Tales of Denial
Today’s scripture reminds me of a comical sketch in a popular TV sitcom.
At the beginning of the episode, two characters who are in a relationship are faced with a significant decision, one that neither of them wants to face. (To be honest, I can’t remember what the decision is! Maybe it was about a pregnancy or a career change.) From one scene to the next, we find them avoiding the one conversation they need to have. Instead, they’re munching on chips. Grabbing a snack from the refrigerator. Ordering a basket of fries at the restaurant. Each scene makes evident that the characters are getting bigger…and bigger…and bigger. Exaggeratedly so.
Toward the end of the episode, when they cannot avoid noticing their mushrooming waistlines, they accept that they have a problem. But even then, they misdiagnose it. They think they have an eating problem, when in fact their eating is merely a symptom of their denial, a coping mechanism to help them avoid a painful conversation. In fact, it will take them several more episodes to acknowledge and address the deeper issue.
While I might chuckle at the humor of this scenario, there’s a part of me that squirms. Who among us does not know this pattern of events, this avoidance or denial, this rejection of a painful reality? Not studying for a test because of the anxiety it arouses. Putting off a doctor’s visit for fear of what might be found. Staying late at work to avoid an uncomfortable conversation at home.
The Israelites’
Denial
When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they did not have the luxury of surplus food. They could not eat away their stress. But their anxieties and their fears find another outlet. Impatience and negative chatter. They reject the hardship of their reality by complaining about it. Instead of being honest about their deepest doubts and fears, they are embittered and hard-hearted, closed and guarded. In today’s Old Testament scripture, their words are not an open-hearted prayer but a closed-minded prosecution. “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” (Num 21:5). The people emphatically reject their painful reality, denying that it should be so, avoiding its implications of the need for help and trust. As in the sitcom scenario, they misdiagnose their problem. They say it’s a matter of food. The truth is, it’s a matter of fear. They are afraid they will never make it out of the wilderness. They’re not sure they really trust in God.
What happens next is an episode that requires careful interpretation. Scripture says, “The Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died” (Num 21:6). This chain of events seems simple enough, right? The Israelites complained, and God punished them. But the God whom Jesus reveals, of whom Jesus is the very image, is a God of mercy, not punishment. (“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world” but to save it, as our gospel text says today.) It helps, I think, to appreciate that the idea of punishment in the Old Testament is less the idea of an authority punishing a person for their misdeeds, and more the idea of a natural consequence for a person’s actions. Sometimes, the Old Testament will say God “visits” a person’s sins “upon them”—which is to say, the person experiences the natural consequences of their actions. In this case, the Israelites’ rejection of their painful reality, their avoidance and denial, makes them vulnerable to a painful reality. (It’s sort of like when we deny a problem, and it only gets bigger and bigger, until we can’t avoid it.)
What is instructive to me about God in this wilderness episode, is not the idea that God sent poisonous serpents among the people, but what happens next. When the people cry out that they have sinned and Moses prays to God, God responds with mercy, with healing. When the people get honest about their painful reality, God brings healing.
The Problem Becomes
the Cure
Now, God’s deliverance in this episode is…strange. God instructs Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up high on a pole. Everyone who has suffered a snakebite may then look at it and live (Num 21:8). Again, we could interpret this rather literally, as though it depicted some form of ancient magic. But I think we would be missing the deeper point. Readers have long pondered a remarkable resemblance in this scene. Snakes are the problem; and a snake is what brings healing. The problem becomes the cure.
Readers in the medical field have observed that this resembles the practice of homeopathy, or curing “like with like”—that is, treating a disease with a substance that elicits similar symptoms. Vaccines are technically not homeopathic, but practically speaking they function in a similar way. They imitate an infection (which is why you might feel a bit tired or sore after getting a vaccine) in order to engage and boost the body’s immune system. To put this otherwise, they force the body to get honest about the effects of the disease, so that it might be prepared and protected against future occasions. The problem becomes the cure.
“May Not Perish but
Have Eternal Life”
In case you were wondering if I would ever get to our scripture today in the gospel of John, well, I’m finally there. You probably recognized in our scripture reading earlier one of the Bible’s most well-known verses, John 3:16. As a child, this was one of the first verses I memorized. I learned that it was effectively the promise of salvation. Which it is! I’m not about to contradict that claim. But the picture of salvation that I was largely taught, was the picture of a future destination, of an escape (one might even say, of a denial). This verse was about getting my ticket punched. Salvation was in the afterlife, not this life.
But that picture of salvation is very limited. It’s one-dimensional. The scripture itself presents a much richer picture of salvation, one that has to do with taking responsibility and receiving healing, here, now. It all starts with the verses that precede John 3:16. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes [trusts] in him may have eternal life [the life of the ages, the life where you’re really living]” (John 3:14-15). “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent….” In other words, Jesus is comparing what will happen on the cross directly with what happens in the wilderness scene. He’s saying it’s the same phenomenon.
Just as Israel was invited to look upon its own sin, its own painful reality, in the form of that bronze serpent lifted up, so the world is invited to look upon its sin in Jesus on the cross. Jesus on the cross holds a mirror to the brokenness of the world. The violence of the cross reflects the violence of the world. Distrust, fear, hate, greed, impatience, the desire for control—violence is their end. We see all these diseased patterns of thinking in the violence of the cross.
The Best Way Out Is
Through
This Lent we have been exploring the rejections that Jesus endures en route to the cross. Today’s scripture reveals that the rejection of Jesus is in fact an act of denial or avoidance of our own painful realities. The serpent on the pole, Jesus on the cross—they are held up that we might acknowledge our hurt and the ways we hurt others. Only when we accept our painful reality and our sin, only when we expose our wounds, can they be healed. And that’s precisely what Jesus promises in today’s scripture. The problem becomes the cure. When we look upon the cross and see our sin and finally acknowledge the hurt we have been avoiding or denying, there suddenly appears an opening for God’s healing love.
Robert Frost once wrote in a poem, “The best way out is always through,” which I think echoes the salvation of the cross. Trusting in Jesus is not the salvation of an escape, of going around. It involves acknowledging and taking responsibility for our painful realities and trusting that in so doing God’s love will heal us. The problem becomes the cure.
Another way I’ve heard it put, is, “What you resist, persists.” What we avoid or deny or run away from, will linger and fester and persist. But when we accept a painful reality, we open ourselves up to the possibility of transformation. The problem becomes the cure.
Getting Honest
The history of our faith is rich with spiritual practices for getting honest. The Catholic tradition has confession. Twelve-step recovery has checking in with a sponsor. There is a prayer called the Examen, which some people pray daily or weekly, which involves recalling both helpful and hurtful moments in the recent past and inviting God’s guidance and care in navigating them. And then there are a host of informal practices, such as journaling or visiting with a spiritual mentor or just calling a friend. The important thing is not the precise form of any one practice, but the getting honest that happens in them.
The paradox of salvation is that we really don’t do anything in the first step. We just get honest, which is a way of opening ourselves up to God’s healing love, which is always there. The desert fathers and mothers observed that the moment they confessed a struggle, the moment they got honest, the burden of the struggle was lightened. Maybe it was still there, but it was bearable now. In the acceptance they found from God and others, they felt relieved. They also often found that further guidance and support would be received in due time when they needed it.
The story of the bronze serpent in the wilderness is weird and unforgettable. And I’m grateful for that. Because now when I hear John 3:16, I do not hear the promise of an escape. I hear the promise of a richer salvation, the promise of life now. I hear the hard invitation to get honest and the gentle assurance that God’s love is always here to help.
Prayer
Who comes not to condemn,
But to deliver us who stand condemned already
By the things we avoid or deny
…
Grant us the courage
To look upon your cross
And acknowledge our sin
And our painful realities,
So that we might know your love
Where we need it most,
And so that we might bear witness
To the good news of your healing.
Amen.
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