Dear Friends
God’s people murmured against him 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 our soul loathes this worthless bread.
Numbers 21:5
And all too easily I do the same. I murmur against God and against his leaders, I am disappointed that I am not given an easy life, a life of luxury, a life free from the cares of this world. And despite my freedom from slavery I too long for the supposed security it provides. Someone else to be responsible for me, to house me, to clothe me, to feed me. And in the wilderness—here where I must toil—I complain against God.
So the Lᴏʀᴅ sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
v. 6
We read this and we are scandalised, because it speaks of a Semetic way of thinking which is foreign to our sensibilities. In the Semetic mind, all that happens is able to happen only by the will of God. We read that God said to Moses,
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 7:3
Because Pharaoh wanted a hard heart, but even that he was not able to achieve by himself, even that had to come from God. So, likewise, the snakes coming into the camp were a sign that God had lifted his protection from the children of Israel: it is as if he is saying, “You want to do it by yourself: off you go.”
And the children of Israel, despite their murmuring, act in a way I do not. I would take a new affliction, a new problem, as a sign for a greater feeling of helplessness and despair: they took it as a sign for repentance.
Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lᴏʀᴅ and against you; pray to the Lᴏʀᴅ that He take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people.
Numbers 21:7
And I too am called to repent, to turn from my wickedness, to leave my own murmurings behind. And if I do this, if I leave behind my complaining, then I will turn again to life.
Then the Lᴏʀᴅ said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.’
vv. 8–9
So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
The Lord will not take away my trials, my struggles—the snakes did not suddenly disappear from the camp—but he will give me the means to turn again to him and live.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our Christian life is not one of ease and comfort—the wilderness is a barren place where we must strive hard to live—yet he forever gives us the means to turn again to him. Let us turn, let us gaze not on a bronze serpent but the Lord himself who has brought about our salvation by being lifted up on the Cross and rising from the dead.
‘No one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
John 3:13–15, 12:31–33
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’
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‘Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself.’
This he said, signifying by what death he would die.
Let us be drawn to Christ, let us turn to him, let us receive him not as the manna from heaven but the living Bread which feeds us for eternity.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
We have in Scripture, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Kingdom of God likened to a banquet or feast (Luke 14:15–24; also Matthew 22:1–14). It is a celebration to which all are invited: “Go out quickly,” says the Lord to his servant, “into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind,” and, when there is still space at the feast, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” (vv. 21, 23) Since God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” (1 Timothy 2:4) and even that the wicked should turn and live: the Lord is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (Second Peter 3:9; see also Isaiah 55:7, Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11)
We have heard today of the Rich Man who possessed much—money and fine clothes—and who “feasted sumptuously every day;” but he ignored Lazarus at his gate. And despite all he possessed, his indifference to Lazarus denied him what would make him a person, it denied him a name. For when we ignore a person suffering, a person in need, we deny our own personhood, our own being, we determine for ourselves that we will not live after the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26): we are sub-human.
And I, having been clothed in Christ through my baptism (Galatians 3:27), and feasting sumptuously not on food which will leave me with hunger in a short while, but on the Bread which has come down from Heaven, the Bread of Life (see John 6:32f, 35, 48ff), even now awaiting the Marriage Feast of the Kingdom of God I remain indifferent to the poor man at my door. Yes, indeed, “I have seen the True Light, I have received the Heavenly Spirit, I have found the True Faith,” but what good has it done me? I remain unchanged and bring condemnation on myself. And, lacking a wedding garment, lacking personhood, being content to live a sub-human life, on the Last Day the Judge will say to his servants, “Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 22:13)
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Read last Sunday’s Sermon, The Feast of the Kingdom.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 10th November
Discussion on the Divine Liturgy, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 11th November
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 12th November
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Online session is via Google Meet: please get in contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We meet at St Francis’ Hall, Nightingale Avenue, Eastleigh, SO50 9JA. Come and See.
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Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
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With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
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