May 26^th, 2024 Hate Evil John 3:1-21

In the Holy Gospel appointed for today our Lord refers to the manner in which Moses "lifted up the serpent in the wilderness." The incident to which our Lord referred is narrated in the First Lesson. The occasion was the outburst of frustration when the Children of Israel had to backtrack from Mount Hor down to the Sea of Reeds to detour around Edom. The reason for the runaround was that the Edomites would not grant the Israelites a permit to pass through their land. Consequently, as the Israelites started their dreary march back into the desert, they started to moan and complain. They complained against both God and Moses for having brought them out of the security of their bondage in Egypt. Sometimes slavery and the lack of freedom can be far more safe and secure than freedom. So it was that the Israelites deemed that new freedom laid more burdens upon them than their past slavery in the Land of Pharaoh.

What was at stake, however, was the fact that the Israelites were questioning the divine providence and guidance of the God who had saved and redeemed them. They had contested the manner in which God was dealing with them. As is so common, their memories were not of the outstanding deliverance God had performed for them. It was for this reason that God permitted them to be attacked by the poisonous serpents whose bite was fatal. That drove the people to their senses. They repented of their grumbling and rebellion against God and Moses. Moses interceded on their behalf. God heard the prayer and instructed Moses to prepare a brazen serpent upon which the people could look and be saved.

The reason that Jesus saw a parallel between his own passion and the lifting up of the brazen serpent was because the conditions were the same. Whether it was Jesus who said it, or the evangelist who editorialized about it, the fact is that "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." The problem is that the world is perishing as surely as the Israelites were dying of poisonous venom. That is not difficult to see.

Yet we are stuck with the hard fact that at even here in the 21^st Century nations still go to war. We know that we have to spend enormous sums to maintain a defense posture. The world sows the seeds of its own destruction. Evil and demonic leadership highlight for us how people prefer to live in the bondage to their own desires rather than to live for the sake of others.

Another condition which is the same as that of the time of the children of Israel in the desert is that the world is in the dark. The evangelist says, "The people loved darkness rather than light." That was the same way in which the Israelites said they preferred the days of slavery in Egypt to the freedom under God in the desert. In the same way the world is in the dark today. We cannot learn about God apart from what God tells or teaches us about himself. However, God has not left himself without witness. God has revealed himself. The world is very much in the dark and cannot find solutions to its own great problems. And the real tragedy, is that the "people loved darkness rather than light."  And when acts contrary to Scripture occur and the church and Pastor speak out, the people reject the teaching of God, The Light, and go their own way.

Because people of the world "loved darkness rather than light, their deeds were evil." Sin is so obvious in the world that one does not have to advance much of an argument to show that people are capable of great evil. Broadcasts of atrocities have been so horrendous at times that they had to be cut because they had been so offensive to public viewing.

St. John teaches us saying, "All who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed." The person who does good service but does it for one's own selfish reasons or benefits is evil. All of the manipulating, the self-serving, and the selfish behavior of people is evil. No matter how pious or how religious people may sound in the doing of that which is aimed at elevating oneself, it is evil.

Because the condition of the world is so perishable that it can produce only evil deeds in its darkened condition, only God could rescue it. God did that in the sending of our Lord Jesus Christ. The analogy of why God had to do so is expressed by the brazen serpent that Moses lifted in the wilderness. The imminent threat of death present in those poisonous snakes that infiltrated the camp of the Israelites was a powerful motivation for the people to repent of their sins of unbelief and complaint in the desert. God could have used their helplessness as a time to extract from them promises that they would change their lives, clean up their acts and take loyalty oaths and make commitments never to sin against God again. However, that would not work.

The bronze snake became the sign of God's love and grace for the people. The people could look to the snake and be spared, because they trusted a word and promise from God. God made no bargain with the people. Rather, God gave the people the opportunity to test God's goodness, grace and mercy.

The analogy of the brazen serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness is made by the evangelist as to how God had to lift up our Lord Jesus Christ. "So," he says, "must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." The Son of Man was "lifted up" upon the cross and again when he ascended into heaven. The same Greek expression is used for both the crucifixion and the ascension. God had to allow his own Son to be lifted up on the cross for the salvation of the world for the same reasons he had to provide the brazen serpent.

God is perfectly willing to sweep all that aside. "Indeed," says the evangelist, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." God's love for the world is so great that he is perfectly willing to cover the situation for us. God provides the way out of our perishable, darkened and futile life by giving us the opportunity to trust him again. It is as plain and simple as that. "Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

God has shined the light on the whole situation. St. John goes on to say, "Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God." God gives us the light to see ourselves as we truly are, to see the fullness of his love and the richness of his grace. This is to say, that when we live by faith in this gracious God that God looks upon all that we do as having been redeemed and sanctified in Christ.

In the Second Lesson this morning we hear it stated well, "By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God... not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." All of that should give us encouragement. We should be able to discern what evil in the world truly is. Evil is not believing God. It is unbelief that we must hate. To cultivate goodness is to believe God and to trust that God does not condemn us. If we do that, we can count on God to do the rest. He will give us opportunity to do good and then count it righteous. No questions asked.