Lent 4
This week we reflect on words from Numbers 21: 4-9
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5 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 detest this miserable food.” 6 Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So, Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
Dr. Elizabeth quotes:
“By this time in Lent, the romance of reflective contemplation is definitely over! To make it to the end is going to take a bit of grit and grind, and a heaping dose of self-honesty”.
Dr. Elizabeth continues “Do I really want to be the more “Gospel-centered” disciple of Jesus that promised God I’d try to be, back when the ashes were marked on my forehead? Is the price too high? Is the effort worth it to the world – let alone me? Does it make a difference in the grand scheme of things, or is it so much spiritual self-indulgence?”
“There is a paradox in the Christian journey that means we have to heft the weight of a cross, and travel further than the point of exhaustion before we discover that the burden is as light as grace, and the journey has brought us to a place of healing.”
Prayer
Covenant keeper God,
We don’t want to see the fall out of our fearful small-heartedness.
We’d rather keep hidden from our eyes all the poisonous ways we inflict venom, our privilege, our sense of superiority, our selfishness, upon too much of the rest of the world.
Today you’re going to ask us to take a good look at our own folly.
You’re going to make us hold it up against the clear blue sky, like a snake on a stick.
But not to convict or condemn us, or shame us, but to heal us.
Amen
In peace, I share this fear and this healing journey with you.
Pastor Beryl, DLM