Healing in the Wilderness – 14 March, 2021

John 3:14-21

Jesus is on trial throughout the Fourth Gospel and the reader has access to all of the testimony. The questions for Jesus become a question about our own response in faith. In these verses, we are taken back into the wilderness to remember the story of the serpent lifted up on the pole.

Jesus links both his own crucifixion and his return to heaven as being lifted up. This is not mere wordplay. Later we will hear more in John that Jesus’s glorification is by no other means but the cross (e.g., John 12:32–32). Even as God provided for the people in days past with a healing sign, so now God has taken the initiative to send his only Son. It is no longer a matter of returning to covenant obedience in order to live. The life we have been offered is found in this new action by God and our response to that new life is a crucial decision. . . . There is no waiting for eternal life. Look upon the one who has been crucified and live. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

Ephesians 2:1-10

When Paul addresses the church in Ephesus, he describes a state of human affairs that feels like one is back in the wilderness, following a path toward death instead of the life that God offers in covenant love. It is not a momentary rebellion but a whole pattern of actions and choices that has consumed us and led us far away.

. . . In contrast to our sorry state is the announcement of what God has done to completely reverse this journey unto death and make us alive again. It is all God’s initiative, God’s mercy, God’s power. Dying people did not seek God’s deliverance; God sought them and saved them.

When God raised Christ from the dead, we also were raised with him. Steadfast love is revealed in surprising, unexpected ways. Exposition of this passage must not get so mired in explaining the theology of God’s grace that we miss the exuberance of the writer in sharing this passage from death to life. On the other side of new life, we are encouraged to good works as a sign of our thanksgiving and as a testimony to all the gifts that God gives. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

Numbers 21:4-9

The people in the wilderness have put themselves into something worse than wilderness as the chaos of poisonous snakes is unleashed upon them. They have put themselves outside the shelter of covenant relationship and the consequences are fatal. All of that changes when they turn around and turn back to the relationship. . . .

What cannot be controlled by the people can be transformed by God into a lasting symbol of God’s saving power. On its own, this serpent atop a pole might be dismissed as a magic prop. However, it is does not stand on its own; it visibly points back to the covenant with God that truly brings healing and life. We are not far from a sacramental understanding. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

Stephen C. Kolderup recently served as interim pastor for South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church in Florida.

Homily Service 42, no. 2 (2008): 45-55.