Holy Cross Day
“Under the Cross”
Number 21:4-9
14 September 2014 – Redeemer
Perhaps you have read the dreaded news in your recent newsletter. If you did not read your newsletter I’m sorry that I bear bad tidings of great sorrow this morning. There are two or three congregational events that strike fear into the heart of Christians, their favorite pastor taking a call, evangelism or home visits, and stewardship programs.
Today we’re beginning a stewardship program and I cannot even comfort you that it will be over in three weeks. It won’t. I’m not exactly sure when it will end. If you don’t like the idea don’t blame me – I’m stealing the program from the Missouri Synod, actually from the Pastor who heads the Stewardship arm of the LCMS, Pastor Heath Curtis. The sermons will be mine, the Bible studies will be slightly stolen, but the program ideas are mostly his.
You can read more details in the newsletters, but here are the nuts and bolts of the program. Today and the next two Sundays I will preach on stewardship. On the last Sunday of September we are going to have a congregational meal. One of the gifts that God has given to us is each other. Knowing one another and caring for one another is part of our stewardship. So even a meal together serves a purpose and I hope you consider staying for that meal, especially if you’ve never stayed after church for a meal or you don’t know too many of your fellow members. The other part of the program for now is that once a month I’m going to have a Bible Study on stewardship. If you’ve never been in Bible Study I’m encouraging you to start with an investment of one hour per month. Well, there you have it, at least for now. One last thing – the title of the program (stolen also from Pastor Curtis) is “Stewardship Under the Cross.” And that leads us to Holy Cross Day and the sermon based on Numbers 21.
Could there ever have been a more foolish remedy? Really? The remedy looked just like the sickness. Fiery serpents had come among the Israelites. Red snakes that left the Israelites burning up. The poison burned, limbs swelled, breathing became harder, and then hearts stopped. Dead by snakebite. And the cure given by God looked like the cause – a fiery red serpent on a pole.
Now you can imagine that the Israelites tried everything under the hot desert sun to remedy snakebikes. Aloa vera gel, benedryl, tylenol. If there had been a Walgreens on the corner of Shrub Street and Cactus Avenue they would have emptied the shelves. They tried all of grandma’s remedies from the old country and to no avail.
You know what their real problem was don’t you? They had sinned. And their sin (as you might have guessed) was a stewardship sin. They forgot what God had given them and complained about what God had not given them. The people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” God had lifted them up out of Egypt, lifted them up from slave to free, from dead to alive, from no people to His people, from the harsh whip of Pharaoh to the delivering and saving hand of Moses. But the devil used their bellies to induce a case of holy indigestion. They no longer felt free or alive. They forgot they were God’s people and thought Moses had done all this. They weren’t concerned about salvation, they simply didn’t want white bread any more. They wanted 12 grain whole wheat bread, with some thinly shaved roast beef and a slice of provolone with a big slab of beefsteak tomato and a touch of spicy dijon mustard and maybe a nice cold craft beer to wash it down.
The emptiness of their bellies (which was really the emptiness of their faith) flowed out of their mouths and they poisoned each other’s ears with complaints about God. God repaid them in kind – a bite for a bite, poison for poison. Fiery serpents bit them. God did not do this for vengeance or because their words hurt Him. He’s bigger than that. He sent the fiery serpents to bring them to repentance. Something we all might consider when God does not give us what we want or when we are afflicted by some poison we would rather not endure.
God’s ways work – the Israelites found no cure for their sin and suffering in themselves. They learned Romans 3:23 before it was ever written – the wages of sin is death. Now they knew how empty they were, how dead they were, how poisoned they were. And they knew where the cure would be found. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.”
And then God gives His foolish remedy. A snake on a pole. Why? I don’t know. You’ll have to ask God. The Israelites lacked faith and God gave them something for their faith – His Word. Look and live. His Word calls for faith to trust when their limbs are burning up, when their breath is coming in gasps, when every remedy under the sun fails, look there, the very image of what you fear is your salvation.
The serpent on the pole points to Jesus. On the cross He looks like no remedy. The cure looks like the cause. God’s Word tells us that He carries our sin to the cross. God in the flesh of Jesus dies. That is what God’s Word calls us to believe. When your sins bite you, when they afflict you, and when they are killing you, look to Jesus. And how do you look at Jesus. You cannot lift up your eyes like the Israelites and behold His body on the cross. You look with your ears. Look at the font and hear the Word of the Lord putting His name on you and make the sign of the cross and remember those saving waters. Hear the absolution spoken in the stead and command of Jesus. Eat His body and drink His blood and hear His Words – for you, for the forgiveness of sins. (Paragraph ideas from Higher Things Reflections)
The cross of Jesus is the beginning and the end of every aspect of our stewardship. Stewardship is under the cross. If you are not seeing Jesus, if you don’t believe the folly of the cross, if you are not hearing His Word of your forgiveness, adoption, salvation and resurrection, then you will always get stewardship wrong. You will cling to all your belongings and manage all your time as if they are truly yours. That’s not stewardship. That’s selfishness. Or you will dedicate time to the Lord and share what He has give you with others, but you will want credit, recognition. You will falsely believe that your good deeds will make God pleased with you. That’s self-justification.
God does not need anything from you. Nothing. Instead He has given everything to you. Your body, eyes, ears, all your members. Food and clothing. Home and family. Good government. Good weather. Good friends. Your abilities. Your work. Your fun. Your paycheck. Your 401k. Your social security. He gives His gifts, to all people. But all of that daily bread is nothing compared to the bread from heaven. The flesh and blood of Jesus, born of Mary, bathed in the Jordan, nailed to the cross, risen from the dead, and given you this morning to eat and to drink. By Jesus lifted up on the cross God has lifted you up from death to life, from sin to saint, from the hard hand of Satan to the nail pierced hands of Jesus.
So as we set out this year to learn about stewardship, about our care of what God has given us, we must never move out from the under the cross. Our life is under the cross. Our forgiveness is under the cross. So we care for our children under the cross, do the dishes under the cross, look in on that ailing neighbor under the cross, give our offerings under the cross, work, retire, and die under the cross. We live under the cross. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
13 September 2014 anno Domini