egyptians supplied the Israelites with worldly wealth and valuable possessions. Israel safely crossed the Red Sea while Egypt suffered the opposite fate. Without the aid of a Meijer, God provided the whole nation with what they needed. God did it all. Now the forty years of desert wandering were past. The Israelites had just defeated the nation of Arad. In fact, shortly before his death, Moses would tell the people that not only did their clothes and shoes not wear out during the forty years of wandering, nor did their feet swell, but the Lord had also given them sufficient health and physical strength through this manna that they now were calling “miserable food.” By the miraculously sustaining hand of God, God had done it all!

Yet, in the middle of all this grace from God, they complain. They set themselves over God. They thought they could do a better job. They grumble and in their impatience bring a complaint against Moses and the God who brought them out of Egypt. They show a total and complete lack of holy respect for the God who had done absolutely everything for them. And for this sin, they are disciplined. But they are disciplined for a purpose: their discipline is intended to bring them back to God and his mercy. Poisonous snakes may sound severe, but God will do whatever it takes to get his people’s attention and bring them closer to himself. God will work to change their thinking and actions.

As we read this record, there is no reason for you, in fact, there is no reason for any of the descendants of Adam to think that we have made progress and done any better. The same serious sins plague us that troubled them. Like the Israelites in this text, we also elevate ourselves to a position over God. In our arrogance and sinful pride, our ideas and plans become better and more important and a greater priority than God’s. We make statements like, “I don’t need worship. I don’t need to be regularly in the Word. God will always be there when I need him.” Then, at other times we just simply don’t follow God’s order for things because it doesn’t work the way we want it or as fast as we think it should. In the end, God becomes nothing more than a piece of play-dough that we mold into whatever we need, and then return to its canister for later.

If only we could see how pathetic we are at times like these. If only we could realize that it is our sinful pride that inflates our sense of self importance and leads to our impatience and disrespect. In arrogance we think, how dare God make me suffer? What have I done? What’s wrong with him? And in the middle of it all, we crowd out of our minds all of God’s past mercy and loving kindness. And most ashamedly, we crowd right out of our hearts that miraculous deliverance from the jaws of hell and Satan that God brought about for us at the expensive cost of the blood of his own Son. So yes, the discipline we face for these sins of impatience, and thinking we know better than the holy God, is whole-heartedly deserved. Yet, thank God, because this discipline is intended to correct our sinful behavior, behavior that separates us from God and his love and blessings. This discipline is meant to teach us that there is more to life than earthly things. This discipline is meant to remind us of how much we need a Savior.

The perfect discipline that God brought to the Israelites drove them to look away from themselves to the only one who could help, God. They recognized that they were the problem - their arrogance, their impatience, their desire to have God under their control rather than willingly submitting themselves to God’s control. They came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you.” And we see the grace and love of God as he sends a rescue for those who did repent – the bronze snake. With this bronze snake, though, God was not setting up some superstitious ritual by which simply looking at the snake would make them well. No, God’s remedy called for faith, for the power of the cure was in the words and promises of God. Jesus himself teaches us this in our Gospel lesson, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14,15). By looking at that snake and believing the promise of God connected to that snake, those who were bitten lived.

We too need God to discipline us so that we look away from ourselves to him, the only one who can help. We too need to recognize that we are the problem – our arrogance, our impatience, our desire to have God under our control rather than willingly submitting ourselves to his control. We need to say, “We have sinned, have mercy on us.” Then we need him to forgive all the sins we have committed against him. And here is the most magnificent thing – HE HAS! He has forgiven all our sins. It really is that simple. It really is that clear. We need God and God alone to forgive the debt of sin, and that is exactly what we have.

You see, God’s justice demands that sin be paid for with death in hell. That is just how terrible sin is. But in his love and mercy, God did not want to bring that eternal death upon us. Instead, he wanted us to enjoy the blessings of being in an intimate and loving relationship with him. But that can’t happen as long as our sin is clinging to us. So, God himself provided the ransom price to pay for our sin, his very own Son. So, God himself provided the way for us to be forgiven, and he took out his justice over our sins on his innocent Son. So, God himself provided the way for us to stand perfect in his sight, and he credited the perfect life of his Son to our account. Yes, he did that for you! No, you are not excluded! See what Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned” (John 3:14-18).

Pinch yourself. Really, take a moment and pinch yourself. Did you feel it? If so, then you are part of the world. God loved the world. That means God sent Jesus for you. That means it was for you that Jesus died. God gave his Son to you so that you might be saved. There is no other remedy for sin except looking in faith to Jesus and his atoning cross. We need only to look with trust in God’s promise in Christ. That is what Jesus says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”

Our world demands, craves, and thirsts for progress. But no matter how much “progress” is made, we will never escape the undeniable fact that by nature we are dead in our transgressions and sins. We cannot save ourselves. We need a Savior. We need him to show us our sins, so that in our arrogance we don’t throw our Savior to the side and walk right past him on the road to hell. We need a Savior. We need him to show us his blood that was shed to wash away our sin and make us clean. Because there, in that message, is the only place where the Holy Spirit works to create that faith in us that trusts this cure. Then as completely humble, truly penitent, and forgiven children of God we can say, “It is by grace that I am saved, through faith – and this not from myself, it is the gift of God.” And that, my dear Christian friends, is why we still, so desperately need a Savior. Amen.