Ross Erb: What to do in the darkness

March 22, 2009
Lent 4
Numbers 21:4-9

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Recently there had been a lot of excitement for the people of Israel.
Finding out that God was there and cared,
having a hero like Moses come out of nowhere to stand up to Pharoah,
those were great times.
Then the plagues came,
and the whole lot of them fleeing as Egypt mourned the deaths of its firstborn,
seeing the Red Sea part,
watching the Egyptian army get mired in the mud and then covered by the waters.
It was so easy to believe that God had come back to redeem His chosen people.

They sang after they got across the sea.
A body of water between them and Egypt,
the Egyptian army destroyed,
the promise of a return to their historic home. God was good!
And then the pillar of cloud and fire moved on in front, and the whole group followed.

Things kind of went downhill then.
There are at least 4 incidents recorded in Numbers, prior to Numbers 21
where the chosen people, God’s elect, act pretty...well, pretty much like anyone else in the world. Kind of like spoiled children.
After 4 lessons about how they need to trust in God, you would think that the message would have gotten through.

But no, as they set out from Mount Hor they start to grumble again.
All this walking, the terrible food, not much water, it’s hot, maybe it’s cold...
The complaining stops pretty quickly when the snakes appear.
This is a bad situation. Snakes everywhere, and they are nasty.
People are dying, many people.

And all of a sudden the Israelites are back to Moses saying,
“We’ve sinned, not just against God, but against you too. Ask God to take the serpents away.”
Notice what the people asked for.
“Pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.”
Simple and direct. But God does not take the serpents away.
Moses is told to make an image of the very thing that is causing the pain, a snake,
and stick it up on a pole.
To receive healing, the Israelites had to face that which was causing them pain and suffering and death.

Perhaps more importantly, God did not just remove the snakes from their midst.
That would have been so easy, so clean.
Suffering comes, cry out to God for forgiveness or help, problem goes away.
But for healing, something was required of the Israelites. They had to have faith.
They had to be actively involved in turning and looking toward the image that had been erected, even while the snakes were still slithering around amongst them.

God’s people live today very much as they have through the ages.
At least here in North America that seems to be true.
When we face troubles, when life gets hard, we cry out.
We might even blame God for the hardships.
We complain and wonder why God doesn’t take our troubles away.

But if God didn’t take the serpents away from the midst of the Israelites,
how is it that we feel that God should be taking our troubles away?
God loved the world so much that he sent His own Son to live among us.
God saw humanity mired in our sin and pain and suffering,
and made a way for us to be saved from our sin – redeemed.
And interestingly, the image that is used in John 3 is that image of the serpent on the pole. Jesus was raised up on the cross, just like the serpent on the pole.
Just like the Israelites, if we turn to that which has been raised up, to the cross,
and believe, we will receive healing, redemption.

It would have been nice if God had simply removed evil and sin from this world.
Take those serpents away from us!
Instead, we have to, in the midst of our suffering and pain, turn to the cross and believe.
Our journey through Lent reminds us of that task.
We live in the midst of darkness, but we have seen the light.
The world is not perfect, but in Christ we have glimpsed perfection
and we have been invited to move toward that perfection.
In the midst of darkness, we will not see the light unless we open our eyes to look.
Otherwise, the darkness covers all.
Christ doesn’t take away the pain and trials that we face, He only helps us to bear them and gives us hope.

Vaclav Havel, was the last President of Czechoslovakia, and the first Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. He has a quote that speaks powerfully about hope. He says, “Hope is not a prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart." We are called to orient our hearts toward Christ, even in the midst of darkness.

On the eve of our tenth wedding anniversary,
Cathy and I sat down across from each other to talk.
We were talking about where we were going to live.
Our three children were still young, Peyton was 4, Brendan and Aaron only about 6 months old. We were talking about where we were going to live,
and it wasn’t like we were planning that we would live together.
We weren’t liking each other so much just then.
In our marriage relationship, it seemed like there was a lot of darkness.
The next day, at a surprise anniversary celebration with family and friends,
we put on a good front, but we didn’t want to be there.

In the midst of that darkness, we did turn to God for help.
We were not in a position where we could stand the mess we were in,
and it didn’t seem that we could change it ourselves.
Fortunately for us, God raised up someone to help us.
Delphine Martin was a counselor at the counseling agency begun by churches in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
She met with us, probably not more than 6 times,
but enough to get us unstuck, to get us talking again.
That is what we needed, and we are both convinced that God used Delphine to save our marriage. It wasn’t easy, and it required a great deal of faith and commitment and hard work on our part.
It was not quick as Cathy and I moved from despair about our marriage
to contentment and then joy.
We didn’t necessarily see and acknowledge that God was working in our marriage as it was happening.
And that’s the thing about darkness.
Sometimes it just moves from dark to light in small increments,
and it is in looking back that you can see the change,
or all of a sudden you realize that it is not so dark.

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre wrote a poem titled, “What to do in the darkness”
and I find it to be a vivid image of how we can live in this present age.
Let me share it with you.

What to do in the darkness
Go slowly
Consent to it
But don’t wallow in it
Know it as a place of germination
And growth
Remember the light
Take an outstretched hand if you find one
Exercise unused senses
Find the path by walking it
Practice trust
Watch for dawn

I have asked three people to share stories of times when they were in darkness,
and God brought hope or healing, where they saw light.
Children, for the first story, I invite you to come up here and join me on the story blanket.
Lori Leaman is going to join us as well.
After she is done, the others can come up in the order listed
and share their stories with the congregation.

I have been talking about times when are sad or scared or hopeless. Lori, can you tell us about a time like that in your life?

THREE STORIES ARE TOLD

As we move toward Easter
we have an opportunity this morning to turn our faces toward the cross.
This Lenten season we may be facing situations where we are burdened with worry or fear, sadness or pain.
Christ has been lifted up.
We believe in him, and we are moving toward the light,
even as we are in the midst of darkness.
We acknowledge Christ as the One sent into the world,
not to condemn it but to save it.
We need saving, and it may be hard work.
Our work doesn’t save us,
but it is hard work to keep oriented toward our source of help.
If you wish, as we sing these next songs,
you may come forward with your burdens to ask for prayer or anointing with oil.
We can do as the Israelites did, and as Jesus said we should do,
and turn to that which has been lifted up.
Really, it’s all we have.


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