My sermon for Mothering Sunday, preached at St Oswald’s Church, Durham. 14^th March 2021

Readings: Num 21:4-9; Eph 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

Let me start by wishing you all a Happy Mothering Sunday, in what is probably a very unusual Mothering Sunday. I hope and pray that it would still be one filled with love and with blessings. 

Now halfway through March, it is fair to say that there are some signs of Spring beginning to emerge. The weather is starting to improve, and the temperature has slowly increased. There are daffodils along the path at St Oswald’s that are so close to bursting open. These signs of Spring arriving feel more poignant this year than perhaps they would usually do. This is probably because we have been through a strange and difficult period through this pandemic and its continual lockdowns. We can feel a bit stuck, isolated, trapped, and like we are caught a bit in the middle of nowhere.

In many ways, we are going through a situation like the Israelites in the desert we heard about in our Old Testament reading. The Israelites have been wandering in the desert for quite some time now. They are frustrated and have lost their patience with God and Moses. They are tired and sick of their constant struggle—the constant travelling in the desert, the constant lack of food, the constant lack of water. The majority of us have not lacked physical food and water during this pandemic, but all of us have had to go without seeing loved ones or getting out of the house. Some of us have lost our jobs, some of us have lost our mental wellbeing, and some of us have even lost our loved ones. Like the Israelites, we are caught in a desert and need saving.

The Israelites in our passage are currently suffering from an infestation of poisonous snakes that is killing many. We here in 2021 are suffering from the spread of a virus that is killing millions around the world and is threatening to kill many more. The Israelites are suffering, and in their suffering, they turn to God through Moses, asking him to intercede for them before God, to ask God to take away these poisonous snakes. Moses spoke with God, and God told Moses to erect a pole with a snake on it, and anyone who looked upon this snake would not die but live.

As we are in the season of Lent and approaching Easter, I cannot help but notice the link to the Easter story, a link to which our Gospel reading has alluded, where Jesus was lifted up and placed on a kind of pole, a cross for the salvation of the world. And whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Those who look to Jesus and see that he is our salvation shall not die but have eternal life.

This is the parallel that I want us to examine this morning, how we are like the Israelites in the desert. And like the Israelites looked to the snake pole that God had provided to save them, how are we looking to the cross of Jesus as the point of our salvation and our hope of eternal life whilst a fear of death surrounds us?

How are we in the desert?

In Lent, we remember the forty days that Jesus was in the desert. It seems that in 2021 we have still been in Lent 2020, still journeying in that desert place from last year. In 2020 and into 2021, we have been in this place of desolation, where life has felt that it has come to a halt. Church buildings have closed, the shops have been shut. We are stuck in a bit of a rut with not much going on. So often in this pandemic, we have felt like a lost traveller in the desert looking for signs of hope and life beyond this pandemic. But we never seem to find our oasis or green pasture, and instead, all we tend to find is more sand.

Wandering in a desert for so long can be incredibly weary. In our Old Testament reading, we see that the Israelites were fed up with it, and I myself and I’m sure many of you are also fed up with our desert period of a Covid world. And when we are in this desert period, it is easy to lose hope and lose sight of the hope we have in Jesus. Like the Israelites, we come to see only the hardship and loss, and we forget that God is still at work in our lives.

The Israelites forgot that their Exodus through the desert was a part of God’s saving work as he liberated them from slavery in Egypt, and then took them across the red sea, and then through the desert to the promised land. Yet, in the desert, they lost sight and hope of the promised land where God was taking them. They forgot that it was God who was miraculously providing the food in the desert that they were complaining about. And as they lost sight of God, they turned their back on him. They failed to see God present in the desert, and without God, they had no hope out of the desert or safety from the poisonous snakes.

How have we lost hope?

We may not be faced with the fear of poisonous snakes, but we have been dealing with a virus that has been a real threat to our lives. Many of us know people who have lost their jobs, health, and lives to this Covid pandemic. When difficult and hard times hit us, it can shake our faith and throw our eyes off God. We can get bogged down like the Israelites in only seeing what is hard, and we then find ourselves just seeing things to complain about, and we miss God’s hand at work in the desert.

We miss the ways God has been providing for us this year. It has been amazing that we have been able to still meet to worship together online through the gift of video calling and zoom. We have seen everyone doing their bit to combat this virus across the nation, and we have seen especially amazing work from our key workers. We have been blessed by the provision of a vaccine in less than a year when new vaccines usually take several years to develop. It is testament to the goodness of God that not more people have died this past year than have already done so. That, of course, is not to say that this past year has not been challenging and has not been without terrible loss. By no means. But we have the hope of a God who is with us in the desert and saves us from death, giving us instead new and eternal life.

How do we rediscover the hope in Jesus?

Our Gospel reading features one of the most famous verses, if not the most famous verse from the Bible. 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Our promise from God is that in his love, in the giving of Jesus to die on the cross for us and rise from the grave, eternal life is available to us through belief in Jesus. This is our great hope during our desert period.

The Israelites’ hope was salvation from death, but the life they had was still only temporary. However, when Jesus saved us from death, he brought us the promise of eternal life. And so, all these hurts and pains of our Covid desert can never take away the eternal life we have in Jesus, both on earth now as in the heaven to come.

It can be hard searching for signs of life in the desert where not much is going on. Stuck at home the majority of the time, can make it difficult to see God and the life he brings in the world around us. This Lent, I want to invite you to see the act of salvation that God has placed in front of us in the presence of Jesus in our lives.

How are we going to be looking to God for our salvation in this pandemic?

How do we see Jesus around us?

The first thing we can do is to pray. Pray that God will open our eyes to see him at work all around us in our desert.

The second thing we can do is to have faith. Have faith and believe in Jesus’ promise to save us and his promise of eternal life.

The third thing we can do is be still. Desert times in our lives are often times when it feels like life slows down, and as it slows down and the busyness disappears, as the dust settles, we find that we can see more of God at work than we had noticed before.

Today is Mothering Sunday. Think how on Mothering Sunday, we often take the time to stop and appreciate our mothers, grandmothers and other women in our life. When we stop to think of what these mothers bring to our lives, we find that we can see more of what they do in our lives. It is in stopping and taking the time to celebrate and think of our mothers that we stop and notice what they bring to us. Similarly, when we stop to look at God and what he has done in our lives, we will be amazed at how much we will see God has been doing.

I implore you to hold on. Easter is near. Spring will come and the daffodils will bloom. And we will be free of this pandemic eventually. We do not know how long we will be in our desert, but we know that God will not forsake us and that he will be faithful to us and his promise of eternal life. Stop and be still and see the presence of God all around us. 

Amen