Lifted Up

A sermon on Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3: 14-21 preached at First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL

(c) Christina Berry

John 3: 14-21

14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “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. 17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 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. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But 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.”

Ephesians 2:1-10

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 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.

Every Sunday, my mother got up earlier than everyone else. She would make breakfast for nine people, put the final touches on the flower arrangement for the church, gather up her pre-school Sunday School lesson, find somebody’s shoes, and put Sunday dinner in the oven. She usually made a roast, with potatoes and onions and carrots, and she’d set the oven to come on so that the roast would be perfectly done shortly after noon, when we would be home from church.

However, at the First Missionary Church where I grew up, the preacher ended every service with an altar call. For those of you who have never experienced one, an altar call is an invitation for people to give their lives to Christ. At the church of my childhood, it started with an order: “I want every head bowed and every eye closed.” Then the preacher began to invite, even plead, for the listeners to come to the altar and receive Jesus – to be saved.

While the organist played one more verse of “Just As I Am,” the preacher made an impassioned plea to each and every one of us, to be certain that we had received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, so that if we died that night, our salvation would be secure. At the Missionary Church, the preacher’s performance was judged on how many people came up to the front each week. Since his contract was reviewed every year, the preacher worked hard on that weekly altar call. Sometimes we’d sing “Just As I Am” for 15 minutes straight. Mother would be furtively looking at her watch, and my older sister would be looking at mother, and both of them were thinking about the roast, which should have come out of the oven, but was now drying up and turning a crispy brown on the ends.

We were supposed to be praying, and I was – I was praying that somebody – anybody – would get saved, so we could go home. Sometimes, my older sister would go up to the front, and as we all secretly sighed with relief, she would get saved. Again. And then we would go home to an overcooked roast. Again.

It was all about John 3:16 – a verse we all knew by heart -- whoever believes will not perish, but will have --- no! HAS -- eternal life. Every person had to have a conversion experience, to come to Jesus. That kind of talk, and altar calls, make some Presbyterians uneasy. We prefer a polite distance from such fervent emotional experience, and consider it bad form to need to be rescued by Jesus. It’s all a bit dramatic for us.

In this Gospel narrative from John 3, Nicodemus, a faithful Jew and a teacher of Israel, has come to Jesus and declared that “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus replies that no one will see the kingdom without being born from above. Nicodemus, understandably, wants to know how this would be possible. Jesus explains that he must be born a second time, born of water and spirit. Then Jesus continues with the scripture you heard:

Jesus refers to a story which would be well-known to Nicodemus, when the Israelites were in the wilderness, after the exodus from slavery in Egypt. God had provided manna and quail for them to eat, had given them a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day, but they were still complaining bitterly. They were tired of manna, tired of the wilderness, tired of the whole thing. The Exodus story says that poisonous snakes began biting them, and those who were bitten would die. So God told Moses to make a bronze snake, and put it on a staff, and lift up the staff before the people. When the people turned their eyes toward the staff and looked to it, they lived. Jesus is making an obvious comparison, that he, too, will be lifted up, and those who turn to him will live. Jesus says, “And 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.”

The Tau Cross, the cross of our focus today, appears in artworks depicting Moses lifting up the bronze serpent. It is also the cross adopted by the order of Franciscans, and was very much revered by St. Francis. The Tau cross symbolizes the life-giving nature of the crucifixion of Jesus. Just as the bronze snake lifted up before the people in the wilderness restored them from life to death, so the cross where Christ was lifted up, that we might look upon it and be restored from the poison spreading through our own bodies.

It is a matter of death and life, of darkness and light, of despair and hope. We were dead, following the course of this world, living for ourselves, our own passions, following our own desires. But God, rich in mercy, out of great love made us alive together with Christ. That grace which saves us, even when we resist the idea that we need saving, lifts us up from death and darkness into light and hope. It is grace, freely given, and unearned, that the Epistle emphasizes.

We’d like to believe that we make some kind of contribution to that, that our own strength or moral resolve or spiritual enlightenment or ethics or repentance somehow make us eligible for this new life. But it is our very broken-ness that makes us want to believe this, the poison coursing through our veins that makes us unable to hear:

“by grace you have been saved.”

It is the venom of ego and arrogance and self that blinds us to the beauty of God’s grace, that makes us see swords where plowshares should be, that makes us hear judgment when only mercy is spoken, that makes us reach for pleasure when joy is so near at hand, that makes us step back from the raw nature of the Gospel and think instead about good moral teaching, and polite tolerance, and pleasant platitudes, and the roast in the oven.

Some of us, many of us, have never had a conversion experience, cannot point to a moment or day or event, but have always known, as long as we can remember, that we belong to God, body and soul, in life and in death. But all of us have found ourselves – or someday will find ourselves – face down on the floor, desperate, praying like mad, begging to be saved.

I sat through far too many altar calls, spent too much of my young life at Sunday noontimes, head down, shoulders hunched, hoping nobody would notice me, that the preacher would not suddenly decide to call me out, point out that I am a miserable sinner in need of grace. I felt sorry for my mother, sorry for myself, sorry for our preacher.

But every now and then, every now and then during that long, sweaty altar call, someone would come slowly up to the front, with halting steps, looking neither to the left nor the right, for fear that we were staring, which we were.

The person would come slowly down to the altar and kneel, then fall across the altar rail, weeping, as the pastor knelt with him to pray. On those rare Sundays, which must have sent our preacher home rejoicing and relieved, we would witness this amazing moment, of a sinner saved by grace, looking to the cross and being lifted up, turning to face the congregation, and say that he was born again, lifted up from death into new life.

We would see a life changed, and it was something to see. We’d see a man’s life turned around, and watch with amused affection as he came to church, and prayer meeting, as he made amends with those he had wronged, and changed his relationships with his family.

It was like a miraculous healing, a sunrise, a resurrection. We watched with affection, and relief, and the knowledge that he could be us. That he was us.

Everyone at some point gets snakebit by life, knocked down to the ground, sickened to the point of death, or wishing for death. But even though the poison is fatal, there is an antidote. The remedy is the life-giving cross, where Christ is lifted up.

It does not require a dramatic conversion, but only a lifting up of the gaze, turning the eyes from the dust of self-will to a glorious life of generosity, compassion, mercy. The remedy for the poison of self- righteousness or the venom of selfishness is the recognition of that extravagant, boundless love that never gives up, the light that shines in the darkness and illuminates every corner, driving away self deception and making a dazzling and miraculous event of the smallest delight.

When we look toward that cross, that light, that savior, our hearts, our souls, our very lives are lifted up along with him. For we die, with Christ, and are raised with him, and are born anew of water and Spirit, and our eternal life has already begun.

And when we are lifted up off the floor, we stand in new life with him, newborn, to see as he sees, to hear as he hears, to speak as he speaks, to love as he loves, to live as he lives, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Thanks be to God that in Jesus Christ, we are lifted up, lifted up to life. Amen.