Wake-Up Call

We often say of people who are floundering: “They need a wake-up call.” We think they need to be shaken up by a devastating consequence or an ecstatic revelation. Unfortunately, wake-up calls, in and of themselves, never save anyone.

Look at Israel. The events of Numbers 14 and 16 (Israel’s rejection from the land, their attempt to conquer it anyway, and the earth literally swallowing up a rebellion among the people) ought to have been devastating enough to make an impression. The victory in war described briefly in the beginning of chapter 21 ought to have provided sufficient ecstasy to reveal God’s support of His people.

But by verse 5, Israel is asking Moses the same old question: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” It’s as if none of the previous wake-up calls never happened. As a result, God sends fiery serpents into the camp. They bite the people and many die. But God provides a way to be saved. He tells Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole and lift it up so that whoever is bitten and looks at it will not die but be saved.

For Jesus, this is significant. In John 3 Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and latter-day, stiff-necked Israelite. Nicodemus begins with the loaded comment that the Pharisees know Jesus comes from God. But Jesus derails whatever Nicodemus was leading up to and says, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In other words, “You can’t know who I am, Nicodemus, because you haven’t been born of the Spirit.”

Jesus attempts to enlighten Nicodemus: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Then he gives the statement for which that chapter is famous.

Later in John we learn that Nicodemus defends Jesus’ right to a hearing (7.50). Then, after Jesus is crucified, Nicodemus helps bury him (19.39). This has led many people to conclude that Nicodemus came to faith in Christ. If Nicodemus did believe in Jesus, we have only one conversation to mark the turning point.

But that’s all God needs. Far from being a dramatic event, this baffling discussion showed Nicodemus truths about God and about himself that he simply could not reconcile outside of the atoning work of Christ. He was the inheritor of a national identity riddled with wasted wake-up calls. He needed something more. He needed God to change his heart.