"God Made Him Who Had No Sin to Be Sin For You"
Sermon by the Rev. Matt Kennedy

June 11th 2006
The Church of the Good Shepherd

John 3:11-18

About 2000 years before Jesus, the Hebrews were living in Egypt as slaves. God raised up a man named Moses who confronted the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and led the Hebrews out of slavery and into a huge desert that stretched from Egypt to Israel, the land that God had promised the Hebrews 400 years earlier.

What do you need in a desert? Food and water. Both are hard to find. Throughout their desert trek, God provided the Hebrews with both. When they lacked water God caused springs to shoot up from the rocks. Six mornings a week, God provided bread that coated the ground like dew, just enough for everyone to eat their fill. Finally, just to make things perfect, since no one likes to live on just bread and water, God caused quail to fall into the Hebrew camp, enough meat for every man, woman and child.

After freeing them from slavery and providing for all of their needs you'd think the Hebrews would be grateful? Well they weren't. They grumbled and complained the whole way. “Why have you brought up out of Egypt to die in this desert?…We detest this miserable food!”

  Not only that, they actually rebelled. They found a leader an plotted to overthrow Moses find another god and go back to Egypt.

  In response to their rebellion God sent venomous snakes into the camp. The snakes carried a painful bite and the venom was poisonous enough to kill. Moses realized that unless something were done, all the people would die. So he prayed to God for mercy. And God answered. He told Moses to erect a wooden pole in the middle of the camp. Take some bronze and cast it in the shape of the venomous snakes and attach it to the top of the pole. Then call everyone together. The only way to be cured of the poison is to look at the bronze snake.

  So Moses did as God instructed and everyone who looked at the bronze snake was healed.

  What an odd story? I mean if God wanted to cure them, why didn't he just say the word? Why have Moses go through the process of casting a bronze snake and setting on a wooden pole?

  Well, what do snakes generally represent in the bible? In Genesis Satan came to Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent. Serpents represent sin and rebellion. Now, real snakes are God's creatures so we shouldn't go around killing them to get rid of evil. The snake is a metaphor, a symbol, for Satan and for sin. It is not sin.

  So God sent the snakes as a sort of sign. What you're doing is a lot like what Adam and Eve did. I've given you life, breath, food, water, meat, and freedom you are rebelling against me. You're rejecting me. You're choosing the way of the serpent, the way of Satan, the way of sin.

  That explains why God sent snakes, but why did God have Moses make a snake and set it on a wooden pole? Let's turn to our gospel lesson for this morning.

  Jesus is teaching Nicodemus, a Pharisee, about how to establish a personal relationship with God. He tells Nicodemus that he must be “born again.” Nicodemus has no idea what that means. So Jesus explains that just like you were born by water (which was a polite way of saying “out of your mother's womb“) you must be born spiritually in order to have eternal life. In the process of explaining this, Jesus says this: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)

  Now, you may have read that passage before and had no idea what Jesus was talking about. But Nicodemus did. He was a Pharisee. He knew his Old Testament by heart. Jesus was saying, I will be like that bronze snake. God commanded Moses to make the snake and erect the pole as a sign of what I have come to do.

  Let's think about that. If the snake represents Satan and sin, why would Jesus say that he's going to be like the snake? The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was like us in every way except he did not sin. Jesus is the opposite of what the serpent represents. What's going on?

  Well listen to this passage from 2 nd Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.”

  God made him who had no sin, Jesus, became sin for us. Jesus was not a snake but he put himself in the place of the snake: in the place of the sinner, in the place of the rebel.

  Why? Paul says “for us.” For you. Jesus like the snake was lifted up on a wooden pole, a cross. And on that cross he took on or carried or represented the sin of all the world. Let's not universalize this too much. He carried your sin: every evil thought word and deed you've ever had or ever will have. The suffering that he suffered rightly belonged to you and to me. We are the rebels. We are the ones who've followed the serpent. We are the ones who've been bitten and poised. You and I grumble and rebel against the God who created us and gave us life and breath and food and water and clothing. But God became sin for you and suffered the punishment that should have been yours and mine to suffer.

  Wait, you might say, it wasn't God on the cross, it was Jesus. Yes and no. look at what Jesus says again, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” When you hear the term “Son of Man” you think “human being.” I'm the son of a man. You're all sons of men. But that's not what a Jewish person means by that term. Jesus is referring to a special vision of the prophet Daniel in Daniel chapter 7:13-14: “before me was one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was lead into his presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power; all peoples, nations, and men of every language worshiped him.” Worshiped. God, the ancient of days, caused the Son of Man to be worshiped by all people. But the first commandment says what? You shall not bow down to anything in heaven or earth, you shall have no gods before me. So, how can God permit heaven and earth worship of the Son of Man? There is only one way. The Son of Man is God too.

  So, when Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man a Pharisee like Nicodemus, would know that he's calling himself God. Jesus says that he, the Son of Man, God, will be lifted up like the snake in the desert and become sin, bear the full weight of the consequences of sin for all humanity.

  Why? Jesus tells us in verses 15 and 16: “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” And I'm sure you've heard this next part, but let the full weight of it sink in, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

  The best way to read or hear that passage is to take out the words “world” and “whosoever” and replace them with you. “For God so loved you that he gave his one and only son that you shall not perish but have eternal life.”

  Jesus, God, suffered and died for you because he loves you and wants you to have eternal life. He died in your place to take away your sin, the deadly poison and venom that will otherwise eternally separate you from God. God has given his life for yours. But just because God did this for you doesn't mean that you have it. If someone buys you a gift you still have to do what? Receive it. There is only one way to receive the forgiveness, mercy, new life God purchased for you on the cross. Jesus tells you right here. “Everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Everyone who looked at the bronze serpent was cured of the poison. Everyone who looks to Jesus Christ, the sin bearer, is cured of the consequences of sin, which is eternal death, eternal separation from God in the place the bible calls hell.

  Let's not get confused. “Believing” in Jesus is not simply believing what the bible teaches about him. “Believe” in Jesus, means commit your whole life to him; become his man or his woman for life and for eternity; It means your whole life changes in purpose and direction. The way you spend your time. The way you spend your money. The way you use your gifts. Believing in Jesus is the same sort of commitment you make when you get married. The ceremony establishes the relationship, but your life demonstrates whether the vows you made were sincere or false. If you commit your life to Jesus and then go back to living the way you used to live, its like walking into a singles bar without your wedding ring. There's reason to believe that the ceremony meant nothing. Believing means turning your whole life over to Jesus, not just by saying a few words, but by living for and with him every day.

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