Following straight on from last week’s ‘cleansing of the Temple’,
John’s gospel tells of Nicodemus seeing Jesus by ‘night’.
The ‘night’ is symbolic:
Nicodemus is attracted to Jesus and wants to know more,
but is reluctant to be associated with him.
The whole passage, of which we heard the second half,
concerns the call to Nicodemus,
and, when we reflect on it, to us all,
to engage fully with Jesus.
The Son of Man must be lifted up,
Later in John’s gospel, in chapter 12,
near the start of John’s account of the events of Holy Week,
we find:
‘and when I am lifted up from the earth I shall draw all to myself’.
By these words he indicated the kind of death he would die.
The ‘lifting up’ that must happen to the Son of Man
refers to Jesus
being displayed, for all to see,
in public crucifixion.
The Son of Man must be lifted up,
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert.
There is an incident in the book of Numbers (21:4-9)
describing how the people
spoke against God and against Moses,
and were then afflicted by ‘fiery serpents’.
Moses intercedes for the people and
the Lord’s instructions are:
Make a fiery serpent and put it on a standard.
If anyone is bitten and looks on it, he shall live.
Of course, ‘affliction with serpents’ resonates with
the story of the Fall at the start of Genesis.
The serpent is the tempter there,
and enmity between humans and serpents
becomes one of the consequences,
of the breach between God and human beings.
So the reference to Moses lifting up the serpent
is not really about being cured of snake bites.
It is about the human condition
of being separated from God,
of human freedom leading us astray.
In all sorts of different ways,
we are poisoned by the question – the serpent –
‘what is in this for me’.
This applies to our approach to material things,
to our relationships with others and
to our relationship with God.
We cannot put this right.
We are powerless. But…
God loved the world so much he gave his only Son,
…and sent him [his Son] into the world
… so that through him the world might be saved.
That is why
the Son of Man must be lifted up:
for the saving of the world
In John’s gospel (Jn18:37), Jesus says to Pilate:
I was born for this, I came into the world for this:
to bear witness to the truth.
The focal point of that witness,
of that revealing of the truth,
– the truth about God –
is the Cross.
God is lifted up:
tortured, naked, human, and, seemingly, powerless.
For our healing,
we are to look at Him lifted up.
We are not to look for miracles.
We are not to look for wisdom.
We are to look, unflinchingly, at this emptying.
As we look at Jesus ‘lifted up’,
we get glimpses of God’s true nature,
– of who he really is –
for that is what is shown in Jesus;
and we realise that creation is directed towards
God wanting to be known by free individuals,
know as he truly is.
As we look at Jesus ‘lifted up’,
open to the truth, and honest about ourselves,
we are gradually healed:
the question
‘what is in this for me’
holds less and less sway.
We are saved through grace, through gift.
We are transformed into what the letter to the Ephesians calls
This steadfast looking at Jesus lifted up,
entrusting ourselves to the mystery
and allowing what we see to transform us,
is called ‘believing’ in John’s gospel.
Through this steadfast looking
and trusting acceptance,
Jesus’ powerlessness,
his tortured humanity, is seen differently.
It is seen as the true glory of God.