March 10, 2024 – The Fourth Sunday In Lent
Zane Scarlett
Today is Rose Sunday – the 4th Sunday of Lent. Last week we were in the middle and now we have turned the corner. After being in the darkness of Lent for 3 weeks, the Church gives us a chance to lighten up just a little. Purple is the liturgical color for Lent. Purple is not a primary color, on the color wheel it is between blue and red, made up of both. If you take out the blue – that symbol of depression, sadness, darkness – and you add the light of Christ, you get the rose color. A lighter, more cheerful, color for today. So as we lighten the mood for today, our reading is about – snakes. Not little green garden snakes, or harmless (but still scary) black snakes. No, these are fiery, poisonous snakes. They are biting and killing the Hebrew people. And this is the lesson that God, and Fr. Cal., have given me for today. Thank you, Cal. You see, Cal did not know this, but God did; this is a lesson that I need.
I grew up in a very snaky place. The railroad tracks ran right in front of our house. And they arced and ran to the left of the house. So on 2 sides of the house were railroad tracks and all along the tracks was weedy, brushy undergrowth. And between our house and the tracks to the left, was a lumber yard. Mice and birds and other critters lived in these weeds and in the lumber piles. These were all conditions which attracted snakes. And they were all conditions that attracted children who were looking for a place to play. So I had a lot of snake encounters as a child. That gave me a very unhealthy fear of snakes, which continues to this day. I try to stay away from snakes. I don’t want to look at snakes. But snakes can teach us a lot about faith. And faith brings us salvation.
The Hebrew people had a snake problem. They came to Moses and begged him to ask God to take the snakes away. That is always our reaction to a problem – we ask God to take the problem away. We don’t want to deal with it. Just take it away, Lord. Make it disappear so we don’t have to face it. But God had a different idea, because God always has a better idea. God knew that the snakes may have been the immediate problem, but the snakes were only the result of the real problem. The real problem was the people’s lack of faith. The people had lost their faith that God was going to get them to their goal in the way that THEY thought was best. They were impatient with God. They thought that they knew best. So when the people asked Moses to take the snakes away, God instead instructed Moses to make a representation of this problem, a symbol of what they feared, and have the people look at it. They had to face it to be saved from the death that the problem caused.
When we have those problems, those iniquities, those transgressions, the ones that are keeping us awake at night, that are causing us difficulties in our relationships, or causing us to question our abilities, God is telling us we have to look at it so that we can see what the real problem is. The real problem is a lack of faith that God is in control and will take care of us. God didn’t take the snakes away like the people asked. The snakes continued to bite the people, but God gave them salvation instead of death, life instead of death. Their faith in this salvation is what kept the people alive. God will walk with us if we will walk with God. Life in this world is full of snakes. God gave us this world with all its snakes. This is the world that we have to walk through, but if we know where the snakes are, and we look at them, then we know which way to turn to get away from them. That is what repentance is. If we say we want to repent, we have to know what it is we are repenting, or turning away from. Without knowing the transgressions that are killing us, without facing and looking at them, we can’t know which way to turn to get away from them. We would be just aimlessly turning, and the other direction may be as bad, or worse, than where we were.
On Ash Wednesday, we were invited to a “holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial.” Self-examination comes before repentance. Self-examination and then repentance. Self-awareness is necessary to achieve an effective repentance, just as faith is necessary for an effective salvation. The Hebrew people were given life and salvation when they found a renewed faith and looked at what they feared most – death. We have this cross, this symbol of death, which, when we look at it through eyes of faith, we are able to see beyond death to the true life. We are made alive and saved from that fear of death by a renewed faith.
“And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world.” Those are the opening words of today’s reading from Ephesians. Here is Paul at his best and he lays out his theology that once we repent of our “trespasses and sins” we who believe and follow Christ exist in a different world, a world of the Spirit. We are made alive in this Spirit world, and we leave behind the death that rules THIS world of the flesh. This world made corrupt by “the prince of the power of the air” – by the evil brought by Satan. Paul goes on to say that by our repentance, by our turning from the trespasses that were killing us, God MADE US ALIVE with Christ, RAISED US UP with Christ, and MADE US SIT with Christ. These are acts that God has already completed. The work has already been done. This is not something we have to wait for. We are already there. This was accomplished by Jesus when he went to the cross. We still walk through this world with all its snakes, but it is also a world filled with beauty. We can still feel the love in this world. In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus tells us that his purpose in coming to us as human was not to condemn us, but to save us. This is all a gift from God. Our faith makes it possible. Our faith that God is in control, and that God will walk with us through the hard times.
Last month, my wife, Terry, and I made a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our condo was right on the beach. Every morning as I did my devotions, I looked out the window in front of me. In the darkness, I could hear the waves pounding the shore. As daylight started to break forth, I could see the writhing water and the waves rushing in and out. Out there was chaos, turmoil, violence crashing all around. But above, there was light. Peaceful, delicate colors growing brighter as dawn overtook the darkness. I was blessed to see creation happening every morning, as God’s Light, the Light of Christ came to bring peace over the chaos. The chaos was still there, the waves continued just as they always had, but I just had to look up and there was peace and light. The snakes are always going to be there, but we need to look up and have faith that God’s gift of salvation will get us though. And I think that is what the lighter tone of Rose Sunday is all about. We are still in Lent, we still must walk with Jesus to the cross. We need to continue in prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. But, today, let’s look up and see the Light of Christ and know that we are already made alive with Christ.