Families have stories. Some are more inspiring than others. As Americans our family stories are about things like immigration to the United States, hardships during the Great Depression, and endurance through seeing brothers and sons go off to the World Wars, Korea, or Vietnam. One of my family stories was told by my grandfather. He lived his story. When he was a young child, he was abandoned by his parents and left to roam the streets of East St. Louis, Illinois. He was brought in by different families through his early years to work on their farms. Many of those families thought of him more like “slave labor” rather than a son. After hearing these kinds of stories from my granddad, who didn’t like to talk about his early days too often, it continues to amaze me at what some people in this world had to endure. And that was the same for the Israelites.

In the Gospel text for today, John chapter three, John goes back to an Old Testament story which is told in Numbers 21:4-9. On the Israelite’s journey through the wilderness the people of Israel murmured and complained and regretted that they had ever left Egypt. To punish them God sent a plague of deadly, fiery serpents. The people repented and cried for mercy, and God instructed Moses to make an image of a serpent and to hold it up in the midst of the camp; and he who looked upon the serpent was healed and saved. That story impressed the Israelites – much like the story of my grandfather’s endurance impressed me.

In the Gospel text for today Jesus takes that old story – a story that all of Israel would know by heart – and shows how it will be fulfilled through the work of the Savior. Jesus says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

I would like to focus on one particular word that Jesus uses here in the text. It’s the Greek word “hupsoun” and it means, “To lift up.” The strange thing about this word is that it is used of Jesus in two senses. It is used of His being lifted up upon the cross. And it is used of His being lifted up into glory at the time of His Ascension into heaven. You see, there was a “double lifting up” in the life of Jesus. He was lifted up on the cross and He was lifted up in glory. One took him to death – the other took him to heaven. Both were for a purpose. Both were to show us what we endure in faith. Both show us that believing in Jesus really has a two-fold reality in our lives – death and glory.

Have you ever thought of it that way – that faith in Jesus takes us to death? It “lifts us up to the cross” like Jesus was lifted up. And as we gaze at our Savior through the eyes of faith, we have been healed and made whole again. In order for there to be life there must first be death – namely the death of ourselves. We put to death our sinful ways. We put to death the old Adam within us by repentance and contrition. Christ’s death leads to Christ’s life. Our life in Christ leads to death which leads to life with Christ. Admittedly this is a bit convoluted. But that’s life.

Tell me when your life has not been convoluted. Life to death to life – that seems to be the pattern doesn’t it. I’m convinced that our faith puts us in the position of dying and rising back to life each and every day. On a personal level, we die in our faith all the time. Yes, it’s true, in faith we put to death all evil desires and sinful lust and we rise to life in Christ. That’s faith and that happens in our baptisms each day. But we die in another way as well.

As faithful people who live in faith each day, we die in our pain and suffering. No, we may not actually die in pain or suffering but it sure feels like it. I have talked to members of our congregation that are in such dire straights in life – emotionally or physically. They tell me, “Pastor, it would be better for me if I were dead.” I have seen people so ill and in so much pain they say to me, “Pastor, I just wish that the Lord would let me die.” I have counseled people who feel as if they are so sinful and undeserving of God’s free gift of grace through faith that they say, “Pastor, I don’t deserve to have heaven. I don’t deserve to live. I deserve to just die.” The consequences of a fallen world – disease, pain, and suffering – can be too much of a burden to carry. The stigma of a sinful condition can make us feel like we deserve nothing but God’s wrath and nothing good will ever come into our lives because of what we have done. The circumstances that we live with today we feel will never get better, weigh on our hearts and trouble us to no end.

But there are two things that conquer the world’s consequences and give us hope for something yet far greater to come. Two things Jesus talks about today in both verse fifteen and verse sixteen of John chapter three. These two things are faith and eternal life. And both gifts are realized today. Even in the midst of all suffering and death this world affords – we have it!

First of all, faith, believes in that word, “hupsoun” (to lift up). Faith grabs onto the fact that our Lord was lifted up to death and then to life. Remember, in this world, faith embodies both life and death. Faith is believing that there is death – but it never ends with death. Faith believes that life will conquer death. Faith knows death and knows that even the most faithful of all people will experience death. Faith doesn’t mean that we won’t experience all that. As a matter of fact, the Bible is clear that we will experience death – at least the results of death – on this side of eternity.

I was watching Joyce Meyer, the T.V. Evangelist, and she said something that is often times misunderstood and is, quite frankly, dead wrong. She said, “Jesus wants you to believe so He can give you a better life right now.” Faith in Jesus means a better life – a better life to come. But it doesn’t mean a better life now. Try telling that to those who are persecuted every day for their faith in Jesus. Try telling that to the person who just came into my study and has the faith of a saint but still can’t feed her family. Try telling that to the flock of God’s people in this place that struggle day in and day out with all that inflicts us in our daily lives – loneliness, heartache, physical and emotional pain.

Faith in God is seen in the light of the second thing that Jesus talked about in verse fifteen – eternal life. If we posses eternal life, what do we posses? If we enter into eternal life, what is life like? To have eternal life changes every relationship in life. I see this as giving five things (Barclay – page 127). 1) Eternal life gives peace with God. We are at home with our Father in Heaven. 2) It gives us peace with men. If we are forgiven, then the Lord has enabled us to be forgiving. 3) It gives peace with life. If God is Father, God is working all things together for good. It doesn’t mean life will be all good. It means that peace will be what God gives in the end to His faithful people – you. 4) It gives us peace with ourselves. We are more afraid of ourselves than anything else. We know our own weaknesses and we fear that. We know the force of temptation and we don’t think we can endure. But now we know that we are facing it with God and in Christ there is nothing we can’t overcome. And finally 5) it makes us certain that the dearest joy on earth is only a foretaste of the greater joy to come. It gives us hope and a goal, and an end to which we travel. It gives us life of glorious wonder and yet, at the same time, a life in which the best is yet to come.

All of this is done for us by the work of Jesus on the cross. God is our Father in heaven, who created us – our Son who came to be one of us, who redeemed us – our Holy Spirit, who shows us the gifts given and grows us in life – are still working through the greatest of all stories – the Gospel. A story lived and heard that will change your life. A story lived by the Israelites that changed there life. The raising up of a snake gave them life in the desert. Today the raising up of a Savior gives us life in this wasteland of a world we live in right now. Praise be to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the life given to us. It’s more than “just” a story. It’s a work, a death and a life lived for us. Amen

The peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.