The Hair of the Dog

John 3:14-21

[Jesus said,] “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

“Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the holy son of God. And this is the judgement: that the light has come into the world and people preferred the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. Those who do what is evil hate the light and do not come to the light for fear that their deeds might be exposed. But those who do what is true, come to the light so that it might be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

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Remember with me, first, that story we heard from Numbers about Moses and the serpents. Back in the day, when the Israelites were wandering around in the wilderness, and being pestered and punished and killed by snakes, God gave them the gift of this serpent on a pole. I always think of it as God’s “hair of the dog” sort of cure for what ailed them. (I hope you’ll forgive my irreverence, buy I’m guessing a room full of Lutherans knows the reference to that old wives’ tale about how “the hair of the dog that bit you” is rumored to help a person feel better after having had too much to drink.) By “hair of the dog” in this case, I’m talking about how the Israelites who were being punished by poisonous serpents were supposed to lay eyes on the very object of their affliction – this bronze statue of a serpent on a pole – or the hair of the proverbial serpent that bit them, if you will.

And this is what Jesus compares himself to in John’s Gospel: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” he says, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.” “Just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up…”

How, then, is Jesus like a snake on a pole, lifted up in the wilderness, to which the people of God might look and be healed? How, then, is Jesus – the Son of Man – like the “hair of the dog” for us, as people who believe in him and hope for forgiveness, and salvation, and grace in his name? What does it mean to look to the source of our suffering and expect to be healed, cured, forgiven, saved?

Isn’t that, a lot of the time, the very last thing we are inclined to do – look to the source or object of our struggle and sinfulness? Isn’t it hard and scary, sometimes, to look our fear and our shame and our greatest threat in the eye? Aren’t we pretty good at – if not inherently wired for – avoiding so many of the difficult, scary, broken parts of our lives, rather than face them or engage them and expect good things to come of it?

It all makes me think about Adam and Eve – the first in our faith’s story to deal with the likes of a serpent – and how their first inclination was to hide, to cover themselves, so that God couldn’t see them in the fullness of their shame for having disobeyed and committed that first sin of eating from the forbidden tree. They had been tricked by the serpent, and their first instinct was to blame, to hide, to go undercover, to hope they wouldn’t be seen. They’re first inclination was not to confess, not to confront, not to repent, not to face the music – or the snake – or the sin they had committed.

And I think we’re the same way, still. In the face of our sinfulness, our inclination is to hide. In the face of whatever it is we do wrong our initial response is so often, if not always, to run for cover; to duck the punishment; to deflect blame; to fear and avoid and dodge whatever judgment we deserve.

And it’s no wonder, really. Our world is an unforgiving, judgmental, punishment- seeking, vengeance-hungry, score-keeping kind of place to live in – and so are a lot of churches. Admitting failure is bad for approval ratings – just ask a politician. Acknowledging mistakes is bad for business – just ask Wall Street. Asking for forgiveness is seen as weakness – just take a look in the mirror.

But this is what Jesus asks us to do in this morning’s Gospel. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” … on a pole… on a tree… on a cross for all the world to see, so that we might look at him, so that we might look to him for deliverance from that which threatens us.

I have what I think is one of the coolest, strangest coffee table books, ever, called A Lifetime of Secrets. It’s the result of an art project of sorts, where a guy named Frank Warren invited people from around the world to send him anonymous, creatively decorated postcards, bearing secrets they had never before revealed. It’s full of anonymous confessions from people as young as eight and as old as eighty, and it’s fascinating.

It’s full of revelations as innocent as a kid being embarrassed by her dad’s nose-ring.

Or this kid who’s afraid to grow up.

As cool as someone who anonymously gives away $100 every month.

There are sad secrets like this one: “Grandma died in a nursing home with a stranger caring for her. We visited and had our photos next to her bed. I don’t think it was enough.”

And there are even darker secrets, too, about eating disorders and unhappy marriages; about infidelity and abuse of all kinds. There are confessions of crimes and addiction, repentance for disbelief in God, fear of death, failed suicide attempts. You name it and someone is keeping it a secret.

And there’s something about this book – and the idea of its creator – to invite people to share their secrets in a creative, artistic, tangible way; to invite people to spell out, in words, for the first time, their deepest, darkest sin or shame or fear or failing, that reminds me of this “hair of the dog” theology. See this exercise with the postcards and the secrets proved to be healing and cathartic, life-changing and life-giving for many of the people who were simply able to see and to say and to share their secrets – however large or small – for the first time, in a concrete way.

It makes me think about God’s invitation, in lifting up Jesus Christ on the cross – like Moses did with the bronze serpent in the wilderness – so that we might look upon all the sin and shame that hangs there with him, in death, and be relieved of whatever burden it holds over our lives in this world.

Because, as Jesus also says today, when we live in the guilt of our sins, the judgement we fear most is already upon us – never mind the after-life, we are condemned already by that of which we are ashamed. We are already suffering. We are already not fully alive as God intends for us to be, if we’re living in the darkness; if we’re hiding from the light; if we’re keeping secrets and harboring shame and suffering silently and full of fear – no matter how large or small.

But there is hope in the hair of the dog!

Because “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” And what’s even better to remember, if you ask me, is what Jesus says next, that “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” And, as many of you have heard me say before, I’m under the impression that if God sets out to save the world, then God’s going to save the world – secrets, shame, and sins be damned.

And that’s why we are invited to look at his sacrificial death, lifted up on the cross  for our sake and for the sake of the world… so that we might stop hiding from the  sins that hang there with him – all the things done and left undone – so that we might look full in the face of our greatest shame and our deepest fear and into the threat of our own brokenness – even into the face of death – and to see God’s salvation in spite of it all.

Because when we see it all crucified and killed and raised to new life, then it can’t bite or burden us any longer. And when we receive and accept this grace, we can live transformed lives in return.

So we are invited – today and every day – to come out of the darkness of our fears, to step into the light of God’s forgiveness, to acknowledge what God already knows about our secrets and our sins and to receive the love that’s ours for the taking in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen
 

Beyond the Sanctuary of the Sanctuary

John 2:13-22

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

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Thursday night, in our Bethel Bible Series class, we found ourselves discussing the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and about how strategic his non-violent Civil Rights Movement was in this country… How he took intentional advantage of the prolific media coverage he knew his actions would receive – if he only knew how prolific media coverage could be, just a few decades later, right?!?

But we talked about how he banked on the photos and videos and news reports of the violent responses to his non-violent actions… How he hoped white America – and the rest of the world, too – would see the images of police dogs attacking peaceful protestors.

How he hoped white America – and the rest of the world, too – would see the fire hoses turned onto marchers dressed in their Sunday best.

How he hoped white America – and the rest of the world, too – would see the beatings and the abuse and the arrests of innocent African-American men and women, boys and girls.

And about how he hoped white America – and the rest of the world – would respond with revulsion and revolution against the injustice made plain to them by this ugliness.

And until they saw it for themselves, too many people were able to deny or pretend it was something other than as shameful and sinful and wrong, as every bit of it was.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was as peaceful as he was persistent. He was as wise as he was faithful. He was as clever as he was courageous. He knew exactly what he was doing and what he did was change the state of race relations – and the status of African-American people – in our country and in the world, for the better. And he learned so much of his strategy, of course, from the God he knew in Jesus Christ.

And I thought about all of that again for this morning, because some people are under the impression that Jesus walked into the temple in Jerusalem on the day we just heard about and that he was surprised to find the cattle, the sheep, the doves and the money changers doing their thing; that he showed up for worship or for prayers – being the good, faithful Jew that he was – and that he was caught off-guard to see “the market-place” that set him off.

But back in Jesus’ day, it was common for things to be sold in and around the Temple. Because the celebration of Passover was right around the corner, Jews from all over the known world were traveling to Jerusalem in order to celebrate the holiday. Since it was difficult to travel with animals and because animal sacrifice was an important, necessary part of Jewish worship, those who came to Jerusalem had to buy the animals they were expected to sacrifice, once they got into the city. Jesus, again as a good, faithful Jew, may even have done this himself more than once in his day.

Now there is all kind of reason to believe the merchants in the temple were ripping off those who came to buy their animals. It’s believed they made them use special currency and exchanged it unfairly and that the animals were probably being sold for more money than they were worth – maybe like the difference you pay for a hot dog at Lucas Oil Stadium versus what you’d pay for the same, if you bought it at the store and cooked it yourself.

So when Jesus shows up in the temple at the time of the high festival of the Passover – the Super Bowl of Jewish festivals, you might say – and when he starts cracking whips and tossing tables and pouring out money and herding cattle toward the door, he knew exactly what he was doing. It wasn’t just about the selling of things. It wasn’t even just about the high prices of those things, though that would have gotten everyone’s attention, for sure.

Jesus was staging a one-man protest. And he was protesting the powers-that-were. He meant to turn over, not just tables and coin boxes, but the whole Temple system of it all. He meant to drive out, not just the cattle and the sheep, but the whole practice of an empty, superficial, superstitious sacrificial system. He meant to point out and to call everyone’s attention to himself and to what he came for in the first place: to focus their attention – and the world’s – on what was to be the center of their faith, the object of their devotion, the source of their salvation going forward, his very self.

In other words, the times they were a-changing, or they were supposed to be, and Jesus wanted everyone to know it. The way to God’s heart of hearts wasn’t through the practice of sacrificing in the temple any longer. Jesus, himself was to be a new, better, different, complete kind of sacrifice. He was angry and God was still weary of the hypocritical, half-hearted, misguided worship of God’s people. There weren’t enough cattle, sheep or doves to burn on God’s altar that would do the trick of redeeming what was broken in the world. Jesus, the Son of God, came to fulfill all the law and the prophets. And he would – by his own destruction and resurrection – redeem and restore the world to the God who created it.

In still other words… in words that might speak to the likes of you and me, these days… God still desires more than just this… God desires more than just our ceremonial singing and our ritualistic repentance. God desires more than just placating the problems that surround us with “thoughts and prayers,” no matter how faithful or well-intended they may be. God desires that our worship and our devotion and our service and our sacrifice take place beyond the sanctuary of the sanctuary, if you will.

So I wonder what that looks like for each of us, for Cross of Grace, for God’s church in the world. Of course there may be as many different answers and action plans as there are people in this room, or churches in the community, or faith communities in the world. But what if we start close to home? What if we start by looking in the mirror?

What is it that stirs you? What is it that makes your heart beat a little faster? What is it you would do, for the sake of the kingdom, that feeds you and fuels you? … that could keep you up at night? …that you’d do for free and for fun? For what might you turn over some tables or stage a protest, if you had the chance?

Whatever the case, what Jesus shows us in this morning’s Gospel – and what the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. prove – is that the work of the faithful people of God can be a hard, holy road. When Jesus drops that line about destroying the temple, he knew just how hard and holy it would become for him. He knew he was to be the new temple – that his passion would lead him to suffer, to be crucified, killed and raised from the dead – wherein lies the source of our own purpose, our own passion, and our one and only most reliable hope.

So may our passions be inspired by the abundant love of God, in Jesus Christ, broken and poured out for the sake of the world. May our purpose – as individuals and as a community of faith – be grounded in the same grace, mercy and peace we see in him. And may we go about our work with more faith than fear, prepared, not just for whatever sacrifice and struggle might find us along the way, but prepared, too, for the redemption and new life that will come for us and through us when we do.

Amen