11 March 2018 St. Athanasius Lutheran Church
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
“What Are You Looking At?”
Text:
Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21; Ephesians 2:1-10
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God
our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
There was a video going
around on the internet a little bit ago; an experiment on seeing. Maybe some of
you saw it. If you didn’t you can Google it and find it. It was a rather simple
test. On the video there were two teams, one dressed in black and one dress in
white. They were throwing a ball around. And the challenge was this: just count
how many times the ball was passed by the team in white. Simple.
So this group of people
did. They watched the video and counted. At the end, most of the people had
counted fifteen, and they were right. They patted themselves on the back. This
was way too easy. And they were right again. For then the researcher
asked them: Did you see the gorilla? And many
of them said: What gorilla? So they watched the video again and about a
minute into the game, a man dressed in a gorilla suit walks right into the
middle of the game, stands there for a few seconds, beats his chest, and then
walks out. Something like half of all people who watch that video, watching on
the ball being passed by the white team, miss the
gorilla. They’re blind to it, focusing too much on the ball being passed
around. Scientists call it selective vision. Something, it turns out, we
do all the time.
Which
maybe we need in this life. Maybe if we saw and
noticed everything, our minds couldn’t handle it. I’m certainly no expert at
that so I don’t know. But here’s the thing for us to consider today: If this is
something we do, selective vision, what are we selecting to look at?
What are we focusing on? And is it the right thing, or the wrong thing? And
what are we missing?
It seems to me this was a
problem for the people of Israel we heard about in the Old Testament reading
today. They saw the manna, the food God was giving them, but they weren’t
seeing God’s love, God’s care, God’s faithfulness - they saw only the food they
had grown tired of and now loathed. And because that’s all they saw, they
loathed God as well. They forgot about what He had done to the Egyptians, the
plagues, the dividing of the Red Sea, and how He took care of them and gave
them life in the midst of all kinds of dangers, and so they now could do
nothing but complain, against God and against Moses: Why have you brought
us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? If only they had stayed in
Egypt, they selectively thought, things would be so much better . . .
So God wanted to help
them see again, to focus their eyes on Him again. He was
the gorilla, if you will, in the midst of them, with His heart and arms wide
open . . . but all they could see was the manna they loathed. He had to get
their attention back on Him. So He sent fiery serpents among the people -
serpents that when they bit a person caused their flesh to swell and burn, like
it was on fire. Think of it - every time they went out and every time
they bent over to pick up a piece of the manna they loathed, yet needed to
live, there was potentially a serpent where you were going to step, a serpent
under the piece of manna you were ready to pick-up, ready to strike. And that did
strike.
So as you can imagine,
this caused the people to change their tune pretty quickly! We have sinned, they
cried out to Moses, for we have spoken against the Lord and against
you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.
So Moses did, but we’re not told that the Lord took the serpents away. Instead,
the Lord gave them something to look at; something to focus their eyes and
their faith on: a bronze serpent on a pole. So that when they got
bit, they could look at what God gave them and remember His promise: everyone who is
bitten, when he sees it, shall live. The bronze serpent
itself didn’t have any special power - in fact, when the people later turned it
into an idol, God commanded that it be destroyed (2 Kings 18:4).
Because it was the Word and promise of God that gave it the
power. The Word and promise of God that directed the
people to Him, to see Him and His goodness and life again.
Nicodemus surely knew
that story, as He talked to Jesus that night He had gone to Him with so many
questions. So imagine His surprise when Jesus says that story was not just a
nice story from the past, but meant something for them - both for Him
and for Nicodemus. That 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. So that meant that for Jesus, He, the Son of Man,
must be lifted up - which meant lifted up onto a cross. And for
Nicodemus, it meant he was to look at that gift of God lifted up on the
cross, and remember this promise: that whoever believes in him may have
eternal life. For Jesus on the cross was showing God’s love for him and
for the world. For God so loved the world that He did this - put
His Son on the pole of the cross for the life of the world. That a world of people bitten by the satanic serpent not perish
in the fires of hell, but have life.
For
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but
in order that the world might be saved through him.
Just as He did not send the fiery serpents in the wilderness to condemn the
people, but to save them; to refocus their eyes and their faith on Him, His
love, His goodness, His faithfulness. That they know and
trust Him again as their Father, Saviour, and
Redeemer.
So I don’t know if you’ve
noticed or not, but all this Lenten season the Gradual that I chant between the
Old Testament reading and the Epistle has said this: O come, let us fix our
eyes on Jesus. My question for you today is a simple one: Have you? Do
you? Or are you like the people of Israel in the wilderness, with selective
vision? Seeing but not seeing? Focusing on something in your life, be it
something good or something bad, something you have or something you desire,
something in the past or something in the future, something right or something
wrong, a challenge or a pleasure . . . whatever it is, but focusing on it so
much that you’re missing the gorilla? You’re missing your Saviour,
who is with you, caring for you, strengthening you, forgiving you, saving you?
It’s easy to do, right?
And not seeing our Saviour - not because He’s not there, but because we’re
selectively seeing - do we maybe not loathe Him, but question Him and His love?
Wonder what He’s doing? Get
impatient and begin to grumble against Him, and maybe also against the people
He’s given to help us?
You see, when we take our
eyes off of Jesus, the devil can fill our eyes and our hearts and minds with
all kinds of stuff. You can be sure He will try to deceive us and mislead us -
and not necessarily with lies! Maybe even with the truth. Remember, the people
watching the video got the question right: the white team passed the ball 15
times. It’s what they didn’t see . . . because their eyes were filled with
something else . . .
So come, let us fix
our eyes on Jesus. That’s what this season of Lent is all about: learning
to see again. And Lent comes every year because we need it every year, don’t
we? To point out to us what we should have been seeing all along - that our Saviour is with us in the wilderness. Remember? We started
Lent by hearing that story, of Jesus in the wilderness, for us, being
tempted by the devil, just like we are. Except He was
victorious. Because He saw what we so often fail to see, what satan so wants to cause us to
doubt - the goodness and faithfulness of our Father in heaven.
And then the next week we
heard of that goodness and faithfulness again, this time as Jesus taught about
His cross, that He must go, that He must lay down
His life for us and there was no way anyone or anything was going to stop Him.
So much He loves you. And the crosses we bear in this world and life,
they’re from His love too. They crush and kill us, the old sinner in us, in
order to save us.
And then last week Jesus
cleansed the Temple, overturning and driving out all that was filling the eyes
of the people, that they were selectively seeing, so
they would fix their eyes on Him. The religious leaders of the day did, and
killed Him. But it had to be that way. The Son of Man had to be lifted up,
for all the world to see, that whoever see Him there
remember the Word and promise of God, and have eternal life.
That’s what it’s all
about, Nicodemus. Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world - we did that
ourselves, and to ourselves, with our sin. We don’t need Jesus for that. He
came to do something about it. Which means showing us our sin - which maybe seems
like He’s condemning us when He’s really just pointing out the reality and
helping us see rightly - and then showing us Himself, on the cross, that we see
Him and live. That we see our sin there, on Him, and hear the Word and promise
of God proclaimed to us: I forgive you all your sin. The
gift of God, to you.
And this seeing rightly .
. . it’s really what those things we do during Lent are for, too; our prayer,
fasting, and almsgiving. Not that we’re doing something for God; those things
are to help us. We fast to take our eyes off the things of this world,
that we might focus on Jesus and pray, and see our neighbor in need and give.
By grace you have been saved, Paul wrote to the Ephesians. This
is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, so no boasting. But once
you see that, fix your eyes on Jesus, then this too: good works, which
God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Good works, which are for my neighbor works; which are not so
obsessed about me works; which are seeing rightly works. So come
let us fix our eyes on Jesus on the pole. And live.
And finally this too: eat
the manna that has been given to us here, the bread from heaven that is here
for us every Sunday. Just as Israel came through the waters of the Red Sea, so
have you come through the waters of Baptism. And now, on your way, God has
provided food; food that is not worthless, but the Body and Blood of Christ, given
and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Immeasurable riches,
Paul calls them. Gifts that you may see rightly. Gifts for you. Gifts which show us God in the midst of us,
God with His heart and arms wide open, embracing you with His love.
So what are you looking
at? O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+)
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.