Sermon Devotions and Study
Holy Cross Day Numbers 21:4-9 September 14, 2025
Have you ever done the right thing, for the right reasons, and it ultimately led to good for others, but someone still called you a mean old jerk? Maybe you’ve experienced your kids’ saying things like “I hate you” or “You’re not fair” or “Your mean” just for doing your job as a parent?
Out in the world, we hear all the time these days name calling and people who are supposed to be adults calling others “bigots” or “intolerant” or “misogynistic” not because there’s any real proof of the charge, but just because they don’t agree with another person or political party or even another religion, and their only way of coping and puffing their chests is name calling and evil rhetoric on social media.
This week the world lost a saint to the consequences of such evil. Perhaps this is a reset. Perhaps we, as a western society, got so enamored by tolerance and indifference to the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, that true, Satanic evil snuck in when we weren’t looking and took over entire generations, and now it’s swinging back the other way and hopefully, prayerfully our society learns once again that there is objective, absolute truth, objective right and wrong, objective virtue and vice, and we humbly learn to seek the virtuous and the good and the beautiful, rather than letting our vices, our sins, our doubt get the best of us.
Now, granted, maybe sometimes folks do deserve to be called mean or hateful, but it seems like things these days are a lot like the Taylor Swift’s song says, “hater’s gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate” so “shake it off.” And no, no I do not listen to Taylor Swift, and I pray none of you do either…talk about virtue being sold to vice, golly!
But if you consider the Old Testament reading for today, Holy Cross Day, this is precisely what the Israelites are saying against Moses and God. The Lord just delivered them from the wickedness and oppression of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They’re free – free as a bird – they don’t have to serve anyone or make bricks for anyone and all they have to do is look forward to the promise land that flows with milk and honey and keep the Lord’s commands. But instead, they grumble and complain and charge the Lord, charge Moses with dereliction of duty, essentially, because they’re impatient and they’re tired of the endless supply of food provided from heaven.
Well, the Lord’s anger burns against them. He sends fiery snakes to bite them and poison them, and they start to die. They didn’t like those snakes, and the Lord was being a meany! Why would a loving and kind and compassionate and happy, go lucky God send slithery creatures of death to attack and kill the sweet and innocent people of Israel?
Sometimes when we read stories like this in the Bible, we don’t get it. We don’t get how God could allow Babylon to invade and annihilate Israel and exile the people for generations. We don’t get how, in Revelation, the Lord’s words to the 7 churches, that He could threaten them as He does. We don’t get how Paul could say things like, “those who have fits of anger will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.” I suspect that some people, when they hear Jesus say, “Unless you renounce all that you have, you cannot be my disciple,” they think to themselves, “Ah, just going to skip past that, that’s the Jesus having a bad day Jesus – give me the lovey dovey Jesus, but not that mean, nasty Jesus.”
It’s why we have churches like the ELCA who essentially rip from their bibles and their preaching anything that isn’t fun to listen to; they only keep the easy on the ears stuff but the sin-convicting stuff, the self-denial stuff….uh uh, and it’s why people go to those sort of churches because they don’t have to be told their sinners; they don’t have to repent. The fiery snakes are never sent because their god doesn’t care.
But here’s the thing; here is what you must understand. And it is why the Lord can send fiery snakes to bite and kill people and scorn the churches when they aren’t faithful and tell people that they must renounce all to follow Him. Humanity has already been bitten by a serpent far worse than some slithery creatures in the sand. The people of Israel, they weren’t just angry at God and Moses, they were against God and Moses. Everything the Lord did, no matter how good it was for them, they reviled. He fed them, He nourished them, He sheltered them, He led them through safe passage, He protected them from storm and heat, He even kept their sandals and clothing from wearing out, everything He did was for those Israelites, but they despised Him for it.
How often do we despise our Lord for the good gifts He gives? We don’t think in these terms because if we did, we would be forced to acknowledge that we are far too often like those Israelites – we despise our Lord, we turn our backs to Him and we revile His gifts. We get into this mentality that following Jesus, it’s just a thing – among other things – just a thing. And we convince ourselves that it’s okay, that it’s necessary to turn our backs to the Lord and follow the world. That the Lord will understand when we take an entire year off church, away from His Word and Sacrament – for something in the world, that God loves us so it’s okay to be apart from the food of life months or years, it’s okay to go back to Egypt because God loves us. And then the fiery snakes come.
We convince ourselves that our kids need to be in everything, active and involved and that it’s for their future and their good. Don’t every say NO to a kid, can’t do that, that’s mean, right? And yet, all the while what they’re learning is that church is not all that important, the Lord’s Supper, being with Jesus at this table is an option for believers…because we believe it ourselves. When one in ten kids return to church ½ way regularly after Confirmation, we have a problem. And every one of those absent young adults have turned their backs to the Lord.
I remember a family, years ago, that after their son graduated high school they stopped going to church – they were done. What was the point? They wanted their son to be halfway moral and productive in society, but that their son followed Jesus, that he received the body and blood of His Lord, that he turned his face to the promised land? They didn’t at all care about that.
We have that same venom in us, the venom of the serpent of Eden, coursing through our veins so that we not only turn from the Lord, but we stand against Him in our sins, and our kids have it too. And how we train our children makes all the difference. We either train them to be children who look to Jesus or we train them to be people who look away. There is just no middle ground.
And consider when you turn against the Lord, who are you turning toward? Some indifferent, neutral force that has no interest in your life or your soul? No, and in fact, when you turn away from the Lord, you turn toward the devil. When you turn toward your sin, when you like your sin and joyfully choose your sin over the Lord, you are literally turning to that ancient serpent and saying, “Here’s my legs, here’s my wrists, here’s my neck, bite away, bite, bite, and bite all the more because I really don’t want to follow Jesus; I don’t want to take up my cross.”
These are the unrighteous works Paul lists in 1 Corinthians 6. He says, “do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” This is the venom of sin, and we can’t just strip those words out of the Bible because they’re uncomfortable. We have to hear them.
And when we give into these sins as if they’re no big deal, and this includes the list in Galatians 5, and Jesus own words in Matthew 15, we are turning our backs on the Lord of life and salvation, the Lord who forgives our sins and seeks to cleanse us of our unrighteousness. Giving in and seeking after the ways of sin is how we turn against the Lord and follow the serpent, the devil. Yet we know because we have read Scripture that sin cannot solve our problems. Sin cannot make life better. Sin cannot improve our situation. We know this. Yet, we still pursue it.
Why do you find it hard sometimes to come to church? Why do you find it hard sometimes to pray or read Scripture or even ask for forgiveness? It’s not because Pastor mean or hymn boring or church too strict! No, it’s the venom, it’s the bite of the serpent of Eden that still affects you to this day and like cataracts in the eyes, it causes you to see things and do things so contrary to the Lord’s commands.
Perhaps a better way to explain it is that because your back is sometimes turned away from the Lord and His promises, all you see and know and desire is what’s out in the world, and like those ancient Israelites, you think it’s better. But it never is. Egypt was their world. The Lord was taking them to a better world, but they didn’t understand. They thought it was worth the trade off to be chained up by their old world just so they could have what they thought was stability.
The Israelites had already been bitten, and the fiery serpents were but a reminder of the depth of the poison running through their souls. We have all been bitten, and the Law of God preached from this pulpit is the sobering reminder of how the venom of sin has affected us and caused us to turn against the Lord.
This is truly the mercy of God. Yes, His Law hurts and it stings – it’s supposed to – because you and I, we need to know and be reminded that it is deadly to turn against the Lord and seek our purpose and comfort and hope in sin and in the world.
Was it hard for Israel, after being bit by the fiery serpents, to repent? Yes. Did they want to humble themselves and admit their wrongdoing, their sin? No. But the Lord cared for them so much that He would go to great lengths to save them, and the fiery snakes did exactly what they were supposed to. Sadly, some died because they refused to repent; some would not acknowledge their need for God and His guidance. They instead continued to despise God and blame Moses and there’s nothing Moses could have done to prevent it. But many cried out to the Lord for help, and they were saved.
And the way in which the Lord helped was…interesting to say the least. He told Moses to make a serpent out of bronze and attach it to a wooden pole and then lift the pole up high above the people. The Lord then attached to that pole His Word and promise, that anyone who looked to that serpent would live. How can a serpent on a pole nullify the poison in their veins? Were they saved by works, by Moses making a graven image?
It was a matter of faith. The Lord said it would, and they repented and believed. And going back to Eden, the Lord did the same thing. Sure, Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden on account of their sin, but He still provided them with all they would need to live apart from that place of rest. He clothed them, He gave them work to do, and most importantly, He gave them His Word that He would deal with the problem of sin they created by sending a child who would crush the head, the power of the serpent for good.
Generations later, it’s exactly what He did. He sent His only beloved Son, Christ Jesus, born of woman, born under the Law, God’s ancient promise made manifest in human form. And like the promise made to ancient Israel, that they would be cured by looking to the serpent on a wooden pole, anyone who looks to Jesus who is crucified on the wooden cross shall be cured of the ancient venom of the serpent, his sins forgiven, and his life restored. Without Jesus – DEATH AND THE FIRES OF HELL – but because of Jesus – LIFE AND SALVATION FOR ALL WHO BELIEVE!
Yet for so many this message of the cross is foolishness. They still stand stiff-necked with their backs to the Lord, faces turned toward sin, death, and the devil, faithfully trusting that Satan and his deception will save them, that it’s better to go back to the ways of slavery and evil under the devil’s oppression than it is to be free and guarded by the Lord of Life, all because they want to continue to…do what they do, keep on keepin’ on, pretend it’ll all be fine.
But their lack of faith and our lack of faith does not nullify God’s faithfulness to us. Christ has died and He is risen and that can never change. And to this day the cure for our disease sits before our eyes. It makes no sense, it’s irrational, it’s not testable with scientific methods, but we are called to believe it and trust God’s Word and promise.
Here upon this pulpit the Word of God is preached, the Law in its full sternness and the Gospel in its full sweetness. We may not think it helps us or cleanses us, but God’s Word and promise is sure. Repent and believe that God has His best interests in mind for you.
Here upon this wooden altar, we see bread and wine, and many – too many – doubt that this bread and wine can do anything because, as they say, it’s just bread and wine, like the serpent on a pole, how can a pole and a piece of bronze do anything?
But God’s Word and promise is attached to this bread and wine, and this makes it a sacred and holy and powerful cleansing meal full of the Lord’s body broken and blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins. It’s what He says. God doesn’t ask you to test-tube it, just believe what He says.
By faith, we see aright, and we turn toward the Lord and away from what is gone and dead, and we trust that God’s Word and Sacraments, His promises, will guide us and save us and protect us and feed us on this wilderness journey toward the promised land.
See, like the fiery snakes, the Lord can take great suffering and exploit it, use it for good. In the case of the ancient martyrdoms, the Lord used their righteous deaths to grow His church. In the case of this past week’s martyrdom, how will the Lord use Charlie Kirk’s death to save His people? Only God knows, and He will, in some way He will. And as the persecution of God’s church and His people grows in this nation, don’t lose hope, don’t turn your back against the Lord and wish America could go back to the 80’s or some better days. Look to Jesus, look up to His cross and embrace your Savior. Repent of your waywardness and tendency to make your life more important than the life of the church, and believe that your sins are washed away, forgiven and that true, eternal freedom is yours.
So today, when you hear His voice, when His Word and promises are given and shed for you, do not turn your back as they did in the wilderness and thousands died, but repent and look up to Jesus on the cross and believe that what He has done for you is your freedom, your cure, and your life. Amen.
