Look and Live!

Look and Live!

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

March 10, 2024

Year B: The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Numbers 21:4-9

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Ephesians 2:1-10

John 3:14-21

I hope you know that I could stand up here all day and talk about the many blessings of serving as the Rector of this church.

But, don’t worry. Since we don’t have all day, I’ll just mention that Sue and I feel very fortunate to live in the beautiful rectory that you have provided for us.

Frankly, it seems a bit much, but we’ll take it!

` That said, I do miss being able to just walk out my door and take a walk. It took a while for me to get used to there not being a sidewalk, that I can only walk as far as the end of the driveway.

Actually, that’s not totally true.

Our sexton Ricky Sigai maintains a mown path through the wide field between the rectory and the western edge of the cemetery.

One morning not long after we had moved in, I decided to walk that path to work.

I wore my sneakers and placed my dress shoes in a bag, and made my way through the field – a really beautiful trip of about a third of a mile.

Me being me, I stopped a couple of times to take pictures of our campus from this new-to-me vantage point.

Anyway, it was a very pleasant and uneventful walk – and I remember thinking that I might do this on days when the weather was good and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need my car.

Later that morning, maybe because I felt a little proud of myself, I told this story to the “crafty” members of what’s now called the “Thursday Morning Group.”

And one of them said, “You better watch out for snakes.”

What???

She said, there are probably a lot of snakes out in that field.

Now, because I looked it up, I know that there are only two species of poisonous snakes in Maryland, that most snakes are perfectly harmless, but I have to say that this little piece of information changed my view of my pleasant walk through the field.

I’ve taken that trip a few more times but always stepping gingerly, always looking out for any slithering and hissing surprises.

In the ancient world, people feared snakes and also respected them.

They were sometimes seen as symbols of healing and fertility.

But, fairly or not, in the Bible, the snake – or the serpent – is almost always viewed in a negative light, including right from the start in the Garden of Eden when the serpent convinces the first man and woman to make a big mistake.

And in today’s Old Testament lesson, we heard a disturbing snake story.

The setting is the long exodus from Egypt and the Israelites are once again complaining about the trip – they’re sick of the food, which, by the way, was the manna given them by God.

They’re sort of the ultimate example of a long road trip with kids in the back seat bellyaching, “Are we there yet?”

Well, the story goes that God gets so fed up with their complaining that God sends poisonous snakes to bite and kill them.

No surprise, this gets the Israelites to quickly change their tune.

And God tells Moses to create a bronze snake, stick it on a pole, and anyone who gets bitten by a snake should look at the pole and live.

And that’s just what they do.

Now, if you find this story disturbing, you’re in good company.

First of all, there’s the whole issue of God unleashing poisonous snakes on people.

And there’s also more than a whiff of magic and idolatry in this story.

Later on, that’s what bothered the rabbis.

So they suggested that Israelites weren’t so much looking at the bronze snake but gazing at God above, the Source of healing and life.

And this might be what Jesus has in mind in today’s gospel lesson.

Jesus will be lifted up – lifted up on the cross – exalted on the cross – revealing the bottomless depth of God’s love for the world.

God loves the world so much that the Son of God takes the worst that the world can dish out – betrayal, rejection, cruelty, suffering, and death – the Son of God takes all of our deadly venom and triumphs.

There’s a 19th Century hymn called “Look and Live.”

Maybe some of you know it.

We actually can’t sing it right now – not just because of my voice - but because it contains the word that we absolutely do not say during Lent.

But, editing out that word, it goes like this:

“I’ve a message from the Lord…

The message unto you I’ll give.

‘Tis recorded in His Word…

It is only that you “look and live.”

“Look and live,” my brother, live.

Look to Jesus now and live.

‘Tis recorded in His Word…

It is only that you “look and live.”

Look and live.

Look to Jesus now and live.

As always, there are venomous snakes out there slithering and hissing and biting, injecting their deadly venom into the world and, worst of all, into our hearts.

There’s so much poison flowing through our veins – fear, violence, wrath, greed, deceit.

There’s so much poison flowing through our veins, wreaking havoc and leading us along the way of death.

Fortunately, there is an antidote to this venom.

Look and live.

Look to Jesus now and live.

Today is the Fourth Sunday in Lent.

We are drawing close to Easter, a closeness symbolized by today’s switch of liturgical color from penitential purple to rejoicing rose.

We know that the path ahead will be difficult and dangerous. There really are poisonous snakes around.

But we can always look to Jesus and live.

We can be at the foot of the Cross and look in wonder at the Son of God who gives away his life, revealing the bottomless depth of God’s love for us, showing us what God is really like, showing us who we are meant to be.

Look and live.

And we can look to Jesus’ friends in the world right now – Jesus’ friends right here in our community – sacrificing so that the guests at the Community Crisis Center can wash and care for themselves properly – teaching our children the Way of God’s Love in Sunday School – making sandwiches for people we’ll never meet at Paul’s Place – gathering together to pray, worship, serve, and study, even though we come from different places and surely disagree about all kinds of things.

God loves the world so much - yes, even the snakes - God loves the world so much that the Son of God takes the worst that the world can dish out – rejection, cruelty, suffering, and death – the Son of God takes all of our deadly venom and triumphs.

So, no matter how many slithering and hissing and biting snakes are around, trying to inject their venom into our world and into us, we also triumph when we:

Look and live.

Look to Jesus now and live.

Amen.