Caduceus

Did you know that the 4^th Sunday in Lent,

            as it is observed in the Church of England, our Mother Church,

                        is called Mothering Sunday.

It is the British equivalent of Mothers Day 

                        and has been celebrated as such since the 16^th Century.

It occurred on this Sunday at the midpoint in Lent

            when the traditional Gospel lesson was the story of the loaves and fishes

Hence it was also called “Refreshment” Sunday

            because the multitudes were refreshed with the food our Lord provided them.

 

So we are now just past the half way mark in Lent,

            and I might ask, how is your observance of a holy Lent going?

I can see the lengthening of days with signs of spring

            and more of us getting vaccinated

                        and the increasing activity within our parish life:

                                    small groups gathering 

                                    either online or, now, even in person

                        meeting for Bible study 

                        or discussing the Lenten devotional booklet, Steadfast Love,

                        or for engaging with the Profile Committee’s 5 Questions

            or for praying the Daily Office together,

I can say with certainty that fresh life is burgeoning here.

            There is Refreshment going on.

 

Often when it seems we can hardly keep going,

            something intervenes and the discerning heart will say

                        that God has provided.

And indeed God has.

            Let’s look at the scriptures for this Sunday because they bear that out.

 

The lesson from the Book of the Torah called Numbers

            recounts yet another time when the Israelites were in difficult straits

                                                out there in the Lenten wilderness of the Sinai Desert.

It wasn’t a virus, but it could have been, 

            this time a plague of poisonous snakes,

                        and people were dying.

But God provided, 

            although it was somewhat strange what God provided – 

                        healing in the form of a serpent of bronze on a pole

            and all they had to do was to gaze on it

                                                            and they would live.

 

Are you familiar with the Caduceus? 

             the symbol associated with doctors and the medical profession?

The most familiar depiction is of two intertwining snakes on a pole

                        topped with two wings.

There are a couple of different stories 

            about what that represents and how it came to be,

but the most relevant is the Greek myth of Asclepius. 

            Asclepius was a healer with his wife Hygeia and daughter Panacea. 

In Greek art Asclepius is depicted holding a staff 

                                                                                    with a snake entwined around it.

 

I have been privileged to explore the classical ruins 

            in Pergamum, Turkey, and Epidaurus, Greece, 

with their ancient temples and places of healing associated with Asclepius.

            These places even today 

                        have a discernable healing and peaceful quality about them.

 

Now don’t you think it most interesting 

            that there can be parallels drawn between this story about Asclepius

                        and the story of Moses interceding for the people in prayer to God?

 

The people cry out with their need for healing

            and God’s mercy provides,

                        and the healing flows as freely 

            as that spontaneous, abundant, free flowing, generous mercy of God.

 

So let us turn to the Gospel reading for today:

            It starts in the middle of the conversation that Jesus was having 

                        with Nicodemus who came to him by night

            and was told that he must be born, not just from a physical mother,

                        but from the Source of all life.

 

And while Nicodemus is puzzling over this, Jesus tells him:

            “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,

            so must the Son of Man be lifted up…”

                                    As indeed he would be – on a cross.

 

This would be for the ultimate healing – the healing of the sin sick soul,

            the healing that would carry you through death to life,

                        life with that eternal quality to it

                                    eternally lively, never fading,

                        life in its fullest expression,

            the life of the Resurrection.

 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

            so that everyone who believes in him, who puts their trust in him,

                        may not perish

                                    but have eternal life.

 

We may speak of God the Father and God the Son,

            but what is described in John, chapter 3,

                        is a process of birthing into new life,

                                    of being birthed into new life,

                        by God who births us into new life – God as mother.

 

And here is the Gospel good news that we must never forget:

            “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world,

            but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

 

Know that in Greek the word that means saved also means healed.

 

The ultimate healing that we all need – the healing of the sin sick soul,

            the healing that can carry you through death to life,

                        requires only that you have faith, that you trust, 

            that you believe the word of God when your heart hears it.

 

With the ancient healing cult of Asclepius

            there was an elaborate ritual that took place 

                                                in order to access the healing:

            drinking water from a special fountain, 

            navigating an underground tunnel to a chamber

            where you would sleep and dream 

                        and tell your dream to the temple priest for interpretation,

            and a votive offering to be left.

 

But the Gospel puts no qualifications on receiving other than receiving,

            which is an act of faith,

                        like simply placing your gaze on the snake on the pole.

 

The sad thing is that in their sin sickness people preferred darkness to light,

            because the darkness would hide what the light would expose.

 

But God, like a good mother, would much rather see her children happy,

            all freshened up from a bath after playing in the mud,

            filled with a nourishing dinner 

            and tucked into bed with hugs and kisses and soothing bedtime stories.

 

And here is the Good News! – 

this spiritual process at work within us 

is not our own effort and work,

but the work of the Spirit blowing where it will in us.

The work is being done for us.

 

And this is not even at our own initiative.

We are like babies here being born.

            We are hardly prepared for the life we are being born into in Jesus.

Jesus is the One who gives the new birth into the new creation, 

                        the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son

            that whosoever believes in him, trusts in him, has faith in him,

                        will have eternal life.

 

Now in physical birth there is a separation that occurs, 

                                                                                    a cutting the umbilical cord,

            marking a distinction being made between the child from the mother.

 

But in the birth from above, from the Source, from the Spirit,

            there is no separation.

            There are no spiritual belly buttons.

 

Rather – and just try to get your mind around this – 

                                                            there is a state of continuous birth.

            Nothing separates from the Source.

 

The truth of the world is that it is born of God.

            This is the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is all of the one Life, of the One who said I am the Resurrection and the Life.

 

From the reading today from the Letter to the Ephesians, 

            these words say it all:

 

God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, 

made us alive together with Christ

-- by grace you have been saved—

and raised us up with him 

and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 

so that in the ages to come he might show 

the immeasurable riches of his grace 

in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

For by grace you have been saved through faith, 

and this is not your own doing; 

it is the gift of God

-- not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 

For we are what he has made us, created [as we are] in Christ Jesus…

 

This is eternal life – to know, to experience, to have heart knowledge 

                        of God, and the one sent, Jesus.

 

We each face another birth

            when we can then say that we are born again.

It is the birth that occurs at death,

            when the time is ripe for each of us.

 

This birth is natural.  It doesn’t require our understanding.

            It will happen in its time.

 

But we can already come to the realization of this new birth.

We can already know eternal life as being born of water and the Spirit,

            being in that eternal moment of creation in Jesus.