“Courageous Hope”

Holy Cross Sunday - Sept. 10, 2023

John 3: 13-17 - Numbers 21: 4b-9 - 1 Corinthians 1: 18-24

BRCC - Pastor Deb

Grace to you and peace in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I hate snakes! Are any of you afraid of snakes too? This strange and unnerving story from our Old Testament text in Numbers this morning, is one that’s a bit hard to understand. It’s the story that takes place in the wilderness as the Israelites, who have been miraculously freed from years of bondage to slavery in Egypt. God’s power, through the hands of Moses, when lifted up in trust to God, parted the sea and their enemies were destroyed. As a freed people, they were led into a wilderness with the promise of a land of their own where the God of their Fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, promised to dwell with them and provide a new home…a land of milk and honey. All they need to do is acknowledge and trust God’s presence. That shouldn’t be so hard because we are told God followed them as a cloud and came to Moses in a burning bush and on a mountain top. All they needed to do was believe in the faithfulness of God’s care; and follow the path Moses sets before them. Sounds like a simple slam dunk, and yet we know that the “wilderness path” took them 40 years…many of those years filled with misery; worry; fear and even rebellion. Despite the manna and quail that fed them; the 10 commandments that provided a structure to teach and guide them; and the freedom to be a community united in freedom and faith, they grew impatient and cursed God and Moses. No wonder Moses said to them in his last sermon…”you have before you blessings and curses…life and death. Choose blessings and life!” But, in this story…we see that they chose the path of rebellion, and with curses on their tongues, serpents came among them as the consequences of their choices and attitudes. Ohhh…it makes me shiver!

Those poisonous snakes represent the consequences they brought upon themselves. We could easily make some “consequence” parallels to modern day “poisonous snakes” that threaten life as a result of our behaviors, choices and actions. Snakes like escalating “climate warming” due to human disregard of how we use and abuse our earth. Or the love affair our culture has with AR-15’s and guns that bring about not only senseless violence, but the death of those who happen to be in the cross-hairs of rage and power. There are many more “cultural” snakes we might name. We hear it constantly on the news. But in our struggle to understand…to find courage and hope, aren’t we trying to lift up those snakes on a pillar of “truth telling” hoping and praying that the stumbling block of our human foolishness will find healing if we just collectively SEE and make new CHOICES…choosing to bless and care for life, rather than bring death in an endless war of power over the enemy. Who, by the way, is dressed up as human greed.

In this Old Testament story, the only way to find healing and hope is for those Isrealites to courageously look those snakes in the eyes. Can you imagine the long line of humbled Israelites waiting for their turn to look up at those awful snakes…trusting that if they do, their children will be healed? Twined around a pole…those snakes have over time have become a symbol not only of danger…but of healing. We see them in a doctor’s office representing the medical hippocratic oath to do no harm but to bring healing into places where life is threatened by death, or on an ambulance rushing to help someone in need.

At the heart of the Christian message, there is another symbol of death that also leads to healing and life. It is the symbol of an ancient instrument of cruel death…a cross. And Jesus himself tell us that he, as the Son of Man, must be lifted up on such a cruel cross so that the power of God’s forgiving love can reach down into our deeply flawed humanity…touch us with a grace we could never earn for ourselves, and lead us to healing and new and eternal life. We call this “The Theology of the Cross.” And Paul says this is a stumbling block to the world’s brand of wisdom and proven truth, yet a powerful hidden mystery of self-giving love and freeing grace to those who look up to Christ on that cross. It is here, on a cross, that we see God’s son who understands us..accepts us, heals us and forgives us now and eternally.

What an amazing symbol of love and courageous giving! It should be so freeing, and yet, these beautiful words from John have often been used, like that old testament story, to clobber the sinner! Jesus died for YOU and you are saved…BUT, ONLY IF….. We could fill in the lines: only if you accept Jesus as Lord in a way that shows us your changed heart; only if you are a Christian that worships our way…only if you don’t doubt or question. What happens when people don’t fit or follow that formula?

Let me share a true story. During my lifetime, there have been many wonderful people, many of them pastors, who have mentored me in my journey of faith and ministry. Thor and Audrey Skeie were very significant people in my faith journey. Thor was our family pastor when we raised our family in Hutchinson, Minnesota. Both Thor and Audrey were raised as a pastor’s kids with devout piety and virtue. Audrey and Thor were the perfect picture of a pastor and his wife during the 70’s and 80’s when the church was thriving, and religious traditions were held as sacred. Thor had a brother who also became a pastor, and he took being a pillar of Christian virtue to the extreme, so I am sure there was some tension there. For you see, Thor and Audrey had something his brother didn’t have…compassion, authenticity and a sense of humor. They weren’t afraid to laugh, to cry, and to share their real selves with others. They raised three great kids and, like most families, faced some disappointments and challenges in their family. One of those disappointments came when their oldest son married outside the Christian faith, and became Jewish. Oh how they struggled with that choice, for them it was equal to rejecting not only Christ, but all their family held sacred. When grandchildren entered the picture and were raised Jewish, this brought them much soul searching. Another was when their daughter divorced her husband to marry another man. Audrey and Thor lamented and struggled with these choices their grown children had made, and lifted them in troubled prayers trying to understand how to navigate these realities in light of their Christian beliefs and understandings. And, as we who loved them watched, they leaned hard into the mystery of God’s forgiving and accepting grace, and found ways to make peace and a way to walk beside their children, grandchildren and the world that was changing around them. Thor continued to preach the gospel even after retirement and until Parkinson’s disease rendered him unable.

Their funerals came only a few months apart, with Audrey dying not long after Thor. They were such a close couple that none of us were surprised, but I was surprised when, before she died, Audrey asked me to preach her funeral sermon.

Both Audrey and Thor had John 14 read at their services.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places…and I go to prepare a place for you…I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know the Father.” As those words were read by the presiding pastor, I found myself looking over at the pew where four beautiful young adult grandchildren…committed to their Jewish faith, were listening to every word. My eyes then scanned to Kirsten, their daughter, who had left her marriage, and had many long hard conversations about fidelity with her parents. What are they hearing? I thought. Do they hear they are included? Or excluded? How do they measure themselves against the strong witness of Christian faith that Audrey and Thor modeled?

In my sermon, I found myself moving from praising the faithful lives Audrey and Thor had lived, to speaking more about the journey we all take to the cross where we encounter such self-giving love and acceptance that condemnation and judgment is washed away. We experience the heart of God that takes us into the mystery of His grace and calls us to grow beyond our human understanding. Beyond the rules, roles and expectations that shape our beliefs. We are led to a place of complete trust - “letting go and letting God.” I spoke about how Audrey had been raised in a deep piety that shaped her to live according to scriptural truth above all else. And yet…as life didn’t always fall into the exact patterns she was raised to expect, Audrey learned to look up at the cross and see the eyes of God’s pure grace. Authentic struggle called her to LEAN into the promise that GRACE would save us all. That in Christ, we and the world we live in…however sinful and imperfect, have a God that didn’t come to condemn the world…but to save the world.

Audrey and Thor found a way to peace and joy that transcended piety's demand for exclusion.

Despite their struggles, Audrey and Thor trusted the promise, and embraced their children and their grandchildren with whole hearted faith and love. Thor even preached about the Judeo-Christian heritage that we Christians share with our Jewish friends…in the very synagogue where his grandchildren worshiped. And Audrey and Thor went to the Bar Mitzvahs of each grandchild. A joyful photo was taken of Audrey being carried above her grandson’s heads as together they danced to the Jewish song of praise. And in all those years of struggling to understand and accept, Audrey and Thor always had ALL their children present at their generational family cabin in northern MN where a group of Lutheran pastor’s formed a community…and where all the children of each new generation were always included in traditions that honored God’s amazing love.

This, my friends, IS the Theology of the Cross! So what will you take with you today and think about into tomorrow and the days and weeks ahead? Will you worry about those awful snakes? Or will you took to the hills from whence comes your strength, and to the empty cross from which our Lord Jesus arose…and LEAN into the mystery and promise. That “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. So that whoever believes might have life everlasting.” Amen