Snakes on a Pole
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jeremy_2_04-04-2025_123925: [00:00:00] You've probably heard about snakes on a plane, but what about snakes on a pole? Last week we talked about a conversation that Jesus has with a man named Nicodemus. This conversation happens at night because Nicodemus isn't quite ready to have people see him, have this conversation with Jesus. And today we're gonna look at the rest of what Jesus says to Nicodemus in that conversation.
We're gonna begin reading in John chapter three, verse 13. It says, no one has ever gone to heaven and returned. This is Jesus talking, but the son of man has come down from heaven and as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness. So the son of man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
Now, you may read that and hear that and go, what on earth is Jesus talking about with all of these snakes? Now he's referencing a story [00:01:00] that in their culture and the Jewish culture they would've been very familiar with. This was an iconic story. To you and I often we hear a story like this and we have no clue what he's talking about.
Now, this comes from numbers Chapter 21, verse six says, so the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died. Then the people came to Moses and they cried out, we have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes. So Moses prayed for the people, and then the Lord told him, make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole.
All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it. So Moses made a snake out of a bronze and he attached it to a pole, and then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake. [00:02:00] Be healed. What a wild story can you imagine being bit by poisonous snakes? And while you're being bit, your focus is, look over there at the bronze snake on this pole.
Snakes. Why did it have to be? Snakes
jeremy_2_04-04-2025_123925: this is another example of Jesus showing us that the Old Testament points to him, Jesus is saying that this story about the snakes and this weird bronze pole and what was going on is actually something that points us. Which you have to understand in the context of him talking to Nicodemus, this would've gone against the Jewish teachings.
No other Jewish, rabbi would be teaching that they were the fulfillment of a story like this, except Jesus. Jesus seems to think all of those scriptures were all about him. And so we keep reading in John three verse 16. Says for [00:03:00] this is how God loved the world, and maybe this will sound familiar to you.
He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. God sent his son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only son.
Now, most of us, we memorize, or at least have heard and are familiar with, verse 16. That's what's largely considered the most famous, well-known verse in all of the Bible. But the next verse is equally as important, that even though we're gonna hear this talk about judgment. Jesus is very clear that he did not come to judge people, and he says that in the very next verse, and I wish more Christians memorized John three 17 [00:04:00] than just memorizing John three 16.
I.
Then we get to the last part, we get to John three, verse 19, it says, and the judgment is based. On this fact, God's light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear. Their sins will be exposed, but
those who do what is right, come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants. Now here we see Jesus set himself up not only as the fulfillment of this story about the snakes, but also as the light that has come into a world that is dark. And then Jesus is gonna teach us some aspects here about the dark.
Number one, some people actually like it. Now, you've probably met these people. They enjoy certain things that you go, why? Why would you want to [00:05:00] do that? In fact, I read throughout history of horrific things that humans have done to one another.
And I think there are some people that enjoy the darkness in Jesus' teaching this concept. Then he also says that some people choose the darkness for fear of being exposed. And I would suggest this is probably a lot more people in this camp where they don't actually love the darkness, but they choose the darkness because of what they know they're hiding, what they know they're dealing with, and rather than dealing with that, rather than putting that into the open and having light shine on that.
It's easier to gravitate toward the darkness. It's easier to go to the coverup, to those places where I won't be found out and this won't have to get dealt with. And it's a helpful reminder for you and I as we live in a dark world. We live in a world where people choose. Evil. They choose things that will bring harm to one another.
And this feels heavy. So often when I read the [00:06:00] news, I just feel this weight of like, why are people doing this to one another? Why is this how we treat each other? And yet, this is a very real aspect of the darkness in our world. And Jesus sets himself opposed to that as the light.
In this entire section, Jesus is setting up the idea that he is the source of salvation. Now he's using multiple images. He's using the image of the snake on the pole, and he's using this image of light and darkness. But he is trying to explain to Nicodemus, a religious leader, an expert on Judaism in, in that day.
He's trying to explain to him that the answers that Nicodemus has aren't actually the answers that are going to make sense. That until Nicodemus learns to see Jesus as the fulfillment of all of these things, he's looking for that. None of the rest of this will fully make sense. And as we'll see [00:07:00] later in the gospel of John Nicodemus is gonna come around to this way of thinking.
He is indeed going to put his trust into Jesus. He is indeed going to change the way he thinks in his Judaism to instead point it to the person of Jesus, and we'll see that manifest in his actions later in the book. What would we do in a situation like this?
Or, let me ask it like this. Will we follow Jesus when it puts us at odds with our religious traditions? Just because something calls itself Christian or has a Jesus name to it, does not mean that it's actually pointing you to the person of Jesus. And what I have found in my years of ministry is that oftentimes it's not uncommon for religion itself to be the thing. That keeps us from Jesus for religion itself to be the thing that [00:08:00] makes us feel like I got enough of it, that we don't ever actually experience the real thing and we are seeing this kind of religion take over American evangelicalism.
Today, that's so much of what is taught and what is believed and what is considered normal. And we go, no. That is the way you're supposed to view it is actually beliefs that are keeping us from experiencing the person of Jesus. And the radical example we find in Jesus's life. I love the way Christian A.
Smith has said it. The gap between fundamentalist Christianity and the way of Jesus is wide and deep. Maybe you have noticed that too. Maybe that is why you are spending time in a podcast like this to go, you know what, there's gotta be a way. This is why we are rebuilding our faith into something that looks more like Jesus.[00:09:00]
See, I think a lot of people, a lot of Christians in particular are in the position of Nicodemus right now. We are having these moments with Jesus where we realize I'm going to have to make a choice. I'm going to have to make a decision. I can go along with what I know and what I has served me well for a long time, these religious traditions that I have, or as I experience the newness of Jesus as I see Jesus in clearer ways.
I'm going to have to leave some of that behind in order to follow him. Will we have the courage? Will we have the clarity of thought to choose Jesus over everything else that may get in the way? I'll see you next week. I rebuilding faith.
