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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text is the Gospel reading where Jesus proclaims He is the serpent on the pole. You may be seated. One of the first Bible passages that I was taught to memorize, as you, was John 3:16. But John 3:16 is not the central part of this text. It’s the central part of the Bible. It is a vital part of this text, but it’s not the central part of this text. And John 3:16 and 17 and following really are a commentary on two verses. And you have got to see that these verses are the center part of this text. It is the verses that Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.”
Why would that be the central part of this text? Because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” has no meaning. What does it mean to give a son? You understand the giving of that son only in light of the lifting up of that son, which implies a crucifixion. Valuable to understand what John 3:16 means. To give a son is one thing, but to give a son as a criminal or as a sinner in place of sinners is something totally different. That’s why Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,” that all who look to him and believe shall not perish but have eternal life, is the center part of this text.
Let’s unpack it. When you think of all the examples that Jesus could have used to have made the point that he would sacrifice his son, he could have used the example as the Passover lamb with Nicodemus, but he didn’t. He could have used other examples of substitutionary sacrifice, but he doesn’t. Of all the examples that Jesus could have used to talk to a man who knew all the biblical examples, Nicodemus, Jesus uses “just as Moses lifted up the serpent on the pole.”
And here’s what’s interesting about that biblical imagery that Jesus is bringing into the text. What had happened to the people? They had all rebelled and all were at that moment dying of snakebite. They all had coursing through their veins the poison of the serpents that God sent as punishment for their rebellion. What does every human being in this world have and is dying from right now? Sin. It courses through our veins. Though we do not want to admit it, we see it in the lines of our faces, the loss of our hair, the changing of color of our hair, and a whole host of other things, doctors’ appointments and pharmacy and such, that says we are poisoned by the serpent of sin.
When Moses prays to God to ask God to give him healing to this people, God could have used anything he wanted. God chose to use Moses to make a serpent. You’ve got to think Moses would have said, “A serpent? Lord, you’re asking me to hold before the people’s faces the very symbol of what brought them their death?” God says, “Yep.” So Moses fashions a serpent out of bronze, lifts it high upon a pole. This is from Numbers 21. He lifts it high upon a pole. All who look toward it and believe the promise that they will be healed, they were healed. Right?
Now you’ve got to think in your head, you’re dying of snake poison. Everyone is dying of snake poison. And the leader, unto whom you rebelled, lifts high this serpent and says, “Look to it and you’ll be healed.” Did everybody look to it in faith and were healed? No. The text talks about many who died, both adults and infants. And there were many who were saved also, both adults and infants, by looking upon the serpent, not because the serpent was magical in and of itself, but because God chose that to be the concrete reality unto which He placed His promise that everyone who looked upon the serpent shall be healed.
That was what was in Nicodemus’ head when Jesus said this. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. Bells were going off in Nicodemus’ head. If Jesus is going to be lifted up, and this is giving Nicodemus something to see in the future, when Jesus is lifted up on that cross, the bells and whistles must have roared in Nicodemus’ head. He is lifted up on a cross, a pole. He is the symbol that we’re supposed to look to.
But here’s a thought. The serpent was the very image and symbol of what bit them and caused them death. It was the visible sign of their death and damnation. How can that be the… Remember? God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. Jesus called himself the veritable serpent on the pole. God confirmed it by allowing it obviously to be written for your and my edification. And now we see how John 3:16 is not just John 3:16. It is John 3:16 understood as explaining John 14 and 15. Okay. Hugely powerful.
Now let’s talk about the conversation that Nicodemus has with Jesus. Why? Because if 14 and 15 are the main thing of this text, and they are, then everything that follows goes back to it, and everything that precedes it points toward it. So this is great. The people at that time saw that serpent, didn’t they? After they saw the serpent, it was a one-shot, one-kill deal. They didn’t need the serpent anymore. There were no more serpents sent by God. And God didn’t send a Savior in the form of a serpent, meaning fixing any problem of snake bite like that again.
But you know what the people did? The people said, “Nah, there’s something magical about this serpent.” And they began to, after the fact, bow down and worship this serpent. They began to have more faith in the symbol rather than in the promise behind the symbol. There are some people who look at baptism as a magical thing. There are some people who look at baptism as something that only we do. And then there is God’s revelation that says baptism is being born again by water and the Spirit. Something God does to us.
Long before Luther came onto the scene, and I’m talking over a thousand years before Luther ever came onto the scene again, Christians and their pastors used this text of John 3 always to explain to the people about baptism. Baptism. Not a conversion experience. Baptism. And that’s very, very vital. Because all Luther did was clean the dirt away, and rather than worship the sacrament, they began to worship the promise attached to the sacrament. Because the church had gotten away from it, just like the Israelites got away from what God did through that serpent.
All of this would have been known by Nicodemus, this Old Testament history, this understanding. But Nicodemus has a great question when he asks, “How can these things be?” Does Jesus spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to him the miraculous power of baptism? No. He gives him a promise. Did Moses sit around and wait to explain to every person about the power that’s attached to this serpent he’s hoisting around, talking to the people with? No. No. All he did was proclaim, and they either believed and were saved, both infants and adults, or they did not believe and they died, both infants and adults.
It is the same with the church today. God does not give us how water with the Word can make born-againness happen. God just says, “It happens. You are born again.” Faith is the miracle.
Now there’s an interesting last verse of the epistle reading. The epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans. The very last part of the verse says, “He calls into existence those things which did not exist.” Baptism is the beautiful example of calling something into existence, faith, which does not exist prior to unbelief. The same way that God called forth faith in the people with the promise, “Look upon the serpent, you shall be healed. Look upon the one crucified and you shall be saved.”
Except you and I can never look at one crucified because he was crucified 2,000 years ago. We can have an icon, as it were, in that crucifix up there, but that doesn’t save us either. What saves us is the benefits of that were all poured into your baptism. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. God chooses to use physical things in His world to bring salvation.
Again, God didn’t have to have Moses create a bronze serpent. He could have just said, “Moses, run around amongst the people. Tell them to look at you and tell them to believe it, then they will be saved.” He doesn’t. God chooses to do it through a serpent. God doesn’t have to bring salvation to you through water and the Spirit in baptism. He chooses to. And the church did this long before Luther came onto the scene. This is not a Lutheran thing. This is a Christian thing.
That’s why back at the very beginning I said, “Amen.” 14 and 15 are the key to this section of text. 16 and following explain 14 and 15 in one side of it. What’s before explains the other side of it. What does “being God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son” mean? It means that someone’s got to be lifted up and sacrificed and die because we’ve been bitten. He becomes that which is our own death. Sin. Sin.
But how do we give this to our babies and to us as adults? Through the water and spirit that God brings. We can be like Nicodemus. How can these things be? And Jesus will tell us the same thing He told Nicodemus. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.