Easter 6
Num
21:4-9
5/10/26
“And the people became impatient on
the way.” That’s what Moses tells us caused the event that we learn about in
our Old Testament lesson this morning. They became tired of the journey and the
challenges it entailed.
Now this is an incredibly ironic
statement. Because you see, the Israelites themselves had caused the journey.
They had not trusted God. They had disobeyed his word. That was the reason they
were on the journey in the first place.
Our text this morning is found in
Numbers chapter 21. So we need to take note of the fact that we are not in the
book of Exodus. There we learn about how God rescued Israel from slavery in
Egypt. Through the Passover, Yahweh forced Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave.
Then when Pharaoh changed his mind and pursued the nation, God brought Israel
through the Red Sea on dry ground but drowned and destroyed the Egyptians.
Next, God took Israel into a
covenant with himself at Mt Sinai. He said to them: “Now therefore, if you will
indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured
possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;
and
you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
Even when Israel committed idolatry
and worshipped the golden calf while Moses was on Mt Sinai with Yahweh, God did
not destroy them. Though they had broken the covenant, Yahweh renewed it with
them. He gave them the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant through which he
dwelt in their midst. He led them by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire
by night.
Again and again God had promised to
give them the promised land – the land of Canann – a place flowing with milk
and honey. In Numbers chapter 13 they arrived at the edge of Canaan. Yahweh
commanded Moses to send spies into the land to do reconnaissance. When they
returned, all but Joshua and Caleb said that while the land itself was
bountiful, the people already living there were too powerful for the
Israelites. They said Israel could not conquer it. The people despaired and
refused to enter the promised land.
So God said that Israel would wander
in the wilderness for forty years. He
said that those who were twenty years and older would die in the wilderness and
would never enter the land. This is the journey about which our text
tells us: “And the people became impatient on the way.” These were
circumstances that Israel had brought upon themselves by disobeying God’s Word
– by refusing to trust in God.
The Old Testament tells us about how
God worked out his promise after the Fall that a descendant of Eve would defeat
the devil. We see God identify with increasing specificity Abraham, Jacob,
Judah, and David as the line through which he will send the Christ. We learn
that Israel is the means through which God worked to bring salvation to all
people – to you.
Baptized into Christ who is the seed
of Abraham, you are now part of God’s people. And this means that Israel’s
history is actually your history. This also transforms the meaning that these
Old Testament accounts have for us. Paul told the Gentile church at Rome,
“For whatever was written in former days was written for
our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement
of the Scriptures we might have hope.” He says that it was written for our
instruction. Likewise, Paul told the Corinthians, “Now these things
happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our
instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
The account in our Old Testament
lesson was written down for our instruction as the people of God. So it is
helpful for us to stop and ask why the Israelites are on this journey in which
they have become impatient. They are on the journey because they did not trust
God and do things his way. They did not listen to his word. And the
result was very bad for them.
There is an important lesson here
for us. God’s word describes how he has set up things up to work. He gives his
word so that we know his ways – so that we know how to live according to his
will because his will is best for us. And by contrast, breaking his will
and doing things in the ways we choose is bad for us.
It’s not hard to see this as it
plays out in our culture and the lives around us. If you choose to use sex
outside of marriage you end up with sexually transmitted diseases and children
who have no father. When sex is part of dating and living together is what
leads to marriage, the bonding character of sexual intercourse which is meant
to unite husband and wife instead clouds the judgment about whether this person
is a good choice for a spouse. In addition, the act of living together makes it
more difficult to break up. So in what has been described as “sliding instead
of deciding” people drift into marriage. But because they have not done it
God’s way, it dramatically increases the likelihood of divorce.
The same can be said about divorce itself. Jesus pointed to God’s institution of marriage when he said: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Then he added, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Since the 1970’s and the appearance
of “no fault divorce” our world has operated on the assumption that if people
aren’t happy for some reason, they should get divorced. They should find
someone with whom they are happier and get remarried. But approaching marriage
with this outlook increases the likelihood that you don’t do the things that
make marriage good and lasting. And in turn when children are involved this
sets in motion a pattern that harms them and their ability to form healthy
relationships in marriage. The same can be said about children who have been
raised outside of marriage. The sins of the fathers … and mothers … are visited
upon the children.
When you don’t do things God’s way,
it causes problems. That’s where the Israelites found themselves in our text.
They had put themselves in this position of wandering in the wilderness. Then
they became impatient on the way and doubled down on their error by speaking
against God and Moses as they said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to
die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe
this worthless food.”
The Israelites said that God wasn’t
providing for them. What they really meant, was that God wasn’t doing it in
the way they wanted. They said there was no bread. Then they turned around
and said that they loathed the worthless bread that God was giving them.
God was indeed giving them bread. He
was giving them manna from heaven. As Psalm 78 says, “Man ate of the bread of
the angels; he sent them bread in abundance.” And there was no question about
his ability to provide them with water.
He had already done it twice from a rock.
The Israelites’ words should lead you to consider whether you take for granted what God provides. The apostle Paul told Timothy, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” Do you covet the wealth of others? When it comes time to give an offering do you think God hasn’t given you enough, and therefore do you give little in return?
The Israelites’ sin brought God’s
judgment. He sent fiery serpents among the people so that they bit the
people and many died. Faced with this
situation, the Israelites knew that they were in the wrong. They repented. They
came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord
and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from
us.”
They asked Moses to intercede for
them. He did so and Yahweh responded, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a
pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” Moses followed
God’s instruction. He made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a
serpent bit anyone, he looked at the bronze serpent and lived.
A basic principle of biblical
interpretation is that “Scripture interprets Scripture.” And you can hardly
find a better illustration of this than our text today. Jesus declared that the
serpent on the pole pointed to him. He told Nicodemus, “No one has ascended
into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of
Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal
life.”
Jesus said that the serpent on the
pole was a type – it was something in the Old Testament that pointed forward to
what God would do in Christ. You may have sinned sexually – through lust in the
heart or through the act of intercourse. You may have sinned against God’s will
for marriage by divorcing and remarrying for reasons that are not valid before
God. You may have taken God’s daily bread for granted. You may have coveted the
wealth of others. You may have withheld for yourself money that should have been
given to God in your offering as a response to his blessings.
But Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
was lifted up on the cross because of your sin. As John the Baptist declared,
he is the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world. He has taken
away your sin because he made your sin his own.
Christ received God’s judgment in your place. And then on the third day
God raised Jesus from the dead. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus,
all who believe in him have life. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to
you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal
life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to
life.”
Our Old Testament lesson today
points to Jesus Christ who is the source of forgiveness and life for you. And it also demonstrates the manner in which
God works in order to deliver that forgiveness.
It shows us how God acts through his word and means to leave no doubt
that it is for you.
In our text God tells Moses to make
a serpent and set it on a pole. He attaches his word of promise that all who
have been bitten and look at the serpent on the pole will live. We see here that God works through located
means in order to deliver salvation. We are, after all, people who live a
bodily existence at a place and time. God made us that way. And when he deals
with us he does not ignore this reality of our existence.
Quite the opposite, our salvation
has been made possible by the fact that the Son of God took on bodily existence
in this world. He is Immanuel – God with us – because the Son of God became
flesh. His body – his flesh – was nailed to the cross. His body – his flesh –
was then raised on the third day.
As he delivers the forgiveness that
Christ has won, God meets us where we are. He attaches his word and promise to
located means. Baptism is water included in God’s command and combined with
God’s word. The Sacrament of the Altar is bread and wine to which Christ adds
his Words of Institution.
These are now the means by which God
gives forgiveness and life. The Israelites were to look in faith at the bronze
serpent and trust God’s promise. Now we look in faith at what God did in
baptism and do the same. We know that through baptism our sins have been washed
away. We have shared in Christ’s saving death. The Holy Spirit has made us a
new creation in Christ as we have been born again.
And in the Sacrament of the Altar
Christ puts into your mouth the body given for you and the blood shed for you.
You come to the altar believing his word and promise that he has attached to
bread and wine. In this faith you eat and drink his body and blood, and so you
receive forgiveness and life.
God works in this way because it is the way he has always worked.
It reflects the way he made us in the beginning. It is seen in the incarnation
of the Son of God – the second Adam in whom resurrection life has begun. And it
will reach its consummation on the Last Day when Jesus raises our bodies and
transforms them to be like his own.
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