I’ve never been bitten by a snake.
That’s one of those dangers that we almost don’t even think about, it’s so rare. I looked up the statistics though. Globally, an estimated 5.4 million people are bitten by snakes each year. But thanks to modern medicine, only about 100,000 people die each year from snakebites. Most of those take place in the Asia-Pacific, where there are a lot of snakes and poor medical care. In our country, your chances of being bitten by a snake are less than 1 in 37,000 and the odds of dying are almost zero. You can sleep soundly tonight without worrying about venomous snakes.
Can you imagine living through the plague of snakes in Numbers 21? The people of Israel grumbled against God as they traveled through the desert wilderness. God had rescued them from slavery to Egypt. He had brought them through the Red Sea on dry ground. He had thundered from Mt. Sinai with his law. He gave them miraculous food and water to sustain them. And they complained. “Why must we die in this wilderness? There’s no food. There’s no water. This food is disgusting!” Their complaining sounds like what you might expect from children, not from adults, and certainly not from people who are trusting in God.
And so God punished them with venomous snakes.
But God also provided salvation for them. When they finally repented the Lord had Moses put a bronze snake on a pole, lifting it up in the sight of the people. If someone was bitten and looked at that bronze snake, he lived.
That bronze snake in the desert, Jesus says, was a picture of him, the one who is lifted up on the cross for us. Just like with those people, God calls us to repent of our sins. His purpose is not to kill and condemn us. It’s to lift us up with Jesus. And so in Ephesians 2 we find that God lifts us up by saving us from sin, raising us from death, seating us with Christ in heaven, and giving us work, joy-filled, gospel-driven work. Rejoice! In your Lenten Repentance look to God’s Great Grace.
The Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Christians in Ephesus around the year 60 AD while he was in prison in Rome. It would seem like Paul should have some things to complain about. He had been held as a prisoner for a long time at this point. It was a rough trip getting to Rome. He was shipwrecked. He was bitten by a snake. But this letter to the Ephesians is really full of gospel joy.
Where our lesson begins in chapter 2 Paul had just reminded the Ephesians and us of how little we deserve God’s love. We’re sinners, and that’s no small thing. Paul says “We were by nature objects of God’s wrath.”
That’s a strong way of putting it, but he’s absolutely right. God does not tolerate sin. He cannot tolerate sin. All sin, ultimately, is against God. Adam complained that Eve gave him the fruit, but in so doing he blamed God for the wife God gave him. The people in the wilderness complained about their food, and in so doing they complained about God who was providing for them. If I hate my brother I’m also hating God, who made him. If I’m greedy for earthly wealth I’m not trusting God or being grateful for what he has given me. Every sin finds it’s way back to God. Every sin opposes him.
We don’t really need venomous snakes to remind us that we’re sinners who deserve God’s wrath. We all know it. We all understand the need for Lent. We all know that we have much from which to repent.
What then is Paul’s cause for rejoicing? What can be ours? It’s not the love of God we deserve. It’s his undeserved love, his grace.
But God, because he is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!
Imagine being one of those Old Testament Israelites bitten by a venomous snake. As you look at the festering wound and spreading poison all you can think is, “I’m dead.” That’s how we are with our sin. We’re both dead and dying. Spiritually, we are nothings more than corpses. And bodily, we are like husks that are wasting away, like people dying from a snakebite that has no cure.
But hold on! Lift up your eyes. There, do you see it? It’s your life. It’s your salvation!
For the people in the wilderness it was a snake. A bronze snake on a pole. A snake to take the place of the snake that bit them. And for us and for them and for all people, who should be so lowly as to be our curse, be our sin, than God’s own Son, our holy substitute, lifted up on the cross for us.
This lifting up on the cross God uses to lift us up. In his great grace, he lifts us up from sin. Repentance always has this as its end. Can you imagine confessing your sins, perhaps in the corporate confession in church on Sunday morning, only for the pastor to turn around and say, “Not this time!” Wouldn’t that be terrible! No, do you think about how great a blessing it is that every week you can come to church, confess all your sins, every way you have opposed God in thought and word and deed, and every single time without fail God says through his called servant, “I forgive you your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And if that’s not enough, our Lord seals this promise to you in his sacraments. You cannot unbaptize yourself. You can walk away from your baptism in unbelief, but God, who adopted you as his own dear child, will always be waiting like the father of the prodigal son. And in the sacrament of Holy Communion Jesus gives us his body and blood, a miraculous food, the medicine that heals us from sin, better than any antivenom.
Jesus was lifted up on the cross, and in his great grace he lifts us up, raising us from death. Paul says, “God also raised us up with Christ.” Saved from sin, he gives us life. His life. Paul says, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” My old sinful self with all its rebellion against God, that self is dead. It was nailed to the cross with Jesus. It was drowned in baptism. He has made me a new person. He has given me a new life.
And just as before I was dead and dying — completely spiritually dead in sin, and slowly dying an eternal death — so now I am raised and rising. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never perish.” Everyone who looked at the bronze snake lived. The snake’s venom was powerless. And Satan’s venom is powerless over us who look to Christ. What can he do to us? What did he do to Jesus? Jesus died! And rose again. “Satan, you can kill me, and Jesus will lift me up. I will rise again.”
Jesus was lifted up on the cross, and in his great grace he lifts us up, so that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
When we think on our sins, really think on them — when we look to the cross and see Jesus hanging there and say to ourselves, “That was me. I’m the one who did that,” we can hardly comprehend God’s grace. This he does for me? A lowly sinner? Would we even be so bold as to ask, as the thief next to him did, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.”? Who am I that Jesus should remember me in that glorious heavenly place?
And yet what does Jesus promise? “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Paul says,
He did this so that, in the coming ages, he might demonstrate the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
Jesus was lifted up on the cross, and in his great grace he lifts us up, giving us work—joy-filled, gospel-driven work. Paul concludes,
We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance so that we would walk in them.
What a privilege it is to live for Christ, who lived for us. We’ve been lifted up to do his will, to serve his purposes, to be his hands in the world. With his blessing the most lowly and ignoble works are now the most wonderful and blessed works. Jesus sees them. In his love he says, “Those things you have done for the least of these, you did for me.” And yet even these are prepared for us. They’re a gift of God’s grace. “Lord, lift me up. Strengthen my feeble hands and steady my weak knees. To you be the glory, and not to me.”
Yes, this is the end and goal of our Lenten Repentance. Look to your God’s Great Grace. Humble yourself before him. Cry out to him for mercy and salvation. He will not turn you away. He will give you joy. He will lift you up, saving you from sin, raising you from death, seating you Christ in heaven, and giving you joy-filled, gospel-driven work. Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson