Rainbow Wigs, In and Out and You

       Football season has finally arrived.  You know what that means.  It means that we’ll once again get to see a guy in the rainbow wig sitting in the end zone with a John 3:16 sign.  Actually I think there is now is actually a team of them – one for each end zone for each televised game.  You really have to admire the organization. 

       The original John 3:16 guy, Rollen Stewart, is now serving a life term in prison for kidnapping.  It turns out he was crazy.  When his act got stale, Rainbow Man started releasing stink bombs to warn people that the end was near and that they needed to be saved.  And then he took a hotel maid hostage and is now spending his life in prison.  

       But the ministry goes on. 

       Or go down to In and Out Burger and buy a drink.  Before you go to the fountain to fill it, turn it over and look underneath.  There it is.  John 3:16.  I made the mistake of looking after I’d filled the drink.  It doesn’t work.

       It seems like people are trying to tell us something. 

       Here’s what they are trying to tell us.  It’s probably the very first verse you learned as a child.  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that anyone who believes in Him may  not perish but have everlasting life”  The next verse isn’t on the Rainbow wig guy’s sign or on the bottom of a cup but here it is.  “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him.”

       In John 3, Jesus is talking to the Pharisee Nicodemus who came to Jesus for a nighttime conversation.  Jesus tells old Nicodemus that he will never reach God by rule keeping, even though he is a top-notch rule keeper.  "You are wasting your time," Jesus says, “if you think you can enter the kingdom of God the way you are. You cannot do it by keeping rules and regulations. You must be born again” or “born from above.” He tells Nicodemus that he needs an extreme makeover of the kind that can only be provided the Holy Spirit.  We looked at this part of the conversation last Sunday. 

       When Nicodemus asks, “How can this be?” Jesus expresses surprise.  “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?” I understand these things because of who I am and where I come from. “No one has gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.”

       So Jesus says, “Nicodemus, it’s time for you to get some insight into your own national story.”

       The place Jesus takes Nicodemus is the Old Testament Book of Numbers.  Here is the account of the time the People of Israel spent in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land.  In Numbers 21 there is a story that must have always been a puzzle to people like Nicodemus.  God does something but no one knows why He does it the way He does it – until later.   It’s like watching Lost in television.  Things happen and you have no idea why they happen until later.  The difference is that unlike the writers of Lost, God has always known how the story is going to end. 

        Sometime I’m going to do a sermon series on the wilderness wandering of the People of Israel.  I have two working titles, “Bellyaching in the Back Country” or “Whining in the Wilderness.”  Both fit.  The people are always complaining about something.  They’re worse that the worst kids on vacation.

       Numbers 21:4 reads:  “They traveled from Mt. Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom.  But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this desert?” There is no bread! There is no water. And we detest this miserable food – the manna and the quail God has provided. 

       God decides that it’s time for an attitude adjustment.  He sends snakes into the camp of Israel.  Their bites burn like fire.  Many people get bit and die.  So the people come to Moses and say, “We sinned against Lord and against you, again.   Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.”  So Moses prays, again.

       You’d expect God to just take away the snakes.  But God doesn’t take away the snakes.  The snakes stay.   Instead of removing the snakes, God tells Moses to make an image of a snake out of bronze and put it on a pole about the camp of Israel.  People will still get bit. But God promises that anyone who is snake bit will live if they simply turn and look at the image of the snake on the pole.  

       God does something that only makes sense about 1200 years later.  The story of the bronze serpent is like a delayed action bomb God places in the history of Israel.  Then, some 1200 years later, Jesus reveals to Nicodemus that that whole bronze snake story is about Him.  He tells Nicodemus, “I am like that snake.  And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up that anyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” 

       “So if you’re snakebite,” Jesus says, “look at Me and live.  Exercise the look of faith.

        On the surface, a snake on a pole seems like a pretty poor symbol for Jesus.  Things like a spotless lamb or a regal lion are clearly fitting symbols of our Lord. But a snake? A snake is not a symbol of beauty but a symbol of evil -- under the curse of God ever since Genesis 3.

        But there is a marvelous connecting thread that runs through scripture that leads us to a great truth.  Hang in there and follow the connections and you will understand why Jesus points to the serpent hanging on a pole as the most fitting symbol of His coming death on the cross. 

        The thread starts in Deuteronomy 21:23. Here the law declares: "If a person has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, you shall hang him on a tree; his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day--for he who is hanged is accursed of God."

       The Apostle Paul then connects how this declaration applies to Jesus.  He writes in Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us -- for it is written, 'cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree!'"

       Jesus died under the curse of the Father. That what the Bible clearly says.  A holy God cannot look upon sin and Jesus had become sin. When Jesus cried out on the cross: "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" it was at that moment that the separation between Jesus and the Father became total.

       That was the true agony of the cross. Throughout history, many had died through crucifixion. After the Spartacus slave revolt was crushed, thousands of crosses dotted the hills around Rome. The death of these persons did nothing for our salvation. But when Jesus died He bore the sins of the whole world. We can hardly stand to bear our own sins. Jesus bore them all. The message of Easter is that sin lost.

        It is in these verses -- Numbers 21, John 3:15, Deuteronomy 21:23 and Galatians 3:13 -- that we find much of the meaning of Jesus’' death.  We are told that in some way on the cross Jesus came under the curse of God so that we might be free of the curse of God -- that in some profound and mysterious way Jesus took our place and died the death that we deserved to die.

        Paul says this plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:21.  He declares: "God made him (Jesus) who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."  What Paul is saying is that Jesus didn't carry our sins to the cross like they were in a backpack or suitcase. He carried our sins to the cross in His own person — He became sin! The one who had never sinned -- the spotless Lamb of God -- became the very symbol of evil -- the serpent on the pole.  And just as the people of Israel needed to turn to the pole and look, we need today to turn in faith to the cross as the only cure for our sin.

       The reality is that we all need the cross because we’re all snakebite – you, me, Nicodemus, Billy Graham, everyone.   Everyone on earth has had poison injected into their system by sin.  It’s a poison that leads inevitably to death – spiritual death in separation from the God who made us and eternal death.  It’s not like Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man drumming up a fake crisis in order to sell a solution – where the problem is a pool hall and the solution is a boy’s band.  I love that play. But this isn’t a play.  Our crisis is absolutely real and our need is real.   

       Jesus says that God gives the one and only antidote to the poison in Him.  He says this in the gracious words we all know and love: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that anyone who believes in Him may not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him.”

       The message could not be any clearer.  The only question is, “what do we do with it?”  When we are snakebite, do we turn and look at the cross and find healing or don’t we?

       I can imagine that there were people in the camp if Israel who refused to look and died. 

       There was the guy who said, “I haven’t really been bit.  It’s only a flesh wound. I’m getting better.”

       There was the teenager who said, “I’ll be more careful next time.”  But there wasn’t a next time.  Not to look was to make your choice with no do overs.

       There’s the woman who said, “I’m much too intelligent a person to look at that snake.  It’s all superstitions mumbo-jumbo, totally out of keeping with the enlightened 13^th Century BC.”

       There’s the guy who declared, “I can fix myself.”

       There’s the woman who said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.  If I turn and look something will be required of me.” 

       I don’t know what the other non-lookers said.  They all died before they could write it down. I’m sure there were lots of reasons.  Jesus summarized them by saying, “people loved darkness instead of the light.”   

       That doesn’t mean they didn’t care about the snakes.  They just didn’t want God’s solution. 

       I’m sure they tried all sorts of human solutions instead of God’s solution of looking at the serpent of the pole.  They organized a Society for the Prevention of Fiery Serpents.  They wore badges, issued cards, elected officers, had rallies, issued photographs of piles of dead snakes and played down the statistics of death.  Some turned to science to find a cure for the venom and some pacified themselves with a belief that a scientific answer was on the way right up until the point of death.  Some of a more religious nature even made sacrifices to the serpents.

       But none of that mattered.  The only thing that mattered was a willingness to turn and look at the pole.

       Do you realize that you’ve been snake bit?  Do you realize that you can’t save yourself?  That’s the place to start.  We will never value a savior unless we first know that we need to be saved.

       Think of it this way.  If you’re having a good time body surfing over at Zuma Beach. you aren’t going to appreciate someone grabbing your arm and saying, “Don’t worry, I’m here to save you!”   You’re having a good time and you don’t feel you need saving.  But if you are caught up in a rip tide and feel yourself weakening and being pulled father and father out away from the beach, you will welcome a savior – even if they don’t look anything like the lifeguards from Baywatch.  In the same way, you’ll never value the cross, ugly as it is, until you know you need it. 

       But also think about what stands behind the cross.  Love stands behind the cross.  That’d the theme of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world He gave…”

       People who think of God as a cosmic killjoy have moved a long way from the truth of John 3:16.  John’s gospel does not describe a hard, cruel God who is indifferent to our feelings and sufferings.  It speaks of a God who loves us so much that He would send His only Son to take our placed on death row.  If that isn’t love, what is? 

       When God looks at our world He sees many things we try to ignore.  He sees the deep hurt in people’s lives.  He sees the shame that fills their hearts, the misery they are going through,  He sees those who are living  lives of meaningless, quiet desperation.  He sees the murder, violence, hatred, bitterness and anger.  He sees the greed, oppression, child abuse, famine, death and fear of every kind. 

       He sees the destruction and anguish we call down upon ourselves by trying to find fulfillment everywhere but in Him.  He sees the painful consequences we reap from the choices we make – choices to deny and avoid the truth about ourselves, choices to pursue selfish goals instead of love for one another, choices to exploit others to advance our own ambitions, choices to seek revenge rather than forgiveness.  God sees that so much of the suffering and agony we feel is a result of what we all are apart from Him – snakebit people who are slaves to sin.   We may be walking around and feeling pretty good.  But God knows the inevitable result of being snakebit if He doesn’t step in and help. 

       God could have said, “They made their bed.  Let them lie in it.  Let them reap every last grain of suffering they have sown by their disobedience.”  But no, God’s response to us isn’t anger or ruthless justice.  God responds with compassion. He is moved for the whole world.  He loves every race.  He loves rich and poor.  He loves the powerful and the powerless. He loves those whose hearts are broken and whose backs are bent by toil and suffering.  He loves the Mother Teresas of the world and He loves the Saddam Husseins.  He loves the whole world, every human being without exception.

       Now it’s true that not everyone will take hold of this love.   Many don’t.  But that doesn’t change the fact that God loves. 

       God loves the world.  But don’t just keep it out there at a distance.  Make it personal   You’re part of the world God loves too. 

       Make it personal by including yourself in the verse.  “For God so loved ** that He gave His only Son that it ** believes in Him, ** may not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn ** but so that ** could be saved through Him.”  “For God so loved ** that He gave His only Son that it ** believes in Him, ** may not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn ** but so that ** could be saved through Him.”

       Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up that anyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.”  Jesus tells us that eternal life comes to us from seeing what Jesus did on the cross and knowing that He did it for us. 

       He’s not talking here about perfect faith. 

       Perhaps you are hesitant about coming to Christ because you’re trying to work up enough faith. “I want to believe.  I want to experience what these other people have but I just do not have enough faith.”

       Some of those dying Israelites had doubts too.  They procrastinated.  They rationalized.  Not all of them believed with the same quality of belief.  But there came a time when they did exercise the look. 

        Don’t look at your look.  Look to Jesus.  If you have a repentant spirit and you do realize that Jesus bore your sins an the cross, than all you have to do is look and be saved

Prayer of Commitment to Jesus as Lord and Savior