Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Impatience is something with which most of us are quite familiar.

Our nation is increasingly impatient for an end to the war in Iraq. Impatience and anger seem to grow daily over bonuses given to AIG and other corporate executives receiving tax-payer funds. Some of us may even be impatient with Lent, with talk of darkness and sin. As warm periods still get interrupted with reminders of the slow passing of winter, many are ready for spring to be fully and visibly present. We are anxious for Easter to arrive.

Impatience is a sign that we are being tested. God is at work in us when we yearn for an end to those matters that trouble us.

In the story from the Old Testament this morning, we might be able to recognize ourselves in the whining impatience of an ancient people.

In Numbers, we come upon the Israelites, who have been wandering around in the desert for quite some time. All kinds of exciting and terrifying things have happened to them, and given them proof, over and over again, that God was with them to save them, not least the provision of manna and quail for their sustenance.

Yet now the wanderers have hit a stagnant phase, where they trudge along through inhospitable terrain, and they are, frankly, bored. They sound like spoiled children—cross, illogical, and impatient: "We're starving. There's no food, except the food we hate." I hear echoes of my own children looking at a full refrigerator and a stuffed pantry yelling, "Dad, there's nothing to eat!"

At this point in the story from Numbers, we're told that God sends poisonous snakes to bite them—something with which many parents of spoiled children may feel a sneaking sympathy. But the people haven't wasted their years in captivity and their dark evenings around the campfire in the wilderness. They know the creation stories, and they instantly recognize these snakes.

The people recognize that they have given in to temptation, just as Adam and Eve did, and they quickly run to Moses to confess. Then God gives Moses the strange remedy of a bronze snake to cure the fatal bite of the tempter.

To appreciate the significance of this symbol, we need to recognize that the traditional Jewish reading of the "Garden of Eden" story differs from the classical Christian version. While the serpentine tempter has often been identified in both faiths as Satan, Jews have never understood Satan to be a being outside of God's command, or a rebel against divine authority. In his role as a sort of cosmic prosecuting attorney, Satan is entrusted with the jobs of testing, entrapping and testifying against us before the heavenly court. It's a dirty job—and he sometimes strikes us as performing it with excessive zeal—but it must be done to maintain order in the world. That's the Jewish view, and I like it.

The ancient rabbis equated both the serpent and Satan with a force known as the "yetzer hara." According to the Jewish understanding, the good Lord implanted into every human being this yetzer hara, a drive that combines features of ambition, greed and sexual desire—the inclination to do evil.

An extraordinary myth found in the Talmud relates how the Jewish sages, shortly after the Babylonian Captivity, were determined to put an end to this formidable threat. Encouraged by their recent success at eradicating the "urge" to worship idols, these sages felt that they were "on a roll." So they decided to capture and destroy the "yetzer hara" itself. And they were successful. They caught the beast and bound it in chains, eagerly awaiting the moment when they would remove it from the world for all time.

But soon strange reports started arriving: Nobody was showing up at work anymore. No one wanted to marry or raise families. The chickens weren't laying eggs!

The sages slowly came to realize that they had misunderstood the nature of what they had thought of as an "evil urge." The drives represented in that faculty are essential for the proper functioning of humanity as God planned us to live our lives. The yetzer hara isn't evil in any absolute sense, but only when it's allowed to trespass beyond its legitimate domain.

Sexuality is a wonderful gift when invested in a loving marriage and family, but can be perverted into a force for hatred and abuse. And ambition can be an admirable quality when it's channeled towards spiritual creativity and service of humanity, but is a fiery scourge when it is twisted into unrestricted covetousness. It was this failure to set limits to the "yetzer hara" that was represented by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. And so the serpent is a suitable instrument of divine punishment AND of healing. (adapted from a piece from St. Cyprian Anglican Church, Calgary, March 9 1997)

The people of Israel had let this urge get the best of them, as do we, in impatience and whining. And isn't it interesting to note that the serpent, a symbol of Satan and of evil, is according to ancient tradition not our enemy but an important resource?

We stand in the season of Lent faced with the darkness of our fears, our sins, our impatience, and we learn this morning that the disciplines of Lent are as much about taming these forces as it is about eliminating them from our lives. Indeed, it is not within our abilities to eliminate the "serpent," the yetzer hara. We are, rather, to keep it under control and direct it in productive ways. Jews believe that this is best done by following the values and way of life set down in the Torah. We Christians rely on our faith in Jesus.

Which brings us to the gospel story for today. As once the serpent was lifted up, so in Lent we look to the "lifting up" of Jesus on the cross. Here we have the Christian version of that ancient Talmudic story.

The Mishnah, that eminent compendium of Jewish oral traditions, explicitly rejects any simplistic magical interpretation of the Old Testament story: "Does a serpent really hold the power over death or life?" it asks rhetorically. "Rather, as Israel lifted their eyes and gazed upward, they would submit their hearts to their Father in heaven—and this would bring about their cure."

So too as we look up to Jesus on the cross during Lent, we lift our hearts with our gaze and submit our hearts to the God of heaven. Here is the source of our cure. Here is the source of our power to tame the beast within and around us. Here is the way to bring to obedience the strong and powerful forces of anxiety, fear, impatience, and all of the other sins that beset us.

One more brief story. Joachim Jeremias tells it about his life in Israel where his parents were missionaries. After WWII, he returned nervously to Israel to see if the treatment of Jews by the Nazi regime had severed forever his friendships there. When he knocked at the door of an old friend, he was welcomed with an embrace. He joined his friend in the backyard, where a crude tent had been erected for the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, a time of recalling Israel's wandering in the desert, dwelling in tents. Fastened on the entrance to the tent were two slips of paper, each bearing a brief message: on the left was "From God"; on the right was "To God." There, simply yet dramatically, said Jeremias, was the whole of life: from God to God, and in the years between, a tent (told by Fred Craddock, Christian Century, 3/22/03, p.18)

Here's our situation. We're impatient for the future. We look to what is not yet. We yearn for the fulfillment of the hopes and dreams that have been inspired by scripture, life, and relationships.

But these stories tell us more than the truth of our circumstances. They give us insights into ways of dealing with our impatience, and even our fears and our anxieties. These stories clue us in on the abiding purpose of life (taming the serpent) and the abiding presence of God. We but pitch our tents in these times and in these places. We have come from God and we are going to God. Let us, then, be at peace with God, with one another, and with ourselves. In times of impatience, we need to remember the One from whom all things come and to whom all things flow.

The cross, like the serpent, has the power to destroy, yet paradoxically it also has the power to restore. The same judge who holds the authority to sentence us to death after death because of who we are—trespassers and evildoers—bears also the mercy to grant us life after life by God grace through our faith in Christ. A single symbol may be read two different ways. The cross may be seen with the eye as an instru ment of death, but through the eyes of faith we may catch a vision of the glory that lies beyond it.

Even so, some seem to choose the way of death. Perhaps it is because the dark side of our souls—the yetzer hara—is seductive in making us believe that its vital forces must be given free reign.

We are called to keep our eyes fixed on the cross, so that we remember that there is no easy way, no shortcut on the route that leads to Calvary and on to resurrected life. We know about temptation, and we traverse desolate valleys on our journey—anxiety, fear, impatience. But scripture speaks to us of others who traveled in the wilderness and yet came through without allowing baser urges to hold sway.

Our impatience is a sign that we are being tested. God is at work in us when we yearn for an end to the things that trouble us. God is calling us to greater experiences of being human and to a fuller taming of our souls.

For God has always been rich in mercy, even before the gift of Jesus Christ. And God continues to be merciful, because whoever gazes up to Jesus in whatever time and in whatever place and in whatever circumstance will not be left to struggle alone. The power of this One who is lifted up is the power of eternal life. For those who look up, the power of sin will never have the final word.

Psalm 107 offers a proper word of praise: "Give thanks to the Lord. God is good, and God's mercy endures forever." Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.