Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
Lent is a time when we pay particular attention to the lifting up of the Son of Man upon the cross. We look upon the one whom Isaiah said would "be raised high and greatly exalted". But this points first to him being lifted up upon the cross, when "many were amazed at him— so marred were his features, beyond that of mortals his appearance, beyond that of human beings" (see Isaiah 52:13-14). Therefore, as Christians, we do not forget about or ignore the cross as though preferring to consider only the glory of Easter. There is something to be gained, something our hearts deeply need, that is found in seeing the Son of Man lifted up for us. In the desert the Israelites had to look upon the bronze serpent statue mounted on the pole in order to be cured of the bite of the seraph serpents. So too must we see the repercussions, both of sin, and of God's love for us, revealed in the cross of Christ, to find a truly transformative remedy for the poison of sin is otherwise slowly stealing our life. Only then do we fully appreciate the richness of God's mercy in the way Paul described:
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ — by grace you have been saved —,
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
By faith we can become so identified with Christ in his suffering that we also share in his resurrection. We see him lifted up upon the cross and in some measure learn to see ourselves there together with him, dying to sin, and living to God. The more this reality permeates our hearts the more we will also experience being lifted up with him in new life, even seated "with him in the heavens".
And this is the verdict,
that the light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.
The trouble is that we have spent so much time celebrating serpents and colluding in darkness that we find direct awareness and exposure of such depravity to be not only jarring but also offensive. The bronze serpent is no abstract sculpture, but in some ways contains the form of our own sins and predilections toward darkness. It also contains the light of our only hope, that "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him". But to see the hope also requires seeing the exposed darkness which the hope is meant to conquer. And this requires grace, and comes only as a divine gift.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
We need the grace of faith that enables us to see in Jesus Christ our ransom and our salvation. We would do well to pray for the promise given by God through the prophet Zechariah: "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn" (see Zechariah 12:10). It might seem distasteful or excessive to weep for Jesus upon the cross. But is our sympathy with him true or identification with him more than superficial if we never shed such tears? They are not meant to be and indeed cannot be forced. But they are a treasure, a gift of the Spirit if and when they do come, and should not be rejected.
This identification with Christ by faith that the cross can produce in us is the basis of our recreation in him, and from it comes "the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them".
In the end, things aren't as complicated as we tend to make them. God loves us and gave us Jesus so that, "[w]hoever believes in him will not be condemned". May his grace increase our spiritual vision, enlighten our minds, and draw us more deeply into the reality of all that he has done for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment