Look Up and Live! :: John 3:14-15
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, in this way it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up in order that everyone all who believe might have eternal life in him.
Have you noticed how the word focus has become a buzz-word in our world?
“I have to focus. I have to zero in on what I’m doing. I’ve got to concentrate ... to focus my eyes ... focus my mind ... focus my energies.” There is website after website providing what they call Useful Tips for Improving Your Focus.
We Christians have to focus as well. We are called to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2). Focusing on Jesus is not easy; the distractions are many. The devil, the world, and our sinful nature ... our lusts and passions ... our desires, our jealousys ... are constantly drawing us away from God ... drawing us inward into a focus on ourselves. Good times distract us; bad times distract us. We are, as Luther wrote, “curved in on ourselves” ... focused on me, myself, and I ... on what is special for me.
In this Lenten season, that begs the questions: What is the focus of your life? Is it really on Jesus? Or have you been fixated on your problems ... or on your solutions? Are you focused on taking care of your family? Or have you turned inward bemoaning the lack of health, wealth? Maybe your focus is on guilt or condemnation.
Well, on this Second Sunday of Lent, our Lord is calling to us with a Gospel of great importance to refocus.
LOOK UP TO JESUS, THE CRUCIFIED ONE. LOOK UP AND LIVE
Our New Testament reading from the Gospel of John is a very familiar reading. We LOVE this passage, don’t we? ... You know it well, don’t you? Jesus said you must be born again! ... And John added, God so loved the world that he gave and gave and gave.
But today there is something even bigger ringing in my ears, something that has grabbed my FOCUS. Did you see and hear it, too? Look up because just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, in this way it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up in order that everyone who believes might have eternal life in him.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, if this isn’t your focus, today I urge you to refocus.
One of my favorite things about the Gospel according to John is how deeply interwoven this book is with the rest of scripture. In this one passage, John discusses creation and baptism, faith and forgiveness. He unpacks prophecy and he reveals prophecy. But most importantly, under it all is the rich history of the Old Testament, of how God saved his people from their sin and showed them the cross.
Here, we can hear Psalm 121 ...
I lift my eyes to the hills; from where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
He will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
Jesus also unpacks for us Numbers chapter 21, which I wish had been our Old Testament reading for the day. If you haven’t read Numbers lately, you should do it again soon. After God rescued his rebellious people from captivity in Egypt, where they were being beaten and abused, held in bondage ... after God crushed the army that was pursuing them ... after God began giving his people daily bread to nourish and sustain them on their journey into the promised land ... the people of Israel began losing their FOCUS on the one who saves them, complaining all the way.
It’s not enough, they moaned. We want more. Give us more. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. ... Why do you persist in giving us this worthless food? We loathe this worthless food.
Like the Israelites, we are masters at losing our focus and blaming anyone and everyone else for our problems. Anyone and everyone, that is, except ourselves. Our days are long. Our work is demanding. We despise self-assessment. And too often, we are ungrateful, loathing our lot in life. Have you tasted the bread he gives us at the Lord’s Supper? What’s so special about that, we say?
Grumbling at God for our predicament comes more naturally than asking our Heavenly Father for help, believing that we are His true children so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.
As a result, we quickly become discouraged, and we lose focus on God’s promises to us. That is to say, we think we don’t want ... or even need ... his forgiveness of sins.
We need a new focus ... we need to be begotten from above, or if you prefer, to be born again.
In response to the grumbling of his people, God sent fiery serpents into their camp. These serpents were not actually fiery; but when they bit man, it sure felt like it. And many died as a result. The Israelites quickly realized they had lost their focus on the proper ways to worship the Lord God Almighty.
So God gave them a hint. Look up, see your sin, and you will live. Focus on what the Lord your God is doing for you.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, focus on the cross. Faith is not a work of man. Faith in your faith is nothing but man-made mumbo jumbo. There is nothing you can do to bring about your salvation. Faith is a work of God. Faith enables us to focus on all that is good and true and steadfast in our lives. God gives us this faith to receive the promises of God.
As Jesus told Nicodemus ... Unless man is begotten from above ... or you could say born again ... unless he is begotten from above he cannot see the kingdom of God ... he cannot focus.
So the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.
It might have been expected that the Israelites who have been bitten by the serpents would shun this cure, for it is only natural for us to doubt that by merely focusing on a bronze serpent nailed to a pole ... that it would give us new life. But faith in Christ, the Son of God and true man, does indeed accomplish this.
That is exactly why we have scripture. The Word of God refocuses our lives in Christ. Through it, he calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light. The Lord shows us our sin and our need for a savior. Or as the psalmist says ...
The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore
He does this by uniting himself with us. As sinners, we couldn’t go to him. We couldn’t see him. We couldn’t hear him. But he who knew no sin has become sin for us and he has lifted himself up on the cross for all to see so that all who have faith in him, who faith in his promises ... will not die. God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order to save the world.
Jesus was cursed so that we might live.
Looking to the cross isn’t any work at all. But this is exactly how God showed his people that he would save you from your sin. The pole ... the cross ... shows a lifeless, stiff, defeated serpent which can harm the people no more. God sent his Son from heaven to be nailed to the cross, where he hangs like a serpent ... or to use Isaiah’s word ... like a worm, the object of scorn and ridicule. He did this so that whoever believes or better yet ... who has faith in the life, death, and resurrection of this crucified Christ will not be lost and will not die the eternal death but will have everlasting life with God in paradise.
The serpent ... just like the cross ... shows all the true Israelites of the world how Yahweh renders sin, death, and the devil powerless and harmless.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, you who have been bitten by the serpent of original sin have no need to fear. Look up and see your crucified savior hanging on a cross.
Look up and live.
God has poured out his Holy Spirit upon you in your baptism ... giving you a new focus in life, a new birth. Through this baptism, God has opened your eyes to focus on the truth of who Jesus really is ... the truth of the only begotten son of God ... who carried our sin to the cross and who gave us his righteousness.
Look up and see what your savior, the crucified one, has done for you. In this way it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up in order that everyone all who believe might have eternal life in him.
In this way, Jesus heals us in body and soul, and gives us eternal life.
Not only does the Lord remove the curse of sin and silence the evil foe, he heals our hurts and pain. By God’s command and promise, those who looked up at the bronze serpent were healed. Now you can too.
To be sure, our old enemy, Satan, will continue to tempt you. He will continue to hisses accusations at you, urging you to look away from the cross. But Christ was lifted up on the cross to silence our accuser. It is not the adherents of the law who are to be heirs of the kingdom of God. It is those who believe the promise of new life in Christ given to you in your baptism.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, look up to the crucified Christ, now raised and forever glorified! In him is the light and life that overpowers all darkness and disease of this world. The eternal life he gives us is not only a future gift but also the life now given and is present in the act of believing. Eternal life doesn’t replace our earthly life. Rather, it is that which qualifies our present life as a life that comes from God and so is a gift.
All of you who believe in Jesus have this life. Focus on this new life.
Look up to Jesus, the Crucified One, and live forever!