The Cherry Tree Carol, Infancy Gospels, and the Holy Quran

 

Over the years the Cherry Tree Carol has emerged as one of my favorite Christmas songs. It’s just so odd! The narrative involves Joseph, Mary, and the in-utero Christ but one will search in vain to find any hint of it in the four canonical Gospels. There are many variations on the text—it is a traditional carol, traced back at least as early as the fifteenth century in England—but the version I first encountered is performed by the folk singer Shirley Collins. Here is the text that she works with:

Joseph was an old man, an old man was he
When he married Virgin Mary, the Queen of Galilee

As Mary and Joseph were walking one day
To an orchard of cherry trees they happened to stray

Then Mary said to Joseph, so meek and so mild
“Pick me some cherries, Joseph, for I am with child”

Then Joseph flew angry, so angry flew he
“Let the father of your baby gather cherries for thee”

The up spoke Lord Jesus from in his mother's womb
“Bow low down, cherry trees, bow down to the ground”

And the cherry trees bowed down, bowed low to the ground
And Mary gathered cherries while Joseph stood round

Then Joseph he kneeled down and a question gave he
“Come tell me, pretty baby, when your birthday shall be”

“On the fifth day of January my birthday shall be
And the stars in the heaven shall all bow down to me”

 

Listen to a great performance of the song by Colin Meloy of the Decemberist: 

The Cherry Tree Carol 

There are a lot of curious details here. The New Testament never tells us that Saint Joseph was an, “old man,” but he has often been depicted as such in later traditions. Rather than being the young beloved of Mary as he is often portrayed in more modern accounts, Joseph is here more of an elderly guardian. He was sometimes said to have been a widower with children from a previous marriage. In some accounts he was said to have been chosen by lot to care for the Virgin Mary who was dedicated to the care of the Temple priests as a child. The assumption is that Joseph was her chaste protector rather than a traditional husband.

Then there is the description of the Virgin Mary as, “The Queen of Galilee.” Mary may have had a royal lineage as descendent of King David. Some Bible readers interpret the genealogy in the Gospel of Luke to be through Mary herself. Others suggest that Luke’s genealogy is just a variation on the lineage of Joseph as recorded in Matthew. At any rate, the clear implication is that Jesus is the heir of the house of David. If Christ is King, then certainly Mary is Queen Mother. By all accounts however, Joseph and Mary were people of modest means without power or status in the world. The description of Mary as, “The Queen of Galilee” is more of a spiritual or honorary description. Her Queendom is not of this world.

Of course Jesus announcing from the womb that his birthday will be on fifth day of January just caps off the weirdness. Without getting off on too lengthy of a historical digression this reflects an older calendar and tradition.

So we know the carol is old, perhaps as old as the fifteenth century, but just how old is the narrative it contains? It is actually much older! Variations can be found in the liturgies of  the early Christian communities of Syria (This ancient Middle-Eastern tradition still exists today although the tradition has been nearly eradicated by the radical Islamic extremist, ISIS.) These in turn probably originate in an apocryphal text referred to by various titles, The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, The Infancy Gospel of Matthew, or the longer: The Book About the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior.

It is easy to see the similarity between the Cherry Tree Carol and chapter twenty of The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew:

And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. And as the blessed Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: I wonder that thou sayest this, when thou seest how high the palm tree is; and that thou thinkest of eating of its fruit. I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed. And after they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent down, waiting the order to rise from Him who bad commanded it to stoop. Then Jesus said to it: Raise thyself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. Wherefore they gave thanks to God. (From: Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol 8 1886 ed Alexander Roberts, Sir James Donaldson, Arthur Cleveland Coxe – 1886.)

 

Pseudo-Matthew is part of a larger genre of, “Infancy Gospels” which seek to fill in the gaps of Jesus’ infancy and boyhood as well as the Virgin Mary’s own history. Although these Gospels are non-canonical they had a influence in perpetuating the Church’s developing traditions especially when it comes to it’s Mariology or doctrines about the Mother of God.  Many of these traditions have found their way into another ancient text, “The Holy Quran” the sacred book of Islam.

Christians are often surprised to discover just how prominent Jesus and his Mother are within the pages of the Quran. For instance, here is an account of the birth of Jesus given in the Quran, Surah 19:23-33, named for Mary. Notice the similarities with Pseudo-Matthew and the Cherry Tree Carol. After Mary is visited by the Angel she miraculously conceives a child and goes out to the desert to be delivered,

The labor-pains came upon her, by the trunk of a palm-tree. She said, “I wish I had died before this, and been completely forgotten.”

 Whereupon he called her from beneath her: “Do not worry; your Lord has placed a stream beneath you. And shake the trunk of the palm-tree towards you, and it will drop ripe dates by you. So eat, and drink, and be consoled. And if you see any human, say, ‘I have vowed a fast to the Most Gracious, so I will not speak to any human today.'“

Then she came to her people, carrying him. They said, “O Mary, you have done something terrible. O sister of Aaron, your father was not an evil man, and your mother was not a whore.”

So she pointed to him. They said, “How can we speak to an infant in the crib?”

He said, “I am the servant of God. He has given me the Scripture, and made me a prophet. And has made me blessed wherever I may be; and has enjoined on me prayer and charity, so long as I live. And kind to my mother, and He did not make me a disobedient rebel. So Peace is upon me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the Day I get resurrected alive.”

As in the Cherry Tree Carol, Jesus speaks up to vindicate his mother from the charge of fornication. Unlike the Canonical Gospels, Jesus speaks and performs miracles even as an infant! In the case of the Quran this is especially striking. Despite the Quran’s own claims that Jesus in merely a prophet and not the Son of God, Jesus seems more divine and less human!

These legends were probably carried to Europe by Christian Crusaders in the twelfth century. Appropriate to a different setting and climate the Palm tree and dates became an orchard of Cherry Trees. It is a fascinating lineage for a curious and charming Christmas classic!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Grace of Baptism

Listen to the audio here. 

As soon as we are born we begin to be formed and shaped by the world around us, by our parents, by our siblings, our environment, and culture.

No sooner do we become conscious of our autonomy than we are presented with choice.  What impulses will we follow? What inclinations will we obey? Where will we look for guidance?

It is the responsibility of our parents and elders to lead us in the right way. The book of proverbs says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Left to our own devices, like sheep, we are all liable to lose our way. We need to be gently shepherded and put on the right path. We need to be taught to choose what is right and follow the path that leads to life.

How many times have one of my children begun to do something foolish or destructive and I have observed my wife level her gaze at them and ask, “Is that a good choice?”

Jesus Says, “I am the good shepherd.” He leads us to choose what is good. It is he who is the shepherd and guardian of our souls. Trusting in him we shall not want. It is he who restores our souls, who feeds us with good pasture, who defends us against evil, and who will lead us at last to his Father’s house.

If there is a good shepherd, there is also a wicked and a false shepherd. If the good Shepherd has our best interest in mind, then the false shepherd has evil designs for us. Following the false shepherd leads to ruin.  This is the hireling who does not own the sheep, who does not care for the sheep.

We must be on our guard not to be lead astray by those things that do not reflect the true meaning and purpose for which God made us. When we give ourselves to serve and follow what is less than God, this is idolatry. We were not made for idols but for God. God is our Father and we are his children. The idol is a stranger.

When we present a child for baptism—as we are with James and Emilio this morning—we are welcoming them into the sheep fold of the Good Shepherd. They are adopted into the family of God and made children of God.

In baptism we are brought into the divine reality, into the fellowship of the Father Son, and Holy Spirit. By extension we are also brought into the communion of the Church which is Christ’s body. As members of Christ and of the Church we are formed and shaped by the Holy Spirit.

As we said before, simply by virtue of being born we are already being formed and shaped, cultivated by our environment and influences. In bringing James and Emilio to the waters of Baptism their parents and godparents are saying that they wish these children to be brought under the influence of the Holy Spirit and raised as Christians.

As growing Disciples of Christ in the community of Christ, these Children will learn to know and follow the voice of their shepherd. Jesus says that he knows his own and his own know him. They will receive their spiritual nourishment from Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Even as they grow and learn daily, moving ever more into maturity, so we ask by God’s Spirit that they grow more and more into the stature of Christ.

The scriptures teach us that God created us in his own image. He created every person with dignity and worth, but in the garden we were lead astray by a stranger’s lie. We were deceived into seeking our identity apart from God, into worshiping idols instead of the true God. In these waters the pollution of that lie is washed away. In the place of that darkness we receive the knowledge of our true identity in the light of Christ.

In baptism we take our rightful place as God’s own children and heirs of his promises. We are able to take these privileges only because Christ has refuted the lies of the evil one and vindicated us as his rightful children in Jesus Christ. We say that we become God’s children in Baptism—and so we do—but in saying this we say only that we become what we already are by God’s own gracious choice.

Saint Paul tells us that we were called according to God’s purpose and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.  He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

  

F.W. Robertson compares our Baptism to coronation, the crowning of a King or Queen. Coronation makes a king, but crown a pretender and the coronation will not make a king. It can actually only make one king who is a king already by divine right.

The coronation is an official and authoritative recognition of that status before God and man by witch that status becomes a reality in the present. Baptism makes a child of God in a similar way that coronation makes a king. It is the outward and visible sign of a spiritual reality, an authoritative declaration from God himself that we are his children and that he has chosen us in Christ. The blessings and status conferred by this rite is actual, no mere symbol, but a Divine Sacrament.

The worst thing that we could do is to exalt ourselves in believing that our baptism gives us a special claim to the love of God that is denied to our neighbor. God forbid we should think such a thing! Christ has called us to go to every people and nation in the world to baptize them in the triune name because he is the savior of all, because God is the Father of all, and the Holy Spirit the royal inheritance of all people.

He says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Brothers and sisters, this is the great responsibility of our Baptism. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ in order that we might be a blessing to the world.  We have a mission to proclaim the love of God in Christ to all people, to respect the dignity of every person, to draw them into the fold of the Good Shepherd, and claim for them their inheritance as children of our heavenly father.

He Thirsts for You: A Good Friday Sermon

Knowing that everything had now been accomplished, and to fulfill the scripture, Jesus said, “I thirst.” (John 19:28)

If we use our powers of imagination briefly, perhaps we can begin to have some small appreciation of the vast thirst that came upon our Lord us he hung dying. Dehydration has set in and he is burning with fever.  He has lost a tremendous amount of blood from the vicious flogging he received, from the nails driven through his hands and feet, and from the thorns pressed down upon his scalp and brow in cruel mockery. He has now hung upon the cross for about six hours, suspended in the blazing sun during the heat of the day. The sweat and blood run mingled down his tortured frame. Flies buzz around his head. His eyes are dry in their sockets. His tongue is swollen stuck to the roof of his mouth. His jaw hangs slack as he gasps for air.   

His thirst is one aspect of his immense physical suffering, but as with every utterance recorded of our Lord during his passion, there are layers of meaning to this one.  Saint John sees in Jesus’ words an intention to fulfill Holy Scripture.

He evokes a Psalm 22:

“my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.”

A sponge soaked in sour wine was lifted to his lips on a long branch of hyssop. This jar of sour wine was supplied for the soldiers attending him, vinegar being part of the allowance of Roman soldiers, diluted with water and wine, and used as a drink they called, “Posca.” Again, this happened to fulfill scripture. Psalm 69 reads:

“They also gave me gall for my food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

His thirst is deeper than the physical. This great thirst penetrates to the depths of his soul. All his life, Jesus the eternal son of God, has enjoyed the immediate spiritual presence of his heavenly father. He has walked faithfully in his slight never once turning from his righteous law, and yet now he finds himself alone in the dark. His father’s face is hidden from him. He experiences the estrangement and isolation from God that is the lot of sinful humanity. He longs—heart and soul—to restore that broken communion. In the words of Psalm 42:

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.”

As Christ hung dying upon the cross, his great desire—his consuming thirst—was to reconcile humanity to God, to overcome the terrible breach. He has known the unbroken fellowship of the Father. He has lived the perfect human life. Now he experiences the depth of human depravity. Now he knows himself the terrible cost of sin. As both the divine Son of God and the fully human son of man, only he can be the mediator. Only he can reconcile the two.

From the place of his humanity, it is the living God that he thirsts for, but from the place of his divinity it is us. As we in our tortured anguish cry out for God—even if we are ignorant that it is he that we truly long for—God pines—even more—for us.

It is not just the righteous that God longs for either, not only those who return his love, but even those who spurn and reject him, even the very ones who crucified him. God is wholly indiscriminate in his love.

The scriptures say: 

“Christ died for the ungodly.  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And God is not like the misanthropic philanthropist of whom it was said, “he wants to save humanity, but its people that he can’t stand!” No! It is not humanity in the abstract but each individual soul in particular that is the object of his love and longing.

Know this brothers and sisters, as our Lord hung upon the cross it was you that he panted for. It was for your love that he suffered such pains. It was a desire to be united with you that consumed him for such longing. 

You are the object of God’s great thirst.  It is you—just as you are—even in your sin, even with your indifference, even in your lack of faithfulness—you. 

Mark now the next and final words of Jesus upon the cross:

 “When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

It was for this great purpose, to reconcile humanity to God, to overcome the power of sin that estranged us from God, to accomplish your salvation, that Christ hung upon the cross. It is finished he says! The great breach is overcome.  He has drained the cup his Father gave him to the dregs. There is now nothing that separates you from God. He has accomplished our peace.

Rebel, will you now come out from behind your barricade? Will you lay down your arms? He knocks at the door of your heart. Will you open to him that he might enter in and dine with you? He thirsts for you. Will you give him vinegar to drink?

The Bride and the Bridegroom: An Easter Sermon

John 20:1-18

One of the more surprising facts about the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection recorded in the gospels—given the time and culture they were written—is the centrality and importance of the women in the story. In first century Palestine, women were not considered reliable or trustworthy witnesses. It was thought that women were easily deceived and given to fanciful delusions, and yet the gospels are unanimous in telling us that the first witnesses to the resurrection were women. 

The fact that they include this detail is strong evidence for their historical reliability. No one at that time would go out of their way to include this fact in a fabricated account. The first century theologian Origen had to defend the resurrection’s reliability against pagan critics over this very point! It was clearly a source of embarrassment for many early Christians.

Yet God is not embarrassed by his faithful daughters. He has chosen what was considered foolish by the world to shame the wise!

It is not to Peter or John that the resurrected Christ chooses first to reveal himself, it is Mary Magdalene. Jesus appoints her as the first herald of the resurrection, an apostle to the apostles. This is not a detail to be dismissed. It signals to us the radical change that Jesus’ resurrection intends to bring about.  

Bishop Tom Wright says this,

“Something has happened in the renewal of creation through the death and resurrection of Jesus which has the result, as one of its multitude spin-offs, that whereas Jesus only ever sent out men, now – now of all moments! – he sends out a woman. And though the church has often struggled- to put it mildly -  with the idea of women being called to genuine apostolic ministry, the record is clear and unambiguous.”

Who was this woman who is given so great an honor? Not much is really known about her, but she has a fairly prominent role in the gospel narratives especially in the stories of the crucifixion and resurrection, more so than many of the twelve disciples. She and the other women stayed close to the foot of the cross throughout Jesus’ crucifixion. Early on the third day they discovered the empty tomb when they brought myrrh to anoint his body.

She is often conflated with Mary of Bethany and the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet, but she is almost certainly separate from both these individuals. She was probably not, as she is often depicted, a repentant prostitute although both Mark and Luke record that Jesus cast seven demons out from her!

This morning, however, I want to draw our attention to the special role she plays in the story of the resurrection as recorded by Saint John. She is a type or representative figure of Israel the bride of the messiah!

Now before you think I am going all Dan Brown-Davinci Code on you, let me say up front that I don’t think Jesus and Mary Magdalene were actually married! There really isn’t any evidence for that.

John is merely casting the story of her encounter with the risen Christ in a symbolic way that—for those who have eyes to see—has several allusions to the biblical love-poem, the Song of Solomon.

The poem--like our story from John—is set in a garden that recalls the original Garden of Eden. It tells of the romance between King Solomon and his beloved, the Shulamite woman. It has often been interpreted as an allegory about the love of God for his people, about the time when the messiah will come to take Israel as his bride and all things will be made new. 

Listen to this reading from the third chapter of Song of Solomon,

On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not.  I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but found him not.  The watchmen found me as they went about in the city. “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.

Now let’s look at the resurrection story as John tells it. Mary rises early while it is still dark to go to Jesus’ tomb. She searches for him but cannot find him. Like the Shulamite she is desperate and distraught. She is like Israel who has waited and searched all these long years for her messiah. She feels at last she has found the one her soul loves, the one she was made for, but suddenly her honeymoon has become a nightmare. He is gone and now she can’t even find where they have laid his body.

When next we see her she is weeping by the tomb. She is found by two Angels—Angels who are often referred to as watchers—and they interrogate her.

She tells them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

The word that is translated here as Lord can also be translated as Husband. It is a double entendre.

When next she turns around it is Jesus standing beside her, but she supposes him to be the gardener. The symbolism here is thick. Adam was a gardener in Eden. The bridegroom in the Song of Solomon is also depicted as a gardener.

The Shulamite sings of him, “My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.”

He likewise sings, “I came to my garden, my sister, my bride . . .I slept, but my heart was awakened.”

When the Shulamite at last found her bridegroom that had been taken from her she clung to him and would not let him go until she brought him to her mother’s house, the place where their love would at last be consummated. When Mary sees Jesus she also clings to him, but he tells her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”

This curious incident makes much more sense when read along side the Song of Solomon. Jesus is telling Mary that the time of the consummation of the kingdom is not yet. Before God can at last dwell with his people, his chosen bride, in the new creation he must first ascend to his father. Earlier Jesus had told his disciples, “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Until that time she has a job to do. Her bridegroom has gone off to prepare a place for her. She must go and tell his brothers about this. She must share with them the good news of what she has seen, that Christ is risen!

As God’s people, the Church, his chosen bride, we have been given a promise. Christ is risen and he will return at last take us to himself as his bride so that we can dwell with him forever in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

We are the ones who have been chosen for so great an honor, to be heralds of the resurrection. We are the ones who, like Mary, have been set free from bondage to the demonic powers of evil. 

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish

Brothers and sisters, have you found the bridegroom of your soul? The one who you were made for! It is Christ! Today if you meet him, cling to him and do not let him go.

“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?!”

• Numbers 21:4-9
• Ephesians 2:1-10
• John 3:14-21
• Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?!” You remember that line from The Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Snakes are the one thing that Indiana Jones is afraid of and suddenly he is faced with the prospect of crossing a pit full of them.

Why do snakes make our skin crawl? Maybe for you they don’t. Some people seem fond of snakes. Strange people. Speaking for myself, I am terrified of them. Even a picture of a snake has the power to creep me out. I never visit the Reptile house at the Zoo.

Sometimes I even have nightmares about snakes. Nightmares strangely reminiscent of that scene from the Raiders of the Lost Ark which still haunts me. Sometimes I dream the snakes are in bed with me and I jump up screaming.

Studies suggest the humans have evolved  the innate ability  to sense snakes — and spiders, too — and to learn to fear them. This sensitivity helped our ancestors survive in the wild where a bite from a snake was an immanent and life threatening danger.

The symbol of the snake as a deadly threat is imbedded deep in our collective unconscious. I think this must be why they appear in my nightmares so frequently. I tend to have these dreams when I am feeling stressed, anxious, fearful, or even guilty. My mind is preparing my body for a fight or flight situation.  

Of course the snake is almost universally depicted as a sinister creature, not least in the Bible. The snake is humanity’s primordial enemy beginning in the Garden of Eden when the serpent lead Eve and her husband astray. God even promised to place enmity between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the snake. He says, “he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

This is more than just a folksy story meant to explain why people dislike snakes. It is description of the battle that goes on within all of us between our lower and higher natures.  

God cursed the snake for his part in the Fall,

Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.

The snake represents our lower nature, the flesh, the part of us that is tied to the earth, cursed to slither in the dirt. It is an irrational beast full of deadly poison.

When human beings rebelled against God they fell under the power of the serpent. Each generation struggled in vain against the snake. Each generation was stricken by the serpent’s poison and died.

This drama plays out again in our Old Testament lesson. The people of Israel rebel against God in the wilderness and as a result the Lord sends fiery serpents against them.

This is how God’s Judgment works. If we rebel against him, he lets us have our way. If we will not serve him, then we will serve our passions instead. To serve God is life but to refuse God and serve our sinful nature is death.

Saint Paul said it this way, “since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.”

In our Lenten wilderness journey we struggle against the destructive passions and impulses that draw us from the service of God. We war against the deadly attacks of our sinful nature.

Why does God allow us to suffer these things? Is it because he is cruel or vindictive? Is it because he has abandoned us?

Psalm 78—recounting the people’s rebellion in the wilderness—says,

“Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again. They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.”

God disciplines us, he punishes us by handing us over to the consequences of our sin, not in order to be cruel, but in order to draw us back to himself. He lets us hit rock bottom because he knows that it is the only way that we will come to see the error of our ways. Only when we have come to the end ourselves are we truly prepared to look to God.

God does not allow us to be afflicted without also providing a solution to our affliction. He has not allowed us to fall under the power of sin without also providing a redeemer. He has not allowed us to suffer death without also breaking the power of death.

When the people of Israel were perishing from the bites of the poisonous serpents, God provided them an antidote. He instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. When ever someone was bitten, they could look up at the bronze serpent and he healed.

It seems an odd solution. Didn’t God punish the people of Israel for making a Golden Calf? Why is he here encouraging Moses to make a bronze snake? We know from later in the Biblical record that this Bronze serpent would later become a stumbling block for the people. They began burning incense to it and worshipping it almost as a God in itself. Under King Hezekiah’s reforms, the serpent was destroyed.

It was never the Bronze statue itself that was the source of the people’s deliverance, it was the thing that the image represented. In looking to the serpent the people were to look beyond the serpent to the one who himself bore their sickness, who died that they might live.

Jesus said, “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.

Jesus was the one who was promised even in the garden. He is the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. The serpent would indeed strike his heel, Jesus would suffer the same death that all mortal men are bound to suffer, and yet by virtue of an indestructible life and the power of the spirit  would rise from the dead and trample death itself under his feet.

When we gaze by faith upon our crucified savior we see he who without sin become sin for our sake. We see the poisonous serpent defeated and nailed to the tree. We understand and receive the deliverance that was promised and we are healed. We perceive that God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

This one who is lifted high for our salvation is the light of the world. That light shows us the depth of our rebellion and sickness, but it also chases the darkness away and leads our feet into the way of righteousness.

Self-Denial

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Romans 4:13-25

Mark 8:31-38

Psalm 22:22-30

There is a disastrously erroneous message being preached in some of the largest churches in the world. On the surface it seems very positive and encouraging and indeed many have responded to it very enthusiastically for that very reason. It is often called, “the prosperity gospel.” The basic premise is that it is God’s will—as taught by the Holy Scriptures—that all God’s people should prosper in this life. In other words those who put their faith in God and his son Jesus Christ will enjoy material abundance, financial success, personal happiness, health, vitality, and everything else associated with worldly prosperity. Many of its proponents enjoy lavish lifestyles including multimillion-dollar homes and personal jets.

Although it is largely a homegrown American theology, it has spread all over the world and has particularly flourished in places of extreme poverty and hardship. It’s devotees believe that faith is the key that unlocks the promises of western affluence and abundance.

What can we say in response to this? First we should acknowledge that God does indeed want us to flourish. He intends our ultimate good not harm. Knowing God’s love for us will indeed create an abiding joy in our life. What it does not mean, however, is that our lives will be free of hardship or trouble.

Jesus never promised anything like that. In fact he said the opposite. He said, “In this world you will have trouble.”

In this morning’s gospel Jesus speaks of his own immanent rejection and suffering. Peter is disturbed by this idea and tells him, “that be far from you Lord!” Jesus in return offers him this sharp rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

The blessings of the gospel are spiritual rather than material. If we only look to Jesus because we seek worldly comfort or gain than our minds are set not on the things of God but on human things. The Christian life is not about glorifying ourselves but glorifying God.

If we want to become Jesus’ followers, if we want to live as he lived, and to do the things that he did, he tells us we must take up our cross. This is what it means to be disciples of Christ rather than just consumers of a blessing we suppose him to offer. But what does taking up our cross mean?

For Jesus’ original hearers this expression had a very clear and startling message. The cross was a method of execution used by the Roman Empire against political dissidents. It was a humiliating, shameful, terrifying, and excruciating way to die. This is what it meant to them. Remember that at the time Jesus spoke these words he had not yet suffered on the cross. His disciples did not in any way connect the cross with Jesus or his victory over sin. Jesus was saying, if you want to follow me it means willingly accepting the rage, contempt, and aggression of the world. It means being willing to be stripped, tortured, and murdered. It means becoming an enemy to the empire and a byword to all respectable people.

Not exactly health, wealth, and prosperity! He couldn’t have made being his disciple seem less attractive. His point wasn’t of course that we some how earn our way to God’s favor through suffering, but he was warning us that following him would not always be easy.

In our own context, the prospect of painful execution for following Jesus is far less immediate. Taking up our cross has taken on a much broader meaning. It means self-denial something which is at the heart of this season of Lent. Now no one should think that giving up chocolate is even remotely similar to crucifixion, but for you it might be a small way in which you begin to put Jesus’ words into practice.

How so? It contradicts the attitude that says my feelings, my desires, my comfort, and personal happiness is my main goal in life. Self-denial means pushing the self off of the throne and inviting God to take its place.

Self  denial means putting others above my self. It means being willing to deny myself for a purpose beyond my self. It means sacrificing for a greater cause. It means recognizing that my life is not my own to do with whatever I want, but that I belong to God, created for his purpose, and bought with a price.

Self denial might mean putting aside my feelings to do something kind for someone I dislike. Self-denial might mean giving to the church or to the poor instead of buying myself a new pair of shoes. Self-denial might mean getting up early for church when I would rather sleep in. Self-denial might mean skipping lunch and spending that time in prayer instead.

  

We all know that sometimes in life we need to practice sacrifice, discipline, and self-denial if we want to be happy. It might seem in the short term that sitting at home all day watching Netflix and eating junk food will make me happier than going to work, but in the long term the effect that it has on my health and finances will not make me happy at all!

Jesus says that our efforts at securing our own well-being are misguided. If we try to save our own life, if we cling so tightly to this world, we will never find that happiness we seek. Ultimate fulfillment will slip through our fingers and the life we tried so hard to save will lie in ruins. If instead we lay down our lives, if we give ourselves for things that are greater than us, if we live for God above self, than, surprisingly, we will find true fulfillment and joy.

God does indeed want us to prosper, but the prosperity he wants to give us is so much more than the kind that we think we want. It is worth more than all the wealth, power, and accolades of the world.

This Lent I invite you to find abundance through self-denial, glory through the cross, and your life hidden with Christ in God.