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. 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. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ– by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For 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.

Thanks be to God

All stand for the Acclamation and Gospel reading.

Glory and praise to you, O Christ!

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son;

Everyone who believes in him has eternal life.

Glory and praise to you, O Christ!

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to:

John 3:14-21

After the Gospel reading

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

If, like me, you are rather uncomfortable with the whole idea of snakes, then this might well not be our Sunday!  But, if we can set that discomfort aside for a moment, we will gain an invaluable insight about how the ancient Hebrew Bible reading from Numbers connects with the Gospel reading from John!

If you were running from something – brutal slave labour, for example, you could hardly write a tougher scenario of a flight to freedom than the Exodus.  The Hebrew people were fleeing through the desert, and their wilderness wanderings were plagued by lack of food and water. And now snakes!  Why?  Because they complained against the God who was delivering them!

So then, when was the last time you found yourself in traffic, complaining about its slow pace, while your air conditioner hummed, and you listened to satellite radio in stereo?  Here you are then, in your own little bubble, but you are upsetbecause you can’t get to work or home any faster.  And while you might not be tripping over snakes, you at least know you’re going to get there eventually. The Hebrews didn’t even know where “there” was!

Being miserable is something we try to avoid, but how we handle it really hasn’t changed much at all. The power goes off, as ours did on Friday evening, and we call the electric utility and complain. The water is turned off for a few hours because of a mains leak, and we moan at the water company. The waiter tells us they have just run out of that dish we had so looked forward to, so we fuss and grumble as we order another choice from a varied and plentiful menu!

All right then – so maybe this is a little over the top with regard to complaining, but really – what do we have to complain about?  Besides, it’s Lent!  Aren’t we supposed to feel at least a little bit miserable?

Like Moses with the Hebrews, somebody prays for us. Somebody offers up our fear of snakes that bite us and frighten us. Somebody breaks the bread and blesses the cup, and offers us real, spiritual food. The bread is broken, the cup is offered, and we see the sign like the people saw the bronze serpent in the wilderness, and lived. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and our impatience and complaining retreat, even if only for a little while.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,” proclaims the Psalmist.  And if God is good, what he offers us is never a snake that bites us, but the bread of life. “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”

Lent is all about who truly delivers us from the hardships we suffer, the complaints we offer, and the peril of the snakes in this world!

Paul writes to the Ephesians, carefully setting out the situation: we are all dead through our sinning, because we think the things of this world will save us, keep us comfortable, and drive the snakes away. He describes God as rich in mercy and able, in our dead state, to make us alive in Christ Jesus, saved and raised up with him.  And most of all, we can’t cause it by our good works. Rather, God’s free gift of Christ on the cross—recalling the serpent lifted up by Moses—brings us salvation. The snakes can’t win. Thanks be to God!

So, we come to today’s Gospel reading from John, and the one verse that every Christian knows by heart: “For God so loved the world that he gave his onlySon, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” This passage is so well known that it is often coded on billboards and in ads as John 3:16 with no text provided!

And that may be the problem!  This text, taken by itself, is almost a romanticrendering of the Gospel, as if somehow God came into the world and erased evil in all its forms from our lives. That leaves us with a lot of questions.  Recently, the parents of a young child, who died of Covid, were agonizing over why their Christian belief didn’t save their child. Good, well-intentioned, and bravepeople are killed every day: some by accident, some by violence and mayhem.  Alas, simply quoting John 3:16 to their families and friends will not provide a lot of comfort!

The story of the Gospel is about our encounter with it, and how even after hearing it, we may choose evil rather than good.  Jesus’ life and ministry are a judgment because, despite his being in the world, people still love darkness rather than light, and our deeds are often evil, as John continues to proclaim.

So then, Lent is not just a time for us to get closer to Jesus, and hope for the best.  Lent is a time to embrace the challenge of the Gospel, to swim upstreamagainst all of the world’s downstream current, of things that pleasure us and delight us, but never satisfy!

Deep Lent, as some call this time, is when we struggle with the darkness, and may not always find answers to why it is so pervasive. We cannot answer whyevil seems so prevalent, because we can’t readily see it in our own choices.  So, asking to be part of the light will reveal what is hidden in our darkness, and most of us would prefer not to see.  That is why self-examination and confession are rare, and unfortunately avoided by most of us.  But ‘we have strayed like lost sheep, we have followed too much the desires of our own hearts’, to the point where, left on our own, we are truly lost!

So, make today a turning point, an embracing of John 3:16 for your future.  If you say this passage every day this week and ask God how to embrace it, you will find a way.  You will find it as you receive the Body and Blood of Christ. You will find it as you reach out to another human being. who is also lost and lonely. You will find a way to move more into the light. You will have differentquestions to ask, ones for which there are answers!

The only reason Jesus could go to the cross, was because he dared to walk into the darkness.  We have to do the same, if we are going to follow him the rest of this Lenten journey.  That means leaving a lot of things behind, including the world’s perceived wisdom, for how to live in the darkness by making everything pleasant for ourselves!

Somehow, we have to connect with these readings, with the Hebrews who wandered in the desert.  Somehow, we have to embrace St. Paul, who writes in Ephesians about our being dead because we follow the course of the world.  And somehow, we have to take what is offered this Sunday, in word and sacrament, and let it begin to work in us, so that, as John so wonderfully writes: “it may be clearly seen that our deeds have been done in God.”

As the collect for this 4^th Sunday of Lent says, “Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread, which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him.”

Pray those words, and then make room for God to live them in your life.   Amen.

Please stand for the Nicene Creed.

Let us together affirm the faith of the Church.

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,

and became truly human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.  Amen.

Let us pray for the world and for the Church:

Prayers of intercession are now said and at the end of each prayer the priest says:

Lord in your mercy,

Hear our prayer.

or

Lord hear us,

Lord graciously hear us

At the conclusion of the prayers the priest says:

Almighty God, who has promised to hear our prayers.

Grant that what we have asked in faith we may by your grace receive, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 Jesus said: Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

or

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

THE CONFESSION:

God is steadfast in love and infinite in mercy, welcoming sinners and inviting them to the Lord’s table.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith, confident in God’s forgiveness.

Merciful God, our maker and our judge, we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do: we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves; we repent and are sorry for all our sins, Father forgive us, strengthen us to love and obey you in newness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Almighty God, who has promised forgiveness to all who turn to him in faith, pardon you and set you free from all your sins, strengthen you in all goodness and keep you in eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

THE PEACE:

The congregation stands.

We are the Body of Christ.

His Spirit is with us.

 

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

And also with you.

Please greet each other with a sign of peace.

We sing the praise of him who died,
Of him who died upon the Cross;
The sinner’s hope let men deride,
For this we count the world but loss.

Inscribed upon the Cross we see
In shining letters, ‘God is Love’,
He bears our sins upon the Tree;
He brings us mercy from above.

The Cross! It takes our guilt away;
It holds the fainting spirit up;
It cheers with hope the gloomy day,
And sweetens every bitter cup.

It makes the coward spirit brave,
And nerves the feeble arm for fight;
It takes its terror from the grave,
And gilds the bed of death with light.

The balm of life, the cure of woe,
The measure and the pledge of love,
The sinner’s refuge here below,
The angels’ theme in heaven above.

THE OFFERTORY

Blessed are you, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have these gifts to share. Accept and use our offerings for your glory and the service of your kingdom.

Blessed be God forever.

 Let us pray

We do not presume to come to your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies.  We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.  Amen.