Sermon for May 9, 2010 (Mother’s Day)



Sermon for May 9, 2010 (Mother’s Day)

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Tulsa, OK

Rev. Christian C. Tiews, Associate Pastor

Num 21:4-9 1 Tim 2:1-6 Jn 16:23-30(31-33)

“From Death to Healing”

“God our Savior…desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” (1 Tim 2:3-6)

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For centuries, people have been looking for solutions to minimize the effects of Father Time on their bodies.

How have some tried to get rid of facial lines, wrinkles and crow’s feet?

They have been using milk, lotions, cucumbers slices, astringents, moisturizers, creams, sheep fat, or bees’ wax.

Some have even injected a chemical called Botox under their skin, which numbs their nerves and prevents them from moving their facial muscles.

In a nutshell, you could say that we humans have always been looking for the Fountain of Youth and Eternal Life.

Needless to say, these potions and lotions have been nothing but a mirage on the Yellow Brick Road to the Land of Ahs.

Recently, however, scientists have discovered the supposedly most effective method yet of reducing and banishing the lines and wrinkles caused by a lifetime of facial muscle contraction.

Tropidolaemus wagleri—more commonly known as the Temple Viper—is a species of snake found in Malaysia.

The venom of the Temple Viper is incredibly potent because it blocks the neurotransmitters in the victim’s nervous system.

This causes that person’s muscles to contract, which leads to paralysis and, ultimately, to death.

Well, scientists have now produced a synthetic, weakened version of this snake venom, which inhibits neuromuscular communication only slightly.

It is formulated as a cream and is applied topically to wrinkle-prone areas.

Some boutiques have waiting lists months long for this hot new anti-aging treatment, for which the rich and famous pay up to $185 an ounce.

Gentlemen, if you have forgotten that today is Mother’s Day, after the service go get your wife some flowers or chocolate or maybe a knife sharpener.

Just don’t get her snake venom anti-wrinkle cream because your thoughtfulness would probably would go over like a lead balloon.

That’s just a hunch…

But whether it is a poor Mother’s Day gift or not, our snake venom cream provides a powerful sermon illustration.

You see, in order to produce this cream, scientists used a creature that once delivered death—to deliver healing.

This is similar to our Old Testament reading this morning.

The people of Israel had already been traveling in the desert for some thirty-eight years.

But sadly, from the very beginning of their journey they had grumbled against the Lord, against His Word of promise. In fact, at one point some of the Israelites even staged a rebellion against Moses.

Apparently, the rebels had forgotten, tended to doubt, minimized or ignored that God had provided before and that He would provide again…

The price for their rebellion was high: the earth opened up and swallowed them.

You would think that those who survived the earthquake would have become more respectful toward God…

Yet, amazingly, the survivors continued to complain about the long and dusty travels in the desert.

They continued to complain about the lack of food and water.

They even tried to twist the facts, claiming that Moses had been responsible for the death of the rebels in the earthquake.

Had the survivors forgotten about the miracles of the Ten Plagues which had afflicted the Egyptians, but spared the Israelites?

Had they forgotten about the Passover, in which the Angel of Death had smitten the firstborn of the Egyptians, yet passed over the people of Israel?

Had they forgotten about the parting of the Red Sea?

Had they forgotten about the manna and the quail, water pouring out from the rock—food and drink with which the Lord provided sustenance for His people?

So for their continued grumbling the Lord smote the grumblers with yet more punishment—a plague.

You see, the Israelites insisted that their hardships were signs that God didn’t love them. They refused to repent and admit that these disasters were punishment for their insolence toward God.

Yet even a plague did not stop their grumbling.

Because “…the people become impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses,” as our text notes.

Enter the next form of punishment for God’s ungrateful people, yet another form of what we call “the Law.”

The Lord sends fiery, that is, venomous serpents among the Israelites and many of the people die.

Yet at this point the Lord does a strange thing:

After sending the venomous snakes, He provides a remedy which heals those bitten by serpents.

But the remedy is the very object of their affliction—namely a serpent cast in bronze which God has Moses make.

Whenever anyone was bitten, all they had to do was look at this metal serpent—and they would be miraculously healed.

You see, in this miracle, God used an image of a creature that had once delivered death—namely, a fiery serpent—to deliver healing.

***

Did you know that you and I have been bitten by a fiery serpent as well?

Not literally—yet not figuratively either.

Because you and I are descendents of a common ancestor.

By the way, we’re not talking here about the so-called “common gene pool,” some kind of primordial ooze, as evolutionists would have us believe.

No, our true common ancestors are Adam and Eve—real human beings—who were tricked into believing the lies of Satan.

Tragically, in this way they invited sin, death, the devil, and destruction into their lives and passed those curses down to you and me.

And the consequences for us are tragic.

You see, because of Original Sin, our natural state is that we are separated from God and are born spiritually dead.

And as one of the many consequences of this Original Sin, you and I sometimes forget about, tend to doubt, minimize or ignore the many miracles the Lord has blessed us with, His Word of promise—just like the people of Israel did.

Not only do we forget the miracles mentioned in Scripture, we even forget the ones that we have experienced in our own lifetime:

You and I sometimes forget about the miracles of physical life created at conception, a miracle which we can hold in our arms nine months later.

We sometimes ignore the miracle of marriage, of two people coming together to become one in Christ.

You and I sometimes minimize the miracle of spiritual life given in Baptism.

You and I sometimes forget about or doubt the miracle of Christ’s true Body and Blood that we are privileged to receive in every Divine Service.

You and I sometimes minimize or ignore the miracle that when we repent of our many sins, we are forgiven in Christ Jesus—not because of our act of repentance, but because He took our sins upon Himself on the cross.

You and I sometimes forget that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, or come to Him.

And we didn’t call the Holy Spirit either…

Rather, the Holy Spirit has called us by the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, sanctified us, and He keeps us in the true faith.

You and I fail in all these areas, forgetting or doubting or minimizing or ignoring or sometimes even grumbling against His Word of promise, preferring to believe what the unbelieving world or our misguided reason tells us.

In our Old Testament story, we would be wrong to focus on all the forms of punishment God sent upon the rebels and grumblers.

After all, punishment is the price we all pay for disobeying God.

“The wages of sin is death,” Romans 6 tells us.

The main point of this Old Testament passage is something totally different.

The main point is that no matter how much Law there is in Scripture, the last Word of God—His Word of promise—is always the Gospel, that is, our forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Why?

Because “God our Savior…desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.”

So even though the Lord used a creature that had once delivered death, to now deliver healing…

…At the same time, He was pointing to a far bigger remedy somewhere in the distant future.

***

The Hebrew word for “pole” in our text is also used to describe a “sign”—as in “signs and wonders”—elsewhere in the Old Testament.

The Early Church Fathers always held that in this Bible passage the pole or sign in this narrative was in the shape of a cross. That is why many historic paintings of this scene depict a serpent wound around a pole with a crossbeam.

But what caused the bitten people to be healed was not their “work” of looking at the bronze serpent.

What made their healing possible is God’s Word of promise.

When Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, in a sense He became the ultimate bronze serpent.

Because even though Jesus Christ is incapable of sinning, ironically He became a likeness of the bronze serpent—which embodies sin.

The Word of promise given to the Israelites was that—someday hanging on a cross—the long awaited Messiah would become a Sin Magnet for the entire world, pulling the past, present, and future sin of the entire world—of you and me—onto Himself.

Because on the cross, Jesus Christ forgave your and my forgetting, doubting, minimizing or ignoring His Word of promise.

On the cross, He forgave all your sins…

The broken marriage.

The pornography habit.

Gossiping.

Coveting other people’s possessions—and all the rest of the sins you and I have committed at one point in time or still do today.

And in exchange for all these sins that He took onto Himself, He transferred to you and me His righteousness.

So even though we were born spiritually dead, you and I have been made alive.

By the Holy Spirit, which you and I received in our Baptism, He also gives you and me the ability to believe in His Word of promise and His miracles.

And in a few moments you and I will once again be strengthened in our faith, when we receive the Lord’s true Body and Blood in His Supper.

Essentially, we humans have been looking for the Fountain of Youth and eternal life ever since time began.

Yet thanks to Christ’s salvation-bringing work on the cross—and thanks to His resurrection on the third day—those two mirages will become real for every Christian, in addition to salvation, forgiveness, righteousness, and the Fruit of the Holy Spirit that we received in our Baptism.

You see, when Jesus Christ returns at the Last Day, you and I will be raised from the dead—in physical and real bodies.

This the Lord gives us in His Word of promise: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.”

And you and I and all believers will be raised in glorified bodies and we will live with the Lord forevermore—having something far better than any milk, lotions, cucumber slices, astringents, moisturizers, creams, sheep fat, bees wax, or even injections of Botox can provide:

Because in our glorified new bodies we will even drink from the Fountain of Youth and will inherit Eternal Life—in, with, and under Jesus Christ. Amen.

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