Fourth Sunday in Lent

By Ben Cluff, Lay Preacher
Numbers 21:4-9 
Ephesians 2:1-10 
John 3:14-21 
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable in thy site, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. 

Good morning - Here we are at this 4 th Sunday of Lent, known as Laetare Sunday. According to the Episcopal Church glossary, the naming of this Sunday as Laetare Sunday, “is derived from the opening words of the Latin Mass, “Rejoice Jerusalem, Laetare Jerusalem, from Isaiah 66:10. The glossary goes on to state, “ The church is called to joyful anticipation of the victory to be won. This joyful theme provides lightning from the penitential emphasis of Lent. Since the 13 th Century, the celebrant of the Eucharist has been permitted to wear rose-colored vestments which express the change of the tone in the Lenten observance, Rejoice, Celebration! - on that note; 
Let’s take stock, for a moment of our journey so far this Lent; We began with Jesus, upon being baptized, being driven into the wilderness to face temptation for 40 days and 40 nights. 

This is followed by Jesus informing his closest that he must undergo great suffering and he will be rejected by elders, chief priests, and scribes. And when Peter takes issue with this, Jesus rebukes him, telling Peter, “You're setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” 
And then, last week, we find Jesus expressing great anger and frustration at the marketplace and money changers in the temple. 

And now, here at this 4th Sunday of Lent, we encounter God’s expression
of Divine Love, shown through Jesus' presence here on earth. 
In our gospel reading today, Jesus makes reference to our Old Testament reading, “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.”

This link between today’s gospel and Moses' experience in the wilderness has prompted me to reflect on this age-old relationship between God and us humans, here on earth. 

It certainly has been a back and forth, at times contentious relationship. God’s presence has been constant, and we, I mean the collective we, us humans, have participated in this relationship so diversely. Sometimes we have behaved like petulant children, other times we have behaved as if we are consciously aware that we are recipients of God’s Grace, and at other times we seem so aware that we are recipients of God’s Divine Love, only to return our behavior back to that of petulant children. For example, “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.” and the turning to Moses - “pray Moses, to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” 
And God provides a solution, through the bronze serpent. 

This is just one of so many of our experiences of trying to get our relationship right with God - this ongoing experience of always striving, falling back, striving again - 
And God’s provision of a variety of means to us, of experiencing God as accessible - for example the rainbow following the flood, the leadership and care of Moses, the covenant with Abraham, and today on Laetare Sunday, we rejoice and celebrate Jesus life, his death, and resurrection and how all of that makes it possible for us to experience God and God's Love as accessible to us. 

I want to pause here for a moment and invite us to consider the concept of incarnation. 

There is a book I have found to be a wonderful resource, it is titled “Making Sense of the Christian Faith” by David J. Lose. The format of the book can seem a little hokey; it is a back and forth, question and answer conversation between two people. 

I would like to offer some selections from that conversation: 
Author David Lose writes, “Christians confess that, in Jesus, God became human and took on our life and our situation in the world - showing our hopes and dreams, vulnerability and limitations. This is what Christians call the Doctrine of Incarnation.”

Incarnation comes from two Latin words, in meaning into and carne meaning flesh, incarnation literally meaning into flesh. 

David Lose provides two stories that attempt to portray this notion of incarnation, the first comes from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard; “He describes the incarnation as being like a royal king who fell in love with a lowly serving girl. How could the king earn her love? He couldn’t do it by a show of power, or she would be intimidated. And he couldn’t just pour riches on her or decree that she was his equal. Then she might just love him for what he could give her, not for who he really is. So He Became a humble servant like her in order to win her genuine love. For Kierkegaard, that helped explain some of incarnation. It tells us why God became human, even if we can’t understand how. 

“So Kierkegaard thought that God became human in order to win our love.” 
“Right” 

“But God wanted our love for the right reasons. God became human so we wouldn’t love God because we were afraid or just for what God can do for us, but we’d love God for who and what God really is.” 

“And the other story?” 

“We are not sure who wrote this story. It is about a man, a farmer who never went to church, even though his wife did regularly. Well, one cold and blustery Christmas Eve, after his wife had again pleaded with him but couldn’t convince him to come with her to church, he was reading comfortably by the fire when he heard a thudding against the windows of their house. He looked out and saw that sparrows trying to get out of the cold, harsh wind and attracted by the light and heat inside, were crashing into the windows of the house. He covered the windows, but that didn’t work. So he decided to put on his coat, gloves, and hat and go out and open his barn doors wide, so the birds could find sanctuary there. But they wouldn’t come in. He put the lights on, but they didn’t come. He spread a trail of cracker crumbs, but they wouldn’t follow. He tried to shoo them in, but that only frightened them more. If only, he thought, I could become a sparrow, for a little while, I could lead them into the barn to safety. 

And at that moment, he realized that’s what Christmas Eve - the story of God being born as a human - was all about.”

“So in this story God comes to us in a form we can recognize and understand, in order to communicate to us and lead us to safety.” 

“Right. It’s about the gap between humans and God that God decides to close in order to help us.” end quote and thanks to David Lose for these stories. 

I continue to be amazed, struck by the humanity of Jesus, the earthiness of Jesus. Look at our readings this Lent - temptation, being misunderstood, anger and frustration. 

Jesus is constantly faced with the inherent tension between the secular and the spiritual. The profound secular context of balance and imbalance of power and control in the society in which he lived. 

Being understood and misunderstood. 

Being faced with incredible temptation and experiencing grief. 

Requiring times of solitude and quiet in order to rest, replenish, reflect, and commune. 

These human aspects of Jesus time on earth, these are our struggles, our temptations, our human experience. 

Jesus shares them, participates in them and all the while provides guidance, counsel, and comfort for us. 

Jesus is the human embodiment of the power of unconditional love, without exception and so very importantly, the means by which we are able to experience God in our lives. 

As a result of being with us, among us, and yet so very different from us, we are able to realize that God knows our struggles. 

I am sure we are all able to identify times in our lives when God has seemed so very large and so very distant, and so very separated from our daily lives, our daily struggles. 

And our journey back, or the change in our perception, or our change in being, has so often been through our re-connection with the notion that Jesus' life on earth guides us back to God. God knows our human struggles and we know this because of Jesus' time on earth; and this, when we are open to it, proves to us, once again, that God is not so large or too distant or so very separate from our daily lives.

And if we are open to it, we know through this experience that we are loved and God is there for us and it is by grace-and unmerited love and favor of God. 

When our conscious contact with God seems good, we become aware of the notion that we are of value simply because we exist - the Grace of God. We are all of value because we exist - no exception. 

As we live in our secular world; as we encounter the inherent tension between the secular and the spiritual - the balance and imbalance of power and control in our lives - of being understood and misunderstood- of being faced with temptation and grief, of feeling the need for rest, replenishment, time for reflection and communion - We can know that we will always be loved and there will always be a safety net, so to speak, because of God’s Grace. 

The evidence of that is so poignantly provided us in the life of Jesus on earth. On those days when we are able to be secure in this knowledge, we are able to participate in this world, with those around us, those we know and those we we don’t, in a manner wherein love wins, fear is at bay, all is well. 

Our preservation, our rescue, our salvation is provided to us through the small details of Jesus life and the large events of his life, death, and resurrection. 

Laetare Sunday! Rejoice! Celebration! 

For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. 

Amen. 

Making Sense of the Christian Faith by David J. Lose

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