If you read any one of the first three gospels, you will find Jesus predicting his passion three times. In John this does not happen. In John’s gospel, Jesus speaks three times of being “lifted up” from the earth.
In the first, he speaks of being lifted up “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert”. When Israel complain against God in the wilderness, God” sent fiery serpents among them, and their bite brought death to many in Israel”. When they repent, God tells Moses to make a bronze image of the serpent and place it on a high pole, so that anyone who is bitten can look upon it and live. In other words, God does not take away the serpents, but gives a means of healing from them. Just so, God does not take away sin from among us, but gives us the choice to turn from it and receive salvation from Jesus Christ. The serpent on the pole becomes a symbol of Jesus on the cross. There is also a wonderful irony here; just as the serpent in the Garden of Eden tempted our first parents to sin, so now the symbol of a serpent is made into a means of healing.
The other meaning of being “lifted up” comes from the culture of kings in the time that the gospel was written. In public, a king was carried on a special chair on a platform, borne on the shoulders of servants or slaves, so that his feet were above his subjects’ heads. Thus being “lifted up” was a sign of majesty. In Isaiah 53, the king is “lifted up” – but wounded and humiliated, dying on behalf of his people: “On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and by his stripes we are healed”. The Christian tradition has always seen this passage as a prophecy of Jesus the Messiah, brutally treated, crowned with thorns, raised high on a cross, which is the nearest thing, as the King of the Jews”, that he ever had to a throne.
John shows the crucified Jesus as the Saviour in his use of the words “lifted up”. Jesus’ words about it are: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me…then the will know that I am He (the Messiah and Saviour)”. As we reflect on, and participate in the mysteries of Easter this year, let us keep in mind this image of the crucified Christ, “lifted up” from the earth on our behalf, to take away our sins, the only One who can turn sin into a means of healing. Let us approach the cross, contrite and ashamed of our sinfulness, and ask him to bring us to healing, so that we can be renewed and changed, and may come back to him with all our hearts.
Fr. Phillip
