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Weekly Bible Notes, 30th March 2003

Lent 4

Year B, Purple

First Reading: Numbers 21:4-9

Crucifixion

Second Reading: John 3:14-21 
Commentary: The Right Antidote 
Meditation: Meditation
Prayers: for Sunday and the week ahead 

Opening Verse of Scripture—Psalm 107

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. 

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

God of compassion, whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary, shared the life of a home in Nazareth, and on the cross drew the whole human family to himself: strengthen us in our daily living that in joy and in sorrow we may know the power of your presence to bind together and to heal; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen

First Bible Reading  Numbers 21:4-9

They travelled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" 

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 

The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 

The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.  (This is the word of the Lord. All: Thanks be to God)

Second Bible Reading John 3:14-21 

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."  (This is the word of the Lord. All: Thanks be to God)

Post Communion Prayer

Loving God, as a mother feeds her children at the breast you feed us in this sacrament with the food and drink of eternal life: help us who have tasted your goodness to grow in grace within the household of faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Commentary: The Right Antidote

Snakes are deaf to airborne sounds, so deaf that they cannot hear the snake charmersSnake charmer flute! Snakes are slow, the fastest recorded speed is about 13km/hr, they go a lot slower than we can run. Many burrowing snakes are also blind. However snakes do have a strong sense of smell, which they use to a large extent for hunting food. They also have an extra chemical sense used for hunting. This means that they can be very dangerous, because out of about 2500 different species of snake, approximately 20 % are poisonous. It was obviously one of these venomous snakes that the Israelites bumped into in the desert and which poisoned them and caused many to die.

In the reading from John’s Gospel, we hear Jesus speaking of Moses lifting up a serpent in the desert during the Exodus when people were being bitten by deadly poisonous snakes. Many died - but those who looked at the bronze snake on a staff that Moses lifted up survived, they were cured of the effects of the snake bite. Now there are many ways to deal with a snake bite, but looking at a bronze snake on a pole would not be found in any medical text books. Instead you need to find an antidote or antivenin, something that will reverse the effect of the poison. So the cure which Moses provided was a miraculous spiritual event, it was God’s way of saving the people, all they had to do was trust in the cure provided.

That action of Moses became a visual demonstration of what was later to take place on the cross. We all know the bad news, that humanity is poisoned by sin, just like the Israelites were struck down by those poisonous snakes. Fortunately there is also good news, that Jesus is an antidote or antivenin for sin. 

He becomes for us just like the bronze snake on a staff, when we look at Jesus and put our trust in him we find God’s cure for all that is wrong in our world. There is no medicine which we can manufacture to cure the evil poison which infects humanity, but Jesus is the cure God has provided for the sin and evil. God looks at his poisoned world, but instead of condemning it, he provides the means whereby it can be healed and saved This is not something we do - it is entirely the work of God, his gift to us. So Jesus calls for us to look at his cross and see that he has taken all the world’s darkness upon himself and in so doing we are miraculously healed. Thank God. Charles Royden

Meditation 

The supreme happiness of life
is the conviction that we are loved;
loved for ourselves, 
or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. 
- Victor Hugo -


Hymns (Mission Praise)

  1. Now thank we all our God 486 
  2. Give thanks with a grateful heart 170 
  3. At the name of Jesus 41 
  4. Father we love you 142 
  5. Amazing Grace 31

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

This week Jewish and Christian Prayers for peace 
at a time of international conflict.

Jewish Prayer
The following is a Prayer for Peace that is traditionally included in the Shabbat (Saturday) service. It is chanted together and alike most prayers in Judaism it is drawn from Biblical sources.

May we see the day when war and bloodshed cease when a great peace will embrace the whole world Then nation shall not threaten nation and humankind will not again know war. For all who live on earth shall realize we have not come into being to hate or destroy We have come into being to praise, to labour and to love. Compassionate God, bless all the leaders of all nations with the power of compassion. Fulfill the promise conveyed in Scripture: "I will bring peace to the land, and you shall lie down and no one shall terrify you. I will rid the land of vicious beasts and it shall not be ravaged by war." Let love and justice flow like a mighty stream. Let peace fill the earth as the waters fill the sea. And let us say: Amen

Christian Prayer
The following verse is taken from the from the Holy Bible and expresses our conviction that God is in control and will restore this world to himself. (Isaiah I 2:4).
He shall judge between nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.


 

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