Lenten Doldrums

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Lent 4, Year B, 3/10/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

This Sunday we are deep in the season of Lent, equally far from the celebration of Shrove Tuesday and the rejoicing of Easter. The midway points of our journey through the Lenten wilderness often bring the toughest trials as we struggle to maintain our enthusiasm for the discipline and repentance that the season calls for. We might find ourselves grumbling at the thought of several more weeks of sober liturgy, we might find ourselves getting lax in our prayers and our Lenten commitments. We might just be getting tired of the color purple. 

This week in scripture we have companions in these Lenten doldrums. The Israelites are in the midst of their own season of Lent. It’s been quite some time since God delivered them from their bondage in Egypt and the initial excitement about their liberation has waned. They now find themselves wandering through the barren desert with no clue as to their destination and are starting to wonder if God is really leading them to Promised Land at all.

But out of all their trials, the thing that’s really getting to them in this moment, is the bland food. If we recall, early in the Israelites’ journey when their provisions were running low, God made a miracle by which manna – mysterious food from heaven – appeared each day to sustain them. Now, months and years later, they’re thoroughly sick of the lack of menu options and they complain to their leader Moses, saying “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food” (Num. 21:5). If you’re a parent you can probably commiserate with God in finding this line particularly irritating. It’s as if God, after a long day’s work, has put the last of his effort into preparing a meal for his children, only to be met with ungrateful pleas to go to Wendy’s.

And in response to the Israelites’ utter lack of gratitude, God does something else that exhausted parents can likely commiserate with – God sends snakes to go bite and torment the stubborn children!

There’s certainly an element of humorous relatability to this story, but it’s also rather troubling. Even though we know that a few lines later, God makes a provision to heal those who have been bitten by the snakes, it’s hard to spin this story so that God comes out as a loving parent when God also is the one responsible for the snakebites in the first place.

So what are we to make of the character of God who is compassionate to suffering, but also appears to be the cause of suffering in this story? Let’s take a moment to review some basic biblical scholarship that can help us make sense of this.

First, the bible is not really one book at all, it’s a library of books comprised of the 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. And each of these books is comprised of various genres, ranging from the poetry of the psalms, the theology of John, the history of Deuteronomy, and the legal code of Leviticus, etc. And one prominent genre which we encounter in the Old Testament is myth – particularly the origin myths of the Israelites.

Now when we talk about myth as a genre of biblical literature, let me be clear we’re not insinuating that God’s word is untrue or fictional, rather, we’re saying that it’s not necessarily literal history. Scripture is replete with creative literary devices that help us to better understand the timeless truths God is speaking to us, and it does a disservice to us and to scripture to take all of scripture at face value. For instance, just because Jesus is the Lamb of God does not mean Mary had a little Lamb. We all understand that this is a metaphor.

Similarly, the genre of myth we find in the Bible refers to passages which seek to reveal essential truths about God, ourselves, and the divine relationship between God and humanity. So the task for us in reading this account of the snakes and miraculous healing as divine myth is to discern what truth is being revealed to us about our relationship with God, and God’s relationship with us.

And this particular story about the snakes hearkens back to another account of devious snakes in scripture. Namely, the serpent which tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We find many parallels between the account of the temptation of the first humans, and the temptation of the Israelites in the desert. In both instances the presence of ruinous serpents points towards something innate in our own human nature, which is our tendency towards dissatisfaction with what God has given us and our desire to enthrone ourselves the masters of own existence.

In the garden, despite God providing Adam and Eve with everything they would ever need, they still felt compelled to ignore God’s advice to trust in him and they took instead the advice of the serpent who promised them godlike status. And as we know, this did not turn out well for them. Though Adam and Eve did acquire the knowledge of good and evil which they sought, it also brought them pain, misery, and alienation from God’s loving provision.

Then, many generations later, the descendants of Adam and Eve find themselves grappling with the consequences of this misstep as the Israelites themselves wrestle between the same two choices: to trust the God who made them, loves them, and provides for them, or to trust in their own ability to pull themselves out of the mess that they are in.

And God, sensing that the Israelites are starting to slide back into the old, familiar pattern of trusting in their own ability to liberate themselves, does something to remind them early on of where that path will lead them. God says okay, if you want to listen to the snake again, here are snakes. Here are all the snakes you could ever ask for. At no point does God hold the Israelites captive as Pharaoh did, God allows them – and us – to choose between dependence on God or ourselves, and God also allows us to experience the outcomes of that choice. God lets us consort with snakes.

And we know that God of course also never backs away from the Israelites. After they are swiftly reminded that life in loving relationship with God and countercultural dependence on God’s support is far preferable to snakes, God is quick to offer up a remedy for the snake-bitten Israelites. God has Moses make a serpent on a pole so that all who look upon it will be healed and saved from worst consequences of their decision. And this part – the saving staff which God provides that will heal them from their existential wounds – is where the truth of this mythic story lies.

The moral of this story is that God never ceases to lovingly, and faithfully provide exit ramps for us back into relationship with God. God never abandons us to our own devices, no matter how stubborn we are and no matter how much we might take God’s love for granted.

This reality of God’s loving faithfulness to us is at the heart of the cross. St. John draws a direct parallel between Jesus’s saving sacrifice and God’s saving action in the wilderness by saying “just 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” (John 3:14-15).

Jesus’s saving sacrifice for us on the cross is God’s definitive act of love for us. Christ crucified is God saying “yes there are still snakes in this world, and yes you will still listen to them and be bitten by them, but I have sent my son to take away the sting of their poison and turn it into the balm of salvation.” 

God did not send Jesus to condemn us, we’re good enough at doing that on our own. God sent Jesus to so that we might have a permanent way out of our confused wandering in the desert. God sent Jesus so that when we inevitably fall into error and out of the truth of God’s love for us, we might find our way back. Back into the promised land – the land that is our home. A home of perfect, loving wholeness in God’s eternal embrace. Amen.