Snake Bit
A sermon by Brent J. Eelman
First Presbyterian Church Clarks Summit
March 14, 2021
Note: This manuscript is edited for oral delivery and consequently does not honor all the rules of proper grammar. Please forgive!
Numbers 21:4-9
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,[a] to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5 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.” 6 Then the Lord sent poisonous[b] serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7 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. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous[c] serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9 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.
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 judgment, 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.”
“Snake bit!” It is an expression that we use when something we thought was well planned, just goes haywire. I personally associate the term with two types of experiences: family vacations, and church youth work trips.
Thirty five years ago, I was a young, eager, and ambitious minister serving a small town congregation in Wisconsin. We had a confirmation class of 8 students and that June, following their confirmation Sunday, we planned to go on a work trip to southern Colorado. I managed to borrow a passenger van. We needed another chaperone for the female confirmands, and a young woman in the church came highly recommended. It was a 2 1/2 day trip, stopping on the way at churches to sleep for the night.
It was just outside of Denver that the van started to act up. Something was wrong with the fuel line. There was a strong odor of gasoline as the van chugged and stopped. I managed to get to a service station to see if they could fix it. The confirmation class waited in the van along with the chaperone. When I walked back to the van, I saw that she had pulled out a cigarette and was smoking. 8 confirmation students who were semi-serious about the commitments they made to Jesus and the Church, suddenly had faces of spiritual dread. A few were praying.
It never got better than that. 3 days into the camping experience, one boy developed acute appendicitis and I had to drive the van through narrow mountain roads with him writhing in pain. He had emergency surgery and was flown home. The work camp finally ended and we were driving home. It was in the plains of Nebraska that I noticed a large black funnel like cloud in the distance. I estimated it was about 20 miles away. I thought that we could out-run it and make it to the next town about 5 miles away. We did. Just in time. We ran into a house and into a basement of some family in Nebraska, just as the tornado went by. We introduced ourselves down there in that basement, and they were quite hospitable, considering the circumstances. They were Methodist, as I recall. The trip was snake bit!
But trips and journeys sometimes are. Consider the Hebrew people’s journey in the wilderness as it is recorded in the Bible. Right after they are freed from Egypt and are pursued by the Egyptian army, they find themselves with their backs to the Red Sea and the army closing in. They immediately say to Moses, “Why have you brought us out here, only to be slaughtered or drown? Slavery wasn’t so bad!”
Then they are at Marah and the water is bitter. “What shall we drink?” God provided water.
Then they begin to complain about the lack of provisions. “We wish we were still in Egypt. We had meat then.” God responded with quail and manna.
In Rephidim, they run out of water again and get into a row with Moses, questioning his leadership.
At Taberah, the people start complaining about the manna. They are tired of eating it.
Then Moses sends spies to check out the Promised Land and their report is that the inhabitants of the land are so big that they would destroy them.
You get the idea. This was not a joyous experience. Poor Moses… the people whined and complained all the way to the Promised Land. Our text this morning states “and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.” One could say that their journey was snake bit.
And then it happened. Real snakes! Poisonous snakes! Real snake bites! People died. Once again the complaints start and Moses intercedes on behalf of the people. This time the command from God is strange. Moses is instructed to make a likeness of the snakes and put it on a pole. If the people look at it, they will become immune to the venom of the snakes.
It seems a strange command, but no stranger than how we reacted to small pox in the 18th century. Onesimus, a slave to the minister, Cotton Mather, told him of the traditional African prevention for small pox. He explained to the famous preacher the process of variation, where some of the infection was introduced into the body through a small break in the skin. It was the beginning of small pox vaccine. Later it would become safer when cow pox, a variant of the virus was used. The idea is the same. Experiencing the evil whether looking at it, or introducing it into your body was the beginning of overcoming it and moving past it.
But the Hebrew people were not merely looking at a snake on a stick. God was calling them to look at and acknowledge the venom of their own disobedience and evil. It was the first step of healing and fullness of health. They needed to see and acknowledge the venom that was destroying them.
When we gather to worship, one of the first things that we do is acknowledge our sinfulness in the prayer of confession. We figuratively look upon the venomous serpents that threaten our lives, our sinfulness, and own it. In the process of owning it through confession, we are freed from it.
We, too, have been on a journey through a wilderness: the wilderness of this pandemic. We entered this journey unprepared and like the Hebrew people, we murmured and complained.
“We have no toilet paper!” That was the cry during that first month. Then it was the closing of businesses, stores, and other enterprises that we enjoyed. We resisted and fought with authorities (and even the science) as we journeyed through a strange land. We resisted mask wearing. We insisted on our “freedom.” We got sick, and many died. Let us be honest: we have suffered harder than any other nation, not because the disease is more powerful here… no.. it is because we are who we are. Nearly 30 million cases and 530 thousand deaths. More casualties than any war we have been in, with the exception of the Civil War. The last 12 months have been truly snake bit!
I believe that the miracle vaccines are paving the road to health and recovery, but full recovery (the recovery of our collective soul) will necessitate us looking at the serpent coiled on the pole. We need to look at, acknowledge, understand, and repent from the sinfulness that we have wrought upon ourselves in the midst of this pandemic.
Following the demise of apartheid in South Africa, Dullah Omar, the minister of justice stated that
“a commission is a necessary exercise to enable South Africans to come to terms with their past on a morally accepted basis and to advance the cause of reconciliation."
The new government of South Africa established a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” as a means to deal with the evil of racial apartheid. The first step was to tell the truth, to look at the serpent of apartheid and acknowledge its evil reality. Healing and reconciliation required telling the story of evil and its resultant suffering and owning it. Only then could the weary nation move forward.
The journey of this pandemic has surfaced a number of evils that haunt us.
Racism,
inequity in our health care system,
our justice system,
and our educational system.
A disregard for truth
It has also revealed the ugliness in our collective soul as we fight with each other instead of the pandemic. We have heard the cries of the politicians that it is time to move on from this, time to work together. We won’t, we can’t…. unless we can summon the moral courage to acknowledge the truth of who we are, the truth… the truth…. We need to look at the serpent of our own evil as it dangles on the pole of our denial. We need to look hard if we are to live.
The lectionary has paired this text with a portion of the 3rd Chapter of the Gospel according John. Most of us know by heart John 3:16. But the two verses that precede that are:
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.
Jesus was referencing the cross. He would be lifted up on the cross, just as the serpent was held up by Moses. This, the cross, would bring healing, hope, indeed life itself.
The cross is such a strange symbol of faith. It was an instrument of execution. A religion that had people wear a guillotine or electric chair as a piece of jewelry would be regarded as downright weird. That is the irony of our faith. We have sacralized a symbol of evil and death and have discovered that it is the door to hope, healing, and life. But we need to own it. We need look at it. We need to see our own evil, our own sinfulness in it. It is us.
The 17th century hymn writer, Isaac Watts, wrote a hymn that shook the religious establishment because his lyrics were a complete break with traditional hymnody. He wrote a hymn in the first person that placed the singer before the cross.
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
In the act of surveying (staring at the cross), staring at the reality of human evil and sinfulness, he could begin to let go of the past and move forward toward wholeness and salvation.
This past year, this Covid year, has been snake bit. We are journeying through a wilderness that is new, dangerous, and treacherous, only with the hope that someday it will be over and we will arrive at some type of normal…. A normal we have not seen yet, indeed a Promised Land opened to us by the miracle of vaccines. Our journey, heretofore, has been snake bit. As we begin the process of vaccination and immunization, let us also acknowledge the need for a spiritual immunization. It begins with staring at the serpent of our own sinfulness on the pole of our own pride and denial. It begins with owning the truth of who we have been and who we are. Doing so, with the hope of genuine reconciliation. It begins with surveying the cross that still hangs over our life…..
and heals.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
This is the Good News. Amen.
