When was the last
time you were lost? Really lost…. Maybe you’ve lucked out and have never been dreadfully
lost and alone in the wilderness, seemingly left to your own wanderings. Take
it from me, the very thought is unsettling. Our family has always lived in the inter-mountain west; that particularly enchanting tract of the world where every
major city has within an hour drive, both massive forested mountain ranges as
well as desperately expansive and lonely deserts. I’ve been good and lost in
both the mountains and the desert. The quickness at which I have turned in a semi-controlled
panic to the Lord in prayer in these holy-crap-I’m-lost-and-am-going-to-be-carrion-by-morning
scenarios shouldn’t be surprising. I am a complete amateur hack when it comes
to wilderness survival. That, coupled with my morbid imagination plagued with increasingly
complicated worst case scenarios, makes me a perfect example of the worst Israel
has to offer. Hesitant and bumbling. Needy with an independent streak.
Ignorant, and yet entirely arrogant. And yet, that’s the state many of us find
ourselves in. Israel is us. We are Israel. In Numbers 21 we find Israel (ourselves)
in the lone and dreary world. This is no ordinary wandering. Imagine being
dreadfully lost in the desert for forty years. At this point in their story, Israel
has walked far enough out onto the tightrope that to turnaround and return to
what’s left of Pharaoh’s kingdom is impossible. We too are very literally in
this same position. We are lost and our retreat back to the world that we once knew
is closed off, our metaphorical Red Sea has closed behind us and we are lost in
this world; Option 1 – Continue wandering in the wilderness
paralyzed by fear, or option 2 – take a few deep breaths and allow the Lord to
change the way we perceive the wilderness.
NUMBERS 21
2 And
Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord…
3 And
the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel….
4 And they journeyed from
mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the
land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the
way.
5 And the
people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye
brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no
bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light
bread.
6 And
the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and
they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
7 Therefore
the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken
against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take
away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
8 And the Lord said unto
Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it
shall come to pass, that every one that
is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
9 And Moses made
a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that
if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
10 And the children of Israel set forward,
This story in the Hebrew
Bible is as much our story as it is about the children of Israel. We all start out alike, naked and alone in this wild place, eventually finding out that we too have been bitten. That
is the nature of this fallen world. Each and every one of us has partaken of
the poison that will ultimately kill us. In the words of Hercules, "it sucks to be mortal." In our fallen state, we are lost
causes. It is the simplicity of the
antidote that is far too often our unfailing. Look! That’s all we have to do is
change our perspective, and we too can leave the false and poisonous serpents
behind and reach out as individuals and as a community to the One that can heal
us, restore us all to our pre-bitten selves. Born again.
Israel had existed in Egyptian captivity for
generations. This systemic absence of personal and societal agency served to
numb
the imaginations of multiple generations of the covenant people. However,
like you and me today, Yahweh intended for Israel to think and act and intuit
for themselves. And He mercifully worked out a plan to eventually turn their/our
collective attention and imaginations away from the darkness of captivity
towards the light and hope of a new dawn. Moses was sent to remind Israel of
this and the first step was to direct their attention upwards. He used an
ancient symbol of a true and wise serpent who’s upwards ascent symbolizes
healing, fresh starts, re-birth, growth, vitality and potency. Moses gave
Israel an effective symbol that would resonate within their collective heart,
stimulating them from paralyzing inaction towards acts of faith. Like all sent ones, Moses was called to awaken in
the hearts of Israel, the dormant memory of this life-giving snake. Snakes are
amazing animals, continually transforming themselves through the shedding of
their skin. For a snake, this death and rebirth process is the only path to
growth. To resist this natural process, would eventually render the snake
paralyzed in its own skin. To progress, it must leave behind its old self. To
the ancients, the snake has always been present been a symbol of rebirth, each
cultural mythos contains the archetype of a wise and changing serpent. This
symbol would have existed in Egypt for generations and would have been familiar
to the Israelites, allowing it to serve as an effective impulse to change the
way they view their desert experience. The brass serpent itself has no magical
powers of transformation. Like our own baptism, this symbol is meant to serve
as a metaphor for the inner work that we are currently engaged in while here in
our own coat of skins (mortal body). We too are called to lay down our old life
and accept The Lord as our God. We are called to leave behind our old skin and
step out of the water, born again, this time with the new name of the only true
and living Deity written across our fore head. Marked by the only One who is
capable of fully removing the poisons of the broken and contaminated
institution of the imposter pharaoh and in its place filling our collective
circulatory system with the vibrant life-giving substance that is the grace and
glory of the true Creator of this world. There is a reason the poets of the
scriptures keep coming back to this image of a healing serpent. It’s effective.
The prophets in both the Old and the
New World will follow Moses’s lead will
keep coming back to this effective symbol.
For us Israel should
serve as a case study. A microcosm of the world and a macrocosm of ourselves.
In John we see the Savior coming back to the same serpent metaphor of personal growth
through laying down of the old self and being reborn with a more complete
perspective. As usual, John can be read on multiple levels and the themes can
be applied to the individual, to a beloved community and ultimately on a cosmic
scale, with the entire creation needing to shed its skin and be reborn again in
a more perfected condition, that much closer to what it looked like in the
beginning. That much closer to reaching our eternal potential. The end coming
together and back again to the beginning. John gives us a complete perspective
of a changed man in the example of Nicodemus and his trans-formative journey.
JOHN
3
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
8 The
wind (πνεuμα) bloweth where it
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
9 Nicodemus answered and
said unto him, How can these things be?
10 Jesus answered and
said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
11 Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye
receive not our witness.
12 If I have told you
earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly
things?
13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he
that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.
17 For God sent not his
Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might
be saved.
18 He that believeth on
him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved.
21 But he that doeth
truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are
wrought in God.
22 After these things
came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with
them, and baptized.
In verse 8 we get a
description of what someone is like who has been reborn. Flexible. Going where
the spirit (πνεuμα)
blows them. Think about the opposite of the political and religious institution
that Nicodemus represents. His good old boy network is steeped in dogmatic
tradition. The crust on the outside of their religion and social practices is
nearly impenetrable to the wind that “bloweth where it listeth…” This powerful
imagery was not understood by Nicodemus at the time, but further on in the
Gospel of John in chapter 7, we see his first acts of faith where he speaks up
for Jesus against the others in the institution, giving voice to the initial
stirrings of his heart. This exchange occurs at a very public event and in the
commotion of the Passover feast, Jesus says a few things that get the crowds
stirred up. Some see him as from God, a fulfillment of prophecy. Others are
hesitant. The religious leaders of the day are quick to inquire as to his
credentials based on their own criteria.
JOHN 7
46 The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.
47 Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?
48 Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?
49 But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.
50 Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being
one of them,)
51 Doth our law judge any man, before it hear
him, and know what he doeth?
52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search,
and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.
53 And every man went unto his own house.
Perhaps this effort by Nicodemus in speaking up to
the Pharisees about their rashness in judgment was the initial step he took in
what was his life-long process of changing his perspective (μετανοέω),
or looking up. His first act of faith was asking a question. Sometimes just giving voice to these stirrings
of the spirit can be a real turning point in someone’s life. Here Nicodemus has
gone on the record in front of the old-guard institution that maybe their law
and the harshness with which they use it to judge others, is spiritually violent
and out of line. Later in chapter 19 we pick up the story of Nicodemus
as he makes a sacrifice in procuring the myrrh and aloes associated with the
anointing of the Lord’s body in preparation for making the ascent.
JOHN
19
38 And after this Joseph of
Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews,
besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave.
He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by
night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes
with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
For Nicodemus, this transaction is the next
progression in the changing of his perspective and the symbolic exchanges of
removing the poison, the monetary economic system of the seen world. In a
symbolic act he exchanges his own personal treasure for the holy anointing oils
to ensure Jesus’ safe passage into the cosmos. This
progression of Nicodemus from his initial inquiry (John 3), to his speaking up
against the untouchable old guard of the institution (John 7) to the sacrifice
of his worldly treasure (John 19), could be seen as snapshots in the process of
Nicodemus’ transformation. For some the rebirth process takes a life time. The
transformation of Nicodemus is one that should offer hope that we are not in
charge of the timing of these spiritual matters, and individuals who are still
asking rather ignorant questions, are at the bare minimum engaged in the process.
They are asking questions! That should be seen as the miracle that it is. They
are starting to open their eyes and look around for the brass serpent that offers
rebirth. Those representatives of the
world, who try to put people back into the caste system of their mortal birth,
“Art thou also from Galilee?”, should be seen for exactly what they are –
snakes of the imposter, working to limit the progress and transformation of
individuals by keeping them chained to their former identities. The Lord is
patient in our development and we should be patient with others while they work
through the questions of their heart.
This brings up a great
question - How do we know which snakes are which? The ancient world has stories
across space and time, which place us mortals in contact with snakes that
represent rebirth and wisdom as well as poisonous impostors. What do we do with
these two very different types of snakes? This is THE question of the ages.
Perhaps best put by The Witch of the South, “what the Munchkins want to know is
are you a good witch or a bad witch?” All epic adventures place the main
characters in positions of paradox, who to trust. This is a decision we are
left to make alone. No lollipop guild should be trusted with this decision. However,
Jesus gives us the most human and basic of testing criteria. “By their fruits,
you shall know them”, he said. The only way to see if the fruit is any good is
to taste it. How delightfully primal and human! For me, the very presence of this
simple test from the Savior would indicate that it is in our purview as humans
to be exploratory and inquisitive. We are called to be out there trying new
things, tasting new foods, meeting various different peoples and ideas. Paul
uses the highest of ironies in his letter to the Galatians stating that if
you’re out there using this taste test and your own agency to determine what is
of God and what isn’t, you have risen to a place where the law does not apply
to you. Galatia was a hot spot for diaspora Jews who would have been working overtime
to Judaize the gospel of Christianity. These super-duper-law-abiding Jews would
reject the simplicity of this test and the inherent freedom given us to explore
the world and use our agency. They would reject simplicity in exchange for
stodgy complexity. They wanted to turn back the clock. They wanted to go back
to their old ways of bogging things down. What was a flexible, portable, nimble
and responsive approach to spirituality, the Jews were hell bent on crushing
with the weight of a thousand years of rabbinic law books. Paul says, you don’t
need that. Jesus had fulfilled the law. Leave those dusty books on the shelf
and go out and do some good.
GALATIANS 5
22-23But
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Men certainly don’t have
a monopoly on intuition. Of course it was Mother Eve who was the first to
venture out of the garden and try new things. She lead the way in showing her
children that it’s ok to try new ideas out. If they taste bad, there will be consequences,
but in the long run, it is better that we should try and fail than leave it on
the tree. I believe this sentiment is echoed in the story of the brass serpent
in Numbers 21. My heart won’t let me believe that it was the Lord who “sent fiery serpents among
the people”. But I certainly believe that Eve, the Mother of All Living, is
deeply invested and interested in us being here, on this earthly plane, among the fiery serpents of the world,
looking and learning, and sometimes being bitten, all the while knowing that
the poison is not permanent, but is essential in the re-birth and ascent that
is our destiny. We have been promised that They will provide a Savior for us, whereby we
may come back into their presence and with them partake of eternal life and
exaltation.
In the new world writings of the Book of Mormon, both Nephi and Alma
revisit this serpent imagery. Both of these men have dramatic stories of
personal transformation. Nephi had firsthand experience with wandering in the
wilderness and after broadening his perspective was personally ministered to by
the Savior. They almost overly
simplistic language Nephi uses to describe the process of being reborn is telling.
40 And
he loveth those who will have him to be their God. Behold, he loved
our fathers, and he covenanted with them, yea, even Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob; and he remembered the covenants which he had made; wherefore,
he did bring them out of the land of Egypt.
41 And
he did straiten them in the wilderness with his rod; for
they hardened their hearts, even as ye have; and the Lord straitened
them because of their iniquity. He sent fiery flying serpents among them;
and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed;
and the
labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of
the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who
perished.
42 And
they did harden their hearts from time to time, and they
did revile against Moses, and also against God; nevertheless, ye
know that they were led forth by his matchless power into the land of promise.
Nephi says that the “Lord loveth those who will have him to be their
God.” To me it’s not as poetic as what John has to offer. You’ve got to give
Nephi some credit here for cutting right to it. Nephi just goes right for it
and says that the Lord will take a personal interest in your life. He’s saying,
if you will have Jesus be your God, He will love you. He will be there as the comforter
the paraclete. And then Nephi boils it
all down to one single sentence, “The labor you have to perform is to look”.
His advice to us, upon finding ourselves alone in the wilderness is to change our
perspective. Accept a Christian world view. Look. And. Live. The
Lord can help us transition our own imaginations from places where
self-destructive and fearful thoughts are generated, to a place where a clear
vision of the future is held in our mind’s eye and our role within the creation
of that future new world can come clearly into focus. And with Him at our side
we are able to go into the world and fulfill what it is we are called in our
hearts to do.
LECTURE
ON FAITH 6
4 Such was and always will be the situation of the saints of
God, that unless they have an actual knowledge that the course that they are
pursuing is according to the will of God, they will grow weary in their minds
and faint; for such has been and always will be the opposition in the hearts of
unbelievers and those that know not God, against the pure and unadulterated
religion of heaven, (the only thing which ensures eternal life,) that they will
persecute, to the uttermost, all that worship God according to his revelations,
receive the truth in the love of it, and submit themselves to be guided and
directed by his will, and drive them to such extremities that nothing short of
an actual knowledge of their being the favorites of heaven, and of their having
embraced that order of things which God has established for the redemption of
man, will enable them to exercise that confidence in him necessary for them to
overcome the world, and obtain that crown of glory which is laid up for them
that fear God.
The process of death and rebirth is a transformative and life long
process. It is something that few take seriously. It
requires a great deal of inner work. The personal nature of this reflective
work of inventorying your life experiences and seeing what tastes good in the
holy of holies of your own heart can be a giant leap for many. The sacrifice
and suffering required to assess your current perspective on the world and the
willingness to throw all of that to the side and let the Lord rebuild you in
His image, is not something to be taken lightly. Religions today are so focused
on the outward efforts of the management of sin that the deep states of
consciousness required to change, are
difficult to understand let alone create. The very pace of the modern American
way of life flies in the face of the introspection required to see what ideas
/truths connect us back to our divine heritage and what ideas mistruths separates
us further. From the beginning, the Lord has sent messengers to see if we’ve
been true to the first signs that we are given. If we exercise faith and wait
before we get mixed up with any particular set of ideas, these messengers will
then return with additional information. This all has to be weighed and tasted
by each one of us. None of this can be packaged for mass export. This is a very
personal and deeply transformative process. And as we saw with Nicodemus, there
will be those in power, who we were once associates with, who will work to keep
us from looking past our current state of mind. This will be painful. Upon
sending them out, the Lord warns those messengers what will happen to them when
they go out to preach this transformative gospel. In Matthew 10 he starts out
by directing the newly
called apostles, or “sent ones” to be wise
as serpents and harmless as doves. Again we see this imagery of
serpents. These wise serpents have done the inner transformative work required
to see the people here for what they are. They are called to be saviors of men.
They have lived. These are not novices that He is sending out. They have done
the work. To be called and chosen to serve on this earth is not an easy thing. Among
the inhabitants of this fallen planet, there is a strong tendency to divide and
conquer, to buy-up and dominate, to break down and destroy each other for personal
gain. These actions are not in line with the true message of communion and
oneness that we hear from the Lord. They don’t taste good. These are actions of
the natural man and when on one that level we appear to be gaining, on the
cosmic level we are only further separating ourselves from each other. This
image of a harmless serpent-dove is that of a true messenger of the Lord, one who
is able to see her brothers and sisters as simply being caught up in this
vicious cycle, prisoners of the societal norms that they were born into, bitten
by impostor snakes, suffering and in need of the unconditional non-judgmental
love of an angel. The impostor snakes of the world will be hard at work separating us one from another. Dividing us along political lines, party lines,
race lines, religious lines, socio-economic lines. The efforts to pit us
against each other is the work of the world and is to be rejected. Spit it out.
Any divisive ideas these impostors are spreading that keep us from being
present for each other, is harmful and needs to be rejected. That fruit is
rotten. Nicodeums asked a great question – “Doth our law
judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?” The Pharisees didn't even want to think about this question. The
answer is far too personal. To dignify this question with an appropriate
response takes a life time, and the Pharisaical response is absolutely telling
of their mind set. “You’re from Galilee. Everyone knows that nothing good comes
from Galilee.” When it comes to passing
judgment on people as individuals or on their way of viewing the world, Jesus
asks us first to pray for them. Then he shows us that it’s OK to have them over
for dinner. Again we see this imagery of eating and tasting ideas and food both
as individuals and in communion at a common table. More often than not we are
going to see that we are the same. We are all Israel. It is only a matter of
time before these tables that for so long have been set in opposition will be
turned and as a world community we will start to cast
our eyes about, and see that the fight us not
us against them, but it is us against the world. Once we see the fiery serpents
for what they are, impostors, then we will be able to crush their heads, or
more likely they will disappear altogether as they were a figment of this
broken world and it will have been lifted to a higher plane entirely. In our
efforts to help others, we need to take the time to truly know and understand
someone, to see them as the angels see them. We are called to make every effort
to be harmless. For those who feel called to the work, let this image of harmless
serpent-doves be the model.
3 NEPHI 11
38 And again I
say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a
little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.
39 Verily,
verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and
whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.
40 And whoso shall declare more or less
than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and
is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation,
and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the
winds beat upon them.
41 Therefore,
go forth unto this people, and declare the words which I have spoken, unto the
ends of the earth.
Let us come together as a people and
reject the divisiveness that keeps us from lifting up our eyes and beholding
the Giver of Life. Let our message be simple in that it is Jesus Christ alone,
who stands ready to meet our gaze and embrace us as we part the material veil
that separates His Kingdom of Light from this place that has too long been
overrun by fiery serpents. Accept no imitation.
Phil Berry, Jr.
July 13, 2014
For Jesus, having attained to the resurrection of the dead, the path back
through the Cosmic Sea is again open. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith
Conference Address, April 1844. Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only
wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to
be kings and priests to God,10 the same as all Gods have done before you,
namely, by going from one small degree
to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain
to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting
burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those
who sit enthroned in everlasting power. And I want you to know that God, in the
last days, while certain individuals are proclaiming his name, is not trifling
with you or me.
