NOTES:
1] The story of Moses & the snake (NUM 21:4-9) is very old. Is Moses in a Catch 22 situation? See 2KINGS18:4 for an end to the story (though it continues in Jesus' & our own re-telling of it). 2] The snake story is burned deep in Jesus' psyche.

WARMING UP: Do we use any meaningful sign or symbol to mark our home or any of our property?

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Identify God at work in anything this week?

ENTERING INTO THE STORY:
14-15    What do we make of the old story to which Jesus refers? (see N.1) Might that story still have something to tell us about: a) those Hebrews? b) God? c) ourselves? Does the fact that such a story is so primitive make it any less important for us? How do we 'break through' & enter into the underlying, continuing meaning of this or other stories, old or new? Or isn't it worth the effort? Can we see a connection between the choice the Hebrews could make between looking at the bronze snake or not, & the choice people today may make between looking to Jesus lifted on his cross, or not? What difference does believing or failing to believe make to the original outcome or today's?

16-18    How does one 'measure' either the quantity or quality of' love: ours for someone else, or theirs for us? God's for us or for someone else? Does love have more to do with quality or quantity? How does Jesus' death on the cross to show the measure of God's love for the world actually work? How does it become effective? Do we have to understand it for it to be effective? Is saying it's a 'mystery' sufficient justification for not trying really hard to understand how God's love or any other aspect of God 'works'? Can settling for 'mystery' as sufficient explanation of some question about God sometimes just be an excuse for spiritual laziness?
             Is it too soft an option to believe that when Jesus talks about condemnation he means that if we fail to accept God & what God does for us, we're condemning ourselves by voluntarily excluding ourselves from God's love, & that means living in hell? Or, is there more to this 'condemnation' business than that?

19-21   Is there any sense in which we find ourself lurking in shadows rather than living openly in God's Light? Have we ever come between the light of God's love & someone on whom God wanted to bring that love to bear & blacked it out? Or been the victim of such blacking out? Someone said that 'the smaller we make ourselves, the less shadow we're likely to throw to stop the light of God's love getting through to others'. Does that ring true from our experience? Is there a sense in which the community's current love affair with lighting candles might indicate that we're substituting easy symbolism for the harder reality of God's Light & Love?
            Is it easier to tell the truth than to do the truth? If we live a lie, what light are we throwing on Jesus, & what light is he throwing on us? What is being shown up in both cases?