Gazing on Deliverance

 HOMILY, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY – FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR B

MARCH 14, 2021

 

TEXTS:                      NUMBERS 21:4-9; JOHN 3:14-21

 

 

            The two lessons today are wonderfully symbiotic. The span nearly 1,300 years of faith history and bridge two great events of deliverance.

 

            The first lesson, from the fourth book of the Torah known as Numbers, has the Hebrew people in the midst of their great deliverance known as the Exodus – from slavery in Egypt to life in the land of milk and honey.  Mark that as roughly 1,250 years before Jesus.

 

            To give you a sense of perspective, 1,200 years before this moment, indigenous tribes and buffalo freely roamed this continent.  To further make the point, Christopher Columbus would not set out his journey for 500 years.

 

            The Hebrew people, weary from wandering aimlessly in the parched, barren wilderness, were afflicted. They were stricken with fiery serpents which tortured them with untold misery. They begged Moses for relief.

 

            We don’t know precisely what took place to alleviate their suffering – at least clinically. But we do know, based on the passage from Numbers, that Moses had a bronze image of the fiery serpent put on a pole, and anyone who gazed on it in faith was healed.

 

            We now believe those fiery serpents were Guinea worms – a parasite that once afflicted millions through contaminated water in Asia and Africa.  Thanks to the work of the Carter Center, Guinea worms are now found only in sub-Saharan Africa and may soon be the second disease eliminated from the face of the globe. Smallpox was the first.

 

            But the issue which Jesus comes to address does not respond as easily to medicinal therapeutics. The human condition, which afflicts all people, is stubborn and has its roots not in the wilderness but is deeply entwined in the roots of our essential humanity.

 

            Jesus is early in his ministry when he tells us that he must be lifted up – like the serpent on the pole – for the gift of eternal life to be unlocked.  He is, of course, referring to being lifted up on the cross.  And our response of faith in God’s offering of the Divine self in sacrifice seals the gift of fullness of life.

 

            The theology of this gracious gifts is expressed in this gospel passage – but it is still a divine mystery.  But the circle of healing is complete.