Lent 4
Sometimes when we have dreadful pain we say that is excruciating. We usually have little understanding of what the pain is like which brought this word to us. It is taken from crucifixion, a punishment used extensively by the Roman army. Those of you who have seen the film Spartacus will know about the brutality of the Roman army. The film shows the crucifixion of 6,000 slaves who followed Spartacus in the slave uprising. They died a literally excruciating death, a slow death followed by the dreadful visible display to warn others, as vultures picked over the body.
So the expression ' they will crucify her' comes from the life of Jesus. He was propelled to stardom for a few brief years of his life, during which he said and did remarkable things. He spoke of the importance of the individual, he said that sometimes people have terrible things go wrong in their lives and its not their fault. Jesus was tolerant of others and refused to ignore the outcasts. When they brought a woman to him who had committed adultery he refused to condemn her and sent her accusers away.
Jesus showed us that God is a lot more understanding, loving and forgiving than human beings and for his efforts he was crucified, nailed to a wooden cross to die. But his words of God's love continue today and speak powerfully to us this Easter time.
Opening Verse of Scripture Psalm 107
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray
Merciful Lord, absolve your people from their offences, that through your bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins which by our frailty we have committed; grant this, heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Merciful Lord, you know our struggle to serve you: when sin spoils our lives and overshadows our hearts, come to our aid and turn us back to you again; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
First Bible Reading Numbers 21.4–9
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.’ Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
Second Reading Ephesians 2.1–10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Gospel Reading John 3.14–21
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
Post Communion Prayer
Lord God, whose blessed Son our Saviour gave his back to the smiters and did not hide his face from shame: give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Commentary
Snakes are deaf to airborne sounds, so deaf that they cannot hear the snake charmers flute! Snakes are slow, the fastest recorded speed is about 13km/hr, they go a lot slower than we can run. Many burrowing snakes are also blind. However snakes do have a strong sense of smell, which they use to a large extent for hunting food. They also have an extra chemical sense used for hunting. This means that they can be very dangerous, because out of about 2500 different species of snake, approximately 20 % are poisonous. It was obviously one of these venomous snakes that the Israelites bumped into in the desert and which poisoned them and caused many to die.
In the reading from John’s Gospel, we hear Jesus speaking of Moses lifting up a serpent in the desert during the Exodus when people were being bitten by deadly poisonous snakes. Many died - but those who looked at the bronze snake on a staff that Moses lifted up survived, they were cured of the effects of the snake bite. Now there are many ways to deal with a snake bite, but looking at a bronze snake on a pole would not be found in any medical text books. Instead you need to find an antidote or antivenin, something that will reverse the effect of the poison. So the cure which Moses provided was a miraculous spiritual event, it was God’s way of saving the people, all they had to do was trust in the cure provided.
That action of Moses became a visual demonstration of what was later to take place on the cross. We all know the bad news, that humanity is poisoned by sin, just like the Israelites were struck down by those poisonous snakes. Fortunately there is also good news, that Jesus is an antidote or antivenin for sin.
He becomes for us just like the bronze snake on a staff, when we look at Jesus and put our trust in him we find God’s cure for all that is wrong in our world. There is no medicine which we can manufacture to cure the evil poison which infects humanity, but Jesus is the cure God has provided for the sin and evil. God looks at his poisoned world, but instead of condemning it, he provides the means whereby it can be healed and saved This is not something we do - it is entirely the work of God, his gift to us. So Jesus calls for us to look at his cross and see that he has taken all the world’s darkness upon himself and in so doing we are miraculously healed. Thank God. Charles Royden
Hymns
- Love divine
- My song is love unknown
- King of Glory, King of Peace
- Just as I am
- God is love, his the care
- Amazing grace
- The King of Love my shepherd is
Meditation
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. - Victor Hugo -
