Sermon for Lent 2 year A 2026
There is a really problematic moment in the book of numbers, where moses creates a bronze sculpture of a serpent elevated on a stick for the people of God to look to for salvation. God’s people have been wandering in the wildness for a long time. They complain continuously about how boring their food is, forgetting quite how much God has already done for them so far in their journey. They have been freed from slavery, they have seen the Reed see parted, they have escaped an army, they have received water from a rock, they have receive laws that set them apart as God's people, they have eaten bread made from Manna, and quails on the sabbath. And they have been promised a future home. yet they ccomplain. So God decides to send poisonous Serpents among them to strike them, not so much to punish them, but to remind them of how well protected they have been. The people come to moses, saying, we have sinned against god and against you. Please pray to god to save us from the serpents. So Moses pray and God tells him to create a serpent of bronze and to erect it where people can see it. When they have been bitten by the poisonous serpents, they need only look up to the snake. And they will be healed and saved.
This is problematic for one huge reason. When Moses went up the mountain to receive the ten commandments, he returned to the people to find them worshipping a golden calf created by Aaron. Moses’ horror at their readiness to turn to false gods was such that he broke the tablets in two, showing a breaking of their only corporate communication with God. So in the book of numbers, God offers them a test. If they can look on the serpent, not to worship it, but to seek healing from god, they will be saved. They have been offered a fresh start, a chance to be reborn as God's people, by being saved from the brink of death.
Abram, in our first lesson is being given a new identity by being sent out from his home and his family, by God, to establish a new people. He also has a journey in his way, and on that journey, he and Lot will face countless trials and fallouts, before they finally reconcile. Abram will be reborn as Abraham, later on, when he and Sarai receive Isaac as a son. Abram is given a series of promises from God: I will establish you, I will increase you, I will bless you, I will create a great name for you, and then you will be a blessing to others. Abram and Sarah have Isaac, Isaac has Jacob and Esau, and Jacob become Israel, the people, not the nation.
All through the Hebrew Bible, there is a play on words. To bless, is the same word as to curse. And God's people, intended as a blessing are often proved to be a curse. I hope you all saw the news yesterday and today. Two men who publically claimed themselves as God's chosen people, despite both believing that the other bloke is not, have decided to use violence and destruction to have their own way in the middle East. There is such a thing as a Just war, but it's rarely led by tyrants.
Jesus, in Johns gospel, could compare himself to any of the great patriarchs. Moses, or Jacob, or Abraham, but he doesn't. Instead, Jesus compares himself to the problematic bronze serpent in Numbers 21. He declares that, like the Hebrews pleading with moses for help, anyone who lifts their eyes to him on the cross will be saved. Like the serpent, it isn’t the wooden cross itself that has power to save, but the person whom we see raised up upon it.
Nicodemus, whom we are told is a pharisee, has crept out at night to visit Jesus. Christian teaching, coupled with centuries of antisemitism have been particularly cruel to pharisees. They're the people that the children in school would be taught to boo or hiss whenever they show up in a Bible Story. However, Nicodemus is one such example of a man who simply wants to seek the truth, and the fact that he sneaks out at night, under cover of darkness, suggests that he wants both a private audience and a confidential conversation. He says to Jesus, “we know that you are a teacher. Sent by God”, we know, not I know, not I'm told, but we know. Nicodemus acknowledges Jesus as someone blessed by God to do God’s work, and calls him “Rabbi”, teacher.
Moses was reborn, alongside the Hebrew people, as they passed through the red sea into freedom, the whole creation was reborn through the flood, Moses, creation, Abram, Sarai, Jacob, Simon, Saul, were all given new life through times of trial, with new names or new identities. Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai becomes Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, Simon becomes Peter, Saul becomes Paul. They were all, as it were, reborn.
So to talk about rebirth, by water and the Spirit, is to talk about God drawing us through a time of trial into a new life. The church has deliberately taken this theme during lent, as a time when we prepare candidates for baptism, and prepare to renew our own baptismal vows , to encourage us to ask ourselves “what does it mean for me to be reborn by water and the spirit”? Like a mother waiting to bring a child into the world, the whole of creation is experiencing birth pangs as we long for resurrection, for triumph over death, and evil and sin, and war and hatred. And whilst we should do everything in our power to seek peace, we also recognise that the only place that is truly peaceful is the new creation, the new Jerusalem, heaven.
What does it mean to be born again?
It doesn't, contrary to popular belief, mean wielding a tambourine in worship, or shouting at people on the streets that they're going to hell, or tattooing a smile on your face in complete denial at the state of the world.
Being born again, by water and the spirit, means to live as people who remember that we are baptised into God's family, not in the past, but constantly, that the pangs of this world, terrifying and awful and screwed up though they may be, can never inflict damage on the love of God for all creation, for all people, and that the way, the truth and the life is not a religion, or a form of worship, or a book, or a culture, but a person, Jesus Christ, who watches the world at war, not from a safe distance with us, but with those terrified people in Iran, in Gaze, in Ukraine, in Iraq, in South Sudan, Afghanistan, Haiti, Colombia, Myanmar, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, to name but a few.
Amen.
Genesis 12: 1-4a
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
John 3: 1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 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. “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. “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.
