Sermon 3/14/21: "I'm So Glad" Pr. Kelly Faulstich (Resurrection Lutheran Church)
Pr. Kelly K. Faulstich
Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 14, 2021
I’m So Glad
Back in high school, my choir director was a very reverent Roman Catholic man who come the season of Lent would have us substitute a certain four syllable word beginning with the A with four other one syllable words so that we could practice any sacred music we were learning without using that A-word, and still be ready to perform it come Eastertide.
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me.
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me,
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me,
Singing glory, [mm-mm-mm-mm], Jesus lifted me.
Singing glory, [it is Lent now], Jesus lifted me.
This hymn, #860 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, I’m so Glad, comes to us out of an African American call and response tradition that according to the ELW Hymnal Companion, to Suzanne Flandreau of the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago is part of a collection of hymns that would have been handed down orally over time among many not published until fairly recently, this hymn first showing up in a 1971 Episcopal Hymnal Supplement.
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me.
Satan had me bound, Jesus lifted me.
When I was in trouble, Jesus lifted me,
each verse of this song is sung in thanksgiving to God
for all that God has done and continues to do and be and move.
In our reading from Numbers this morning, Moses has led the people out of Egypt.
After years of enslavement and then the plagues and the Passover
the journey through waters and diet of manna and quail,
the commandments declared… after all this,
Moses and Aaron and Miriam and the people are still in the wilderness
and they (for the most part) are most definitely not glad.
We might understand the Israelites’ attitude here.
Our compassion, our sympathy might be with them.
We know it had been a long and hard road from Egypt.
We know they left behind the familiar in hopes of something better.
The narrator of this Numbers text makes it pretty clear that this is not an instance of righteous lament or faithful crying-out. They became “impatient,” verse 4 reads.
And so, the Israelites are whining; they’re complaining:
“For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food,”
akin to the “we have nothing to eat,” while staring into a fridge full of food
or the “we have nothing to do”
as game consoles, sports equipment, and books and sit idly by.
The Israelites’ complaint here isn’t met with parental challenge or exasperation though,
The complaining here is met with God’s response of sending poisonous snakes, deadly snakes.
This is more than God placing red “No” circle and slash through whining
or changing the wifi password so the children of Israel will find another activity.
God sends down snakes to kill the whiners.
I can’t say I remember any Sunday School crafts for this passage growing up. Do you?
But when the people make corporate confession, “We have sinned,” and Moses prays on their behalf, the God who we sometimes sing about changing not, changes the course and instructs Moses in the ways of fashioning a bronze serpens on sticks and the people look upon that which was lifted up and provided by God and they live.
In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, the Pharisee who had come with questions at night, Jesus draws a connection between this bronze serpent in the wilderness with himself: “Just 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,” Jesus tells Nicodemus (3.14).
We might identify how the Son of Man is lifted up in John’s passion narrative, in two or three instances. On the cross, Jesus is lifted up. From the grave, Jesus is lifted up. Into heaven to rule and judge and love and live forever, Jesus is lifted up.
For God loved the world that God gave Jesus, so that everyone who believes in Jesus may not perish but have eternal life. Out of love, God gives Jesus.
Out of love, God lifts Godself up,
out of a broken and violent world,
out of death and finality,
out of just the now into the forever or what may be.
God’s strength, God’s presence, God’s love is so vast that it extends beyond all human barriers and all human understandings.
It reminds of those videos that show a person on earth and then the shot pans out to the country maybe and then the whole planet and solar system and beyond, beyond, beyond. God is like that, God of the world, of the cosmos, of creation. It’s a reminder that it’s not just all about us.
And still that vision, that capacity works in reverse too. God’s strength and presence with and love for of all creation, for the cosmos, the world, this community, our congregation, also includes us, you, child of God. God’s strength and presence with and love is for you too, right now wherever you are or however you are.
Whining about the wilderness or giving thanks for what’s in your world today,
Asking questions late at night or confident on this Sunday morning,
Really living into Lent or feeling a little Easter joy creeping in,
Hopeful or fearful or angry or glad,
You are part of this world we hear about in the gospel
that God so loved and that God so loves.
Child of God, sealed with Holy Spirit and marked with cross of Christ, forever,
Lifted up as beloved this day and always.
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me.
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me.
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me.
Singing, glory, (mm-mm-mm-mm) Jesus lifted me.