So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,”Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live.”Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. From Numbers ch. 21
“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who 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 might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. From John 3.
Happy Holy Cross Sunday. The Holy Cross Feast is always on Sept. 14, but not for a few years has it fallen on a Sunday. But when it does happen on a Sunday, then we do its readings and prayers, rather than the Ordinary Time Sunday ones.
Jesus knew He was going to the Cross—not a week before, nor a month before, but earlier on. As Jesus was teaching His disciples and others, of His comparison to Moses, but of being a far greater figure—Jesus referred to the moment back in the Pentateuch, the early books of the Bible. He asked them to remember back to when the stubborn, rebellious people to Moses got bit by snakes and whose lives were in danger. God used a lesson on the Jews, teaching them that Moses was the One upon whom He had placed His mission and authority over them. Because of their rebellion, God allowed this snake invasion on the Exodus folks. The only way for them to be cured was to come up humbly to Moses, repent and acknowledge him, and then kiss his staff (which had turned into a bronze serpent) When they did kiss it, then they were healed and restored.
So Jesus was teaching in His ministry travels of a comparison of Moses to Himself. Jesus was referring to some healing He would give, similar to Moses’ one, of people coming up to a pole or healing tree-cross, and finding their way along to salvation. Jesus said: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself, says the Lord.” Jn 12:32 This teaching of Jesus made sense to them upon when it really happened: Later. At Calvary. Lifted up on the Cross. A Savior God to heal the repentant of heart and those willing to believe upon His authority.
When the Lord Jesus draws people to Himself, through His Cross and Resurrection, what He is looking for is people who will believe upon Him. (To Repeat the PointJ What Jeseus is looking for is people who will believe upon Him.
Each Sunday gathered at the Eucharist we recite either the Nicene or the Apostles Creed. Our profession of faith begins “I believe” or else “We believe.” Do you realize that eighty-four times in the English translation of John’s Gospel does some variation of the verb “believe” appear in it? It is a key word in the Good News which clearly asserts that the evangelist John’s seeks to stress the significant concept of belief in the life of a follower of Jesus. So———do you and I believe?
What is the nature of this “belief” of which St. John touts? The Greek word translated as “belief” or “believe” is pistis/pisteo (pih-STEES or pih-STEO) which means to be fully grounded in relationship with trust as the key. To” believe” is not just a mental or verbal exercise but an all-embracing relationship, an attitude of love and trust in God.
In our Jubilee program on First Fridays here or 2nd and 4th Mondays at Riderwood, we have been examining the covenant of God to us, and our response back to God. We’ve done lessons in learning about how God has shown to be trustworthy in His “deal” to us, to lead us back Home to Him and freedom from sin and death. We have watched how humankind has, in turn, done with the ongoing relationship offer. We have seen the origin of humanity, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets. What we have seen throughout is that the relationship between God and humanity is central to the notion of “pisteo.” There is a jubilee found in believing God.
We are created for God, as we’ve seen, and we’ve also been created for community, facts seen throughout Scripture beginning with Genesis and concluding with the multitudes in Revelation. (That’s still left to see in our Jubilee program.) God has tried to show us, that, without relationships and community– we languish, it is hard to survive on our own apart from God and others. Me is not a good end of living. WE is the best end of living. God and us.
“Pisteo” or “Pistis”– To Believe, is that word used 84 times in John’s Gospel, as John shows us what the main message of Jesus is to be. So: Will we believe upon Him? Sure, at the start of things we will or did, but will we also along the Way of the Lord, as He leads us, and will it go further on and deeper with Him! This is a relational call.
Are we living in community with others who believe deeply in The Lord? Parish life can be important that way. We gather here to worship, and to meet one another, and help one another.
Our basic relationship in life starts us with Jesus and as we grow in-that relationship our belief grows. But there are many things that get in the way of our faith life and so we are in constant need of healing by letting Christ come more fully into our lives. Let us look to our first reading and reflect upon the time when God healed the repentant Israelites in the wilderness through a bronze serpent fashioned by Moses, which in our Gospel Christ applies this image to His own crucifixion. By being lifted up on the cross He will bring healing and eternal life to those who believe in Him. If Moses’ people talked it out amongst themselves, and realized how they were dying in their breaking away from God and community, did a common response together help? Indeed it did. They helped one another be convinced that they needed to get back on straight course with God, and to follow Moses. It worked the same way with Jesus, if in more of a profound way. They came to repent of their sins, deny themselves, and take up after Jesus.
It is true to say that living the life of fidelity to Jesus is not easy if we take it seriously, there is a cross or crosses we encounter and these can be some big difficulties to face out there. We can be discouraged sometimes by our response, as we can look like the apathetic, careless, complaining mob that traveled with Moses. But we have one another to make the turn back fully to God. We can together believe upon God and find our life again and its meaning.
Or we can seem like the disciples of Jesus in losing our way, in questioning Him in too challenging a way, or in falling asleep by Him in prayer, or in not wanting God to work in some sort of way out of “our approval” or of the “majority rule.” We can decide, even if others leave Our Savior, we will not. We will believe upon Him.
When Jesus taught a hard teaching about Himself being the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of Sin and of needing this Offering, many people left Jesus at that time. Yet Simon Peter, upon having Jesus ask him “Will you also leave?” – he said: No, we won’t leave. You have the words of eternal life! To whom or where would we go—and to spurn You?! We believe You. We will keep following and believing.’ That’s a paraphrase of John 6 and a crucial moment of belief in it.
A week ago in the Lukan gospel, we were told by Jesus to “pick up our own cross and follow Him.” Did you know or catch on or realize what Jesus was personally saying to you by that verse (last Sunday)? Did you ask yourself –What is my cross or are my crosses? Or, What is so hard in my life to change and am I prepared to address them—if it is a failure to believe Jesus?! So each time we recite the Creed and declare that “I believe” or “We believe” in it–let us remember what we are about, that we are into believing God and are willing to show it in the choices ahead to make for God. We have faith in the basics and now want to make it most personal with Jesus, and something we are believing upon together: WE trust Jesus.
So again in another week in September now, can we try to live out the faith gifted to us and may we show in our lives the presence of Jesus to others, even in some glow, that it might attract others to belief and hopefully to salvation.