The gospel for today includes the well known passage from John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” It also includes a perhaps not as well known passage: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” I think folks quickly get “Son of Man…lifted up” as a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion and death on Good Friday. But the part, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert…” is perhaps unfamiliar and is easy to get lost in the fame of John 3:16.
The first reading today is from The Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Old Testament. Numbers is the title of the book in English, but the Hebrew title is Bemiḏbar, “in the wilderness” which is a better description as the whole book recounts a large part of the 40 years in the wilderness between Israel’s enslavement in Egypt and reaching the Promised Land. It has not been an easy journey and the people have complained about… well, about everything. It is an ongoing litany of “what have you done for us lately.” The people even go so far as to complain to Moses: “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” These are not happy campers on this wilderness trek.
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Next Sunday is the celebration of the 
“Something wicked this way comes.” I have always thought that this phrase is elegant – alarming and scary for sure, but elegant nonetheless. Compare it to “Here comes something wicked” or any other more mundane turn of the phrase. The line is original to Macbeth: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”, spoken by by the witches (Act 4, Scene 1). The line is a very striking piece of verse, not only because of it phrasing, but also because of its ominous announcement of an approaching evil, some monster coming into the moment. In its hearing Macbeth has no idea that he is the monster that is coming, or rather becoming. 
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