(Numbers 21;4b-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17)
Look up! Moses says to the snake bitten children of God.
Look up and live!
You are being poisoned by a false memory. The scars of the lashes of slavery are still with you, yet you want to remember the grimaces and call them smiles.
Look up, cries Moses, look up at the truth.
The truth of God’s provision, the truth of walking in freedom, the truth of hope – these truths are indeed a new landscape, but your eyes can adjust. Your body can adjust. Your breath can adjust.
But for these truths to do their healing work, you must look up.
Lift your eyes to the one who heals you, past the medicine in its curious form. Look to the One whose power is over, whose love is around you, whose Divine desire is for your healing.
Tell them to look up, says the Lord to Moses, to look up from their pain, to turn away from lies, to want healing as much as I, the Lord, want to heal.
Look up! Moses says to the snake bitten children of God.
Look up and live!
Look up, says Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus, who crept in under the cover of darkness.
Look up and live!
Like your ancestors, you are wandering, absorbed in memory of when things were better. A memory can deceive you, but the God who was with you then and is with you now will not.
Look up, says Jesus, look up and see the Spirit, the breath of God. Perceive how the wind moves, even when you cannot see the force itself.
Look up and be born again into a new hope, a renewed hope, a hope that demonstrates how God is still speaking.
Your first birth brought you screaming into brightness. Look up, says the Christ, and know that the second birth, through water and Word, brings you into the brightness of eternal love.
God so loves. God so loves. God so loves. The world, the cosmos, the height and depth and breadth, Nicodemus. God. So. Loves.
Look up, says Jesus to the Pharisee who crept in under the cover of darkness.
Look up and live!
Look up, says Paul to the divided Corinthians, look up to the shape of your salvation.
Look up and live.
I know, my beloveds, writes the Apostle, that you long to seem wise. You want to be able to debate with clarity and rhetoric. What good is the gift of salvation, if you cannot shout down every opponent and watch their efforts burn with holy fire, like Elijah and the prophets of Baal.
Look up to the cross, my Corinthian friends. The joy of our salvation does not lie in proof-texted arguments and quick comebacks, so valued by the powers of this world. The cross turns the world and its “wisdom” upside down.
If the cross finds meaning in our boasting of our self-righteousness and superior claims to understanding, says Paul, then it has no meaning at all.
Look up and remember the One who called down forgiveness, who welcomed sinners to paradise, who committed his life to the hands of the Father. Look up and see that it stands empty because neither God’s will nor God’s grace nor God’s plan for redemption can be nailed down and forced to conform to the expectations of this world.
Look up, says Paul to the divided Corinthians, look up to the shape of your salvation.
Look up and live.
Look up, says the pastor to the weary soul, look up at the cross of Christ and remember that it is not your own.
Look up and live.
Like our siblings in the wilderness, we are snake-bit by false memories and misinformation. We callback a time of glory that never really was only because it wasn’t glorious for everyone. The gospel is only good news when it is good news for the whole creation.
Look up, says the pastor, look up and learn from our human history, so that all may have cups that runneth over and tables prepared - not in the presence of enemies, but in the company of friends.
Caught like Nicodemus in trying to sort out Jesus’ confusing words, we sometimes forget the clearest commands of our Savior. Look up, says the preacher, and remember the blessing that comes from peacemaking. Remember how the Savior is met in the hungry, sick, and lonely. Remember how to show mercy to your neighbor and go and do likewise.
Look up and recall how God so loves and how the Son was sent not to condemn, but to rescue.
Look up, says the preacher, from the same news stories told the same way over and over, stirring up frustration that has nowhere productive to go. Look up from what you use to distract yourself- the thing that in the dark of the night makes you wish you spent your time or your money or your strength differently.
Look up and consider that when Paul told the Corinthians to stop trying to do things in the way of the world, he then told them that the way of discipleship was one of love- patient, kind, not boastful or rude, no jealousy and no record-keeping of wrongs.
Look up to the world of the Good Shepherd around you, the blessings of your Creator, the consolation and encouragement of the Holy Spirit.
Look up and sing again the words of “Amazing Grace”.
Look up and remember that when we say, “God so loves”- this means you. For you. For you. For you.
Look up and know that nothing is inevitable except the grace of God. No powers of this world, no spiritual forces, no human mistakes can derail God’s ultimate desire for reformation, restoration, and resurrection. Look up and know that nothing is inevitable except the grace of God.
You have been equipped for living a life of hope amidst doubt, possibility amidst fear, and love amidst violence, for unity amidst division.
You have been equipped for living for Christ, living abundantly.
Look up, says the pastor to the weary soul, look up at the cross of Christ and remember that it is not your own.
Look up and live.
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