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| Moses by Benjamin West,1793 |
Some of our neighbours are terminal. The symptoms are severe and we know that death is about to make its last turn before staring our neighbour directly in the eye in a contest it will inevitably win. Then we look at ourselves. We are sick too. It is a nagging sickness that seems to have no cure. We are also terminal but the symptoms are mild enough that we can normally go about our days even though we know that something is not right, or knowing that we are out of sorts, or even knowing that something should be different. Every so often we get a glimpse of a miracle cure that comes seemingly out of nowhere. We doubt it will work so we try to create our own miracle. We fail, we wretch, and we take another foggy step toward our death. The consequence of sin has become acute.
To understand why there is consequence to sin, we need to understand what sin is. In the first Genesis creation narrative (“Seven Days”) we learn that people are created in the image of God. In the second Genesis creation narrative (“Adam and Eve”) we learn that God created people to oversee the right-operation of the rest of God’s creation. We, then, are purposeful image-bearers. The Adam and Eve story also teaches us that a moral characteristic exists within us, which means that it is possible for us to choose to make the wrong moral choice. I think we can broadly define sin as choosing to reject our creative design as purposeful image-bearers. We either base our existence on a different image, thereby rejecting our place in Seven Days, or put our focus on caring for something other than for what we are mandated to care, thereby rejecting our place in Adam and Eve. Sin, then, is at least partly a choice to live in a way that is different from our created nature. The consequence of sin in Adam and Eve – death – seems to be rooted in this. In rejecting the purposeful image-bearer aspect of our created nature, we end up setting the entirety of our nature aside. Death flows from this.
The passage in Numbers from this week’s readings gives this consequence a sharp focus. Israel is in the midst of a tumultuous time in its history. God promised land to Abraham and his descendants, but by the time his great-grandson Joseph is an adult Abraham’s descendants have already ended up in Egypt instead of the promised land. Over the coming centuries, the Israelites lose what political power they had as descendants of Joseph and have become an enslaved people. God hears their cries for rescue, appoints Moses as the man to lead this rescue, and then gives the Israelites rescue. This is when the Israelites promptly begin to complain and say it would have been better if they were never rescued in the first place. The consequence of the latest round of complaint, recounted in Numbers, is that the people are surrounded by poisonous snakes, many of the people are bitten, and then many of them die, at which point the Israelites cry to God for rescue. God gives it to them. Moses crafts a bronze snake and carries it with him for the next leg of the journey. Every time a person is bit by snake, Moses holds up the bronze snake and the snake-bitten Israelite lives.
I find this to be a very strange story. I understand that Israel is sinning here. Their complaints aren’t merely woe is me type statements. They are rejecting God and saying that, if given the choice, they would choose Egypt over YHWH. Rather than being purposeful image-bearers, they want to choose to be slaves. Rather than being rescued from slavery by YHWH, they want to be rescued from a boring menu by Egypt. I will not pretend that the journey through the desert was not that bad or that I would not be right alongside them complaining. I like savory food and, if we set aside a few years spent inland about a decade ago, I have lived my life on one or the other Canadian coasts and have adapted quite nicely to the ocean breeze. Nonetheless, I do find the poisonous snakes punishment a bit harsh. This seems to be exactly the type of story that makes people scream about how vicious the God of the Old Testament is.
Let’s unpack this a bit, though. Consider first where death is coming from. People were created to be purposeful image-bearers. We rejected that call. Israel was created to remind people of our position in creation. At this point, it was rejecting its call. Death is a natural consequence of our rejecting what we were created to be. In a sense, we uncreated ourselves and then we replaced ourselves by creating something else. Death is more the result of our changing what life is supposed to be than it is purely a punishment from a petty and vindictive deity by whom we happen to have been created.
Consider also that the first mention of mercy is not Matthew 1:1. Mercy, not pettiness nor vindictiveness, is the defining characteristic of God in the two Old Testament readings for this week. Likewise, the New Testament writers John and Paul recalling this same God’s mercy is the defining characteristic of the two New Testament readings.
In the reading from Numbers Israel is guilty of a pretty heinous sin. What is happening here seems to be worse than mere complaint. The people are vocally choosing Egypt as an avenue to save them from YHWH. The complaint is certainly idolatrous and perhaps even blasphemous. This recalls Adam and Eve. Israel is told what God is doing and it wants something else. Adam and Eve are told what God is doing and they want something more. Also similar to Adam and Eve, God’s response to rejection is mercy rather than simply allowing people’s choices to play out their natural consequence. God’s announcement of Adam and Eve’s punishment is not pleasant by any means, but the response is certainly not death and it is flavoured with the hope that God will put things back to right. In the case of the story in Numbers, mercy is also present but a bit odd. Rather than simply removing the snakes, God creates an anecdote to their poison. Sin still has a fierce bite, but it isn’t of ultimate power.
The reading from the Psalms also drips of Old Testament mercy. The redeemed are likened to people who were once so sick that they could not eat and were rapidly approaching their deaths. These people laying on their deathbeds cried to God in their sickness. YHWH heard them, healed them, and saved them. The sick were no longer the sick. Instead, they became the redeemed. The Psalmist exhorts his readers to respond to God with thankfulness and praise.
I wonder if passages like this were on Paul’s mind when he wrote his letter to the Ephesians. Paul writes that his readers were dead as a result of their sin. Sin was evident from specific characteristics. His readers followed along with what everyone around them was doing. Their own desires decided what path was right. They were governed by wrath. Paul then uses a telling phrase to transition from sin to grace: “But God, who is rich in mercy…” Whereas the consequence of sin is sickness and death, as we learned through Numbers, Psalms, and Ephesians, the consequence of mercy is life, fellowship with God, and good works. Paul reminds his readers of what the Psalmist and Moses told their readers – God chooses to respond to sin and death with mercy and life. The people in the church in Ephesus, and all over, have been re-created.
Certainly, we see the ultimate of mercy in the John reading. One of the middle verses – For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life – is so commonly quoted and memorised that I did not even need to look at my Bible to type it out. It is written on my heart, in the King James, of course! Its commonness caused me to be surprised by the verses immediately preceding it, though. They reference directly the very odd Numbers passage in today’s readings. Jesus recalls Moses lifting up the bronze snake and that the people who looked at it would survive the snake bite. The very same way that Moses lifted the snake, God will lift up Jesus. The very same way people looked at the snake, people will look at Jesus.
There is a difference with the Gospel reading. Death still comes, in spite of this mercy. The death though is not ours. With the cross, we see the source of our life and the cause of Jesus’ death. We are approaching the memory of this dark day. As we remember this coming good dark day, though, we are reminded of who initiated it. For God so loved the world that he sent… The God who sent his son is a God of mercy. He showed this to Adam and Eve when he made them a fresh set of clothes, delayed their deaths, and promised an ultimate resolution to their sin. He showed this to Israel when he commissioned a bronze snake. He showed this to the Psalmist when he redeemed the sick.
Mercy continues with Jesus but we have a slightly different perspective on it. Jesus’ story demonstrates that mercy and justice are not mutually exclusive. In fact, justice appears to be a crucial piece to the mercy that God provides. The world is not condemned. The world is not lost in darkness. Like Moses’ snake, anyone who looks to Jesus will be given life. This mercy is offered to Moses and the people he led. It is offered to the Psalmist and the people he writes about. It is offered to the murderer turned epistle-writer. It is offered to us. There is still condemnation, however. We will see condemnation in its full force in 19 days. The consequence of sin will be meted out.
Attribution for art work: West, Benjamin, 1738-1820 ; Hall, John, 1739-1797. The Macklin Bible -- Moses, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54084 [retrieved March 11, 2018].
Scripture readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B: https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//lections.php?year=B&season=Lent
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