Becoming The Easter Movement:
“Fear Is The Bite.  Trust Is The Antidote.” 
Ephesians 2: 1-10; John 3: 11-21 March 22, 2009  Lent

     What are you afraid of...your worst fear?  It's always looming over us out there in the desert of our lives...isn't it?  Throughout time, people have always known fear and suffered for their fears and grumbled about their lives.  In the desert of their lives, the people of Israel complained about not having enough food but what was really at the center of their complaint was their fear they wouldn't survive....or maybe that, in the end, all the sacrifices wouldn't be worth it--a scarey thought.  They complained instead of named...their worst fears.  It says they were inpatient.  Inpatient…from Hebrew word that means “short on soul”.  
     So, when is it you feel “short on soul”…inpatient with the ways things are?  What do you usually complain about?  What is “the fear” your complaining avoids by refocusing your attention on the mundane instead of on the significant?  Like when we grumble about the crumbs on the floor of fellowship hall instead of the fact that we enjoy enough kids now that messes are made...or grumbling at home or work about why someone doesn't do something the way you do, instead of celebrating the fact they're doing it at all....or grumbling about someone's temper tantrum rather than looking at the issue making them upset...you upset!!!
     What would it take to get you to open up your eyes and see your whining for what it really is?  What snake would have to jump up and bite you to get your attention and change your perspective on things...help you see the bigger picture...the root causes for your unhappiness...unhealthiness?  The "snake on a stick" is the symbol of the medical profession inviting us to look at the root causes for our unhealth, to find healing.  And, in the Bible the word for salvation has the same root as the word for healing.   Healing is a process, not a product.  We are healed when we are saved…most usually from ourselves and our perceptions about who we are and the situations we find ourselves in.
     But you know, being New Testament people, maybe we don't have to be bitten by a snake for God to get our attention at all...so we can be saved...healed!  In giving us Jesus, God is trying to get our attention and change our perspectives....our very lives....through the gift of wisdom personified, instead of a bite.
     But we fear the good/the light....almost as much as the bad/the bite...yes, we do.  You see, most of us really don't want to be changed….even for the better....you could say we fear good every bit as much as we fear the bad.  Do you agree?  I mean, we resist change and can find amazing energy and really good reasons to keep things the way they are.  We just keep complaining and finding excuses.  When it comes to changing, aren't we a bunch more likely to change our lives when something bad is looming than we are when something good is blooming...it's much easier to stay stuck in the darkness than it is to change our lives and move into the light. 
     We fear things that will change us....even good things.  We fear....Jesus.  You see, Jesus is frightening--more frightening than a snake because taking him seriously changes the way we go about living everyday and each thing we do and say.  It was because he was so frightening, such a threat, that he was crucified.  And even today, we crucify Jesus each time we look away from the bite of our lives and avoid the truth.  We crucify Jesus each time we ignore the power of the positive choices in our lives and keep doing the same old things over and over again! 
     And still, God doesn't desert us...not once, not ever...why?  Because God loves us...so much that God will never gives up on us.  God doesn't love us the way the world loves us!  God's love defies the way of the world!  That's what Easter is about...a love that defies the evil, chaos, the power plays of the world, our fears....and never gives up on any one of us!"    

     The world gives us snakes.  God gives us Jesus.  God longs for us to live into what is true about us and make informed choices.  God gifts us a constant stream of new choices, restarts that are available to us....not because we've earned them...but because God loves us!  Still, so many of us stay in the dark...where our own choices are not exposed for what they really are...our fear of changing, our fear of commitment.  We stay in the desert, bitten by snakes, being killed by life one bite at a time, never once looking what is biting us right in the face....never once looking to Jesus as the alternative way to approach what's happening to us.
     Whine.  whine.  whine.  What's the point of life?  ...the suffering?  Or, the healing that's being offered?
      When we lift up our worst fears...the fears we avoid by our whining, when we name them and lift them up, then healing and new life can begin.  We have to look at what we fear most right in the eyes in order to be healed.  But it is most important to know that we only have to do the first two parts--look and lift up--God does the healing.  Do you believe it? 

      Again, I ask you to name the suffering, the hurt, the healing you long for in your life...look it in the face and lift it up.  And I know it's not an easy thing to do....that's why we have set aside time to support each other in fellowship, Tuesday nights and Sunday nights…and whenever YOU call!  And we who come...beginning to face our fears and vulnerabilities, are finding beginning relief and healing as we kneel our lives before our God and ask for what we need.  (This kneeler is here throughout the week friends, I invite you to kneel and name the healing you desire....even during this service.)
     God will take your fears from you and bring you newness in life....beginning as soon as you look your fear in the eye and name your healing.  This is the gift God offers each one of us....a chance to leave the dessert of Moses....and live in the garden with Jesus.  God offers us a movement within that can move us to change the way that we are as we embrace the who that we are….a powerful movement inward that moves us outward and joins us with others also on the way……trust is the antidote for what is biting you!