Numbers 21:4-9

Most of the passages like this are not in the Lectionary. This one makes it, most likely, because Jesus refers to it just before he makes one of the most famous statements he ever made, that he's here to give his life so you can live. But explaining away this bizarre passage just by saying "it's like Jesus", is hardly satisfying.

On the fundamentalist's website "GotQuestions.org", they all but tell you it makes no sense and there is no good answer to what this story is about:

"It is totally illogical to think that looking at a bronze image could heal anyone from snakebite, but that is exactly what God told them to do. It took an act of faith in God's plan for anyone to be healed, and the serpent on the stick was a reminder of their sin which brought about their suffering."

This is the kind of answer you have to give if your goal is to explain things that don't make sense. This Christian explanation also ignores that in the Bible a thousand years later, King Hezekiah implemented reforms, including getting rid of this symbol of the bronze snake (2 Kings 18:4). He called it the Nehushtan, meaning 'a brazen thing'. I could go into more research of this, but really, shouldn't we just recognize this as an ancient artifact and discard it from any discussion of meaning or as anything of value for understanding ourselves and our history? For the purpose of understanding the Bible, it's enough to know that images from lost cults will sometimes appear, with almost no explanation or context.

Ephesians 2:1-10

Ephesians is not a letter that is agreed to be from Paul, despite what the Bible or your pastor says. This book was probably written later, when the church was becoming more closely aligned with empire and not as interested in things like equality. But we'll get into that later in the year when we spend more time with this book.

For this verse, we're just hitting the old debate of faith vs works. It mixes the theology of explaining what Christ did and how the sacrifice worked with why he did it. He did it because your sin made you worthless, "dead". You only lived "in the passions of the flesh". There is no way you could have earned God's grace. Jesus had to give it to you, because he's merciful. Anything good you do, God set that up.

John 3:14-21

Here we are, a couple weeks before Easter, when this passage makes its annual appearance. Sounds like a great gift, although it gets a bit conditional by verse 18. The grammar gets a little clunky, but many other verses, passages, books and theologians throughout the ages clear it up, telling us it's saying the default position is that we are worthless sinners. We are "condemned already". We "loved darkness". We don't want our deeds to be exposed. You have to do something about it. You have to believe then you'll see.

After that it gets rather circular. Just what you will see is not clear. You have to do the believing part then you get to see that.