4 Lent 2024
Channel: St. Bartholomew's, Livermore
Date: 10/03/2024

Collect:  Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Scripture: 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."

Reflection:  Why does God always seem to do things the hard way?  Jesus' declaration about how he will be lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness is a reference to the time that the Israelites, contending with an infestation of venomous snakes after having offended God, begged for deliverance.  And the deliverance came in the form of Moses crafting a serpent out of bronze and mounting it on a pole.  Anyone bitten by a snake could then look at the bronze serpent and live.  But why not just get rid of the serpents altogether?  Why not just get rid of all the sins and temptations from which the crucified Christ saves us altogether?  For one simple reason: we were never meant to live independently from God.  Our desire for freedom and self-sufficiency is a wonderful one so long as we apply it only to earthly things and people.  With God, however, we are meant to live in an unbroken, loving, personal, and radically dependent relationship.  When we successfully do this using the tools of prayer and our best efforts to follow the good paths to which God calls us, we discover that we find complete freedom from all else.