Preached: Sunday, March 15, 2009
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
As Christians, our primary symbol is the cross. We have crosses on our altars, we have crosses around our church, we have cross-shaped windows, crosses in our denominational logos, crosses in our homes, crosses around our necks, cross bumper stickers, cross T-shirts, cross everything. I’ve seen cross-shaped cakes. I see people cross themselves. Did you know that you can even purchase underwear with a Christian cross on them?
Yes, the cross is our symbol. It’s our logo. It’s the marking of our brand. When people see crosses, they immediately think about Christianity. But for those who don’t know the story of the cross, it doesn’t always make sense. When the Spanish conquistadors came to what is now Mexico in the 16th and 17th centuries, they attempted to convert the Mayans to Christianity. The Spaniards gave crucifixes to the Mayans to teach them about Christianity. But they forgot the teaching part. So the Mayans misunderstood and thought that the crucifix was an example of the proper way to perform human sacrifices. So they began to change their methods of human sacrifice to fit the example of the crosses given to them. Then, when the Spaniards saw what they were doing, they considered the Mayans barbaric for crucifying people as a means of human sacrifice. Meanwhile, the Mayans were actually just doing what they thought the Spanish Christians wanted them to do. The symbol of the cross was misunderstood – a symbol of death was given, and yet it was supposed to signify life – unbeknownst to the Mayans.
For the first century Corinthians, the symbol of the cross didn’t make much sense either. For them, the cross was not yet adopted as a Christian symbol. They wore no cross around their necks, had no crosses displayed in their homes, they had no Christian book store to get the newest cross T-shirt, and you can bet that they weren’t wearing embroidered cross underwear!
For first century folks, the cross was still a symbol of sure criminality, of scandal, of lack of power, of weakness. So why would they want to adopt such a symbol, something that memorializes the weakest-looking moment of their faith? You see, at that time it would be silly to brag about the cross. To brag about the cross would be to brag about the day when the earthly authorities won. You mean to tell me you’re lifting up the death of your savior? You’re bragging about the fact that we snuffed out your Messiah? We killed him. He couldn’t even save himself from death; how powerful can he be? Your God must not be very powerful, because the Roman authorities had power over him. They exerted power over him and he didn’t fight back. Man, you’re Messiah is WEAK!
To put this in modern terms, to brag about the cross would be akin to telling a bully, “I’m more powerful than you because you just beat me up.” It would be like saying, “The Pittsburgh Pirates are a great team because they get their teeth kicked in on a regular basis.” Actually, it’d be even stranger than that. To brag about the power of the cross would make as much sense as a Detroit Lions fan coming to Pittsburgh and saying, “We’re more powerful than you because we went 0-16 and you won the Super Bowl.” It makes no sense! No sense at all!
Well, the cross doesn’t make sense either. It doesn’t make any human sense that we brag about our weakest moment. It doesn’t make sense because the phrase, “crucified Messiah” is as much of an oxymoron as there is. It’s the supreme paradox – an apparent contradiction – of our faith. The cross represents the paradox between the all-powerful God sending a Messiah to be completely powerless, hanging on a cross. It’s a paradox between Christ’s strongest moment being a moment of total weakness. It’s a paradox between the scandal of the crucifixion – reserved for only the worst, surely guilty criminals – and the fact that Jesus Christ was the only completely innocent human.
Richard Hays, professor of NT at Duke Divinity School, says “To proclaim a crucified Messiah is to talk nonsense. Crucifixion was a gruesome punishment administered to the Romans to ‘make an example’ out of rebels or disturbers of the peace.”
Thus, we proclaim a Messiah who proves innocence by being capitally punished like the guiltiest criminal. We proclaim a Messiah who shows his greatest power by hanging, dying on a cross. We proclaim a Messiah who shows strength through weakness, power through powerlessness, and innocence through symbols of guilt. And you’re trying to tell me that makes sense.
It doesn’t. It makes no logical human sense. Looking at the cross as the pivotal moment in the history of our faith makes no sense. Using the cross as the primary symbol of our faith makes no sense. Christianity is quite illogical when it comes to the cross and how we use it. We know it doesn’t make sense. But it happened. It was the pivotal moment in the history of our faith. And it was in this moment of greatest weakness, powerlessness, and apparent criminality that God shows His greatest strength, power, and innocence. And it makes no logical sense. It’s ridiculous.
And it caught everyone off guard. It caught the Jews off guard, because they were expecting the Messiah. But they were expecting God to show power in a normal way. They were expecting a Messiah with a white, flowing robe, riding a noble white horse, coming in glory and glamour and unthinkable displays of power, entering the world with all the pomp and circumstance of a king entering his court. But instead, God’s power is shown in ways completely contradictory to the human ways of doing things. God’s power is shown in a completely illogical way – making the Messiah look like a dirty, poor, beaten, suffering, dying criminal. It was a mess. And it made no sense, even to the disciples. Remember those guys? The ones telling Jesus, it can’t be that you should die! That makes no sense! They were the ones that Jesus kept asking, “Do you not understand? Don’t you get it?” all through the gospel of Mark.
Scripture is full of moments when God takes the human norm, the human expectations, the human ways of doing things, and turns everything upside down. A barren woman gives birth to all nations. A guy with a speech impediment leads slaves out of Egypt. David defeats Goliath. The first will be last. Tax collectors are suddenly people we’re supposed to eat with. Wisdom and wealth are suddenly not measures of success or faithfulness to God. Weapons are supposed to be beaten into farm equipment. And God’s power comes forth most strongly in a crucified Messiah – a paradoxical display of power in moment of total powerlessness. Yet again, human expectations are not fulfilled.
In today’s text, Paul writes to a church where already, despite being surprised by the way God’s power is shown – in the crucifixion – the Corinthians think they’ve finally figured it all out. Okay, this makes sense to us now. We are getting wise to God. But they differed in their wisdom – some were bragging about their wisdom, and others were claiming they were actually the wise ones. It’s two groups within the church at odds with each other about which opinion is the wise opinion – which opinion is the “right” opinion. And both sides are convinced they have God all figured out. Sound familiar? The Corinthians think they’ve finally figured out how God works in their lives and what the cross means. But Paul is like a first century Lee Corso from ESPN College Gameday: “Not so fast, my friends!”
No so fast, Corinthians. You think you’ve got God figured out? You think you’re wise to his workings? Have you not learned anything by reading scripture, or by hearing about the message of the cross? Do you remember a time when God acted exactly as humans expected God to act? Because I sure don’t. There’s a popular saying that goes, “Whenever we make plans, God laughs.” God laughs when we make plans because it’s funny that we think we’ve figured everything out. It’s funny that we somehow think that we’re wise enough to know how God will act in our lives. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous.
There’s a story of a man who lived in an area of flooding. As the waters began to creep towards his house, the residents were encouraged to evacuate. The man’s neighbor offered to drive him out of danger into safety. “That’s okay,” the man said, “God will save me.” The neighbor left.
The flood waters began to rise, to the point where the man had to retreat to the 2nd floor of his house. Then some people came to his 2nd story window in a boat, offering to rescue him. “That’s okay,” the man said, “God will save me.” And the people in the boat went away.
The flood waters rose some more, until the man was forced to sit on his roof, the only dry point left. As he was sitting on his roof, a helicopter came by and called down: “Tie this rope around you! We’ll save you!” But the man shouted back: “That’s okay, God will save me.” And he waved off the helicopter, and the helicopter went away.
The flood waters rose even more until the man died. He went up to heaven, where he met God. “God, why didn’t you save me?” he asked. And God told him, “Hey, I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter – what more do you want?”
You see, we not only ask for God to save us, but we expect that God will save us in a particular way. And we seldom stop to think about the possibility that we could be totally off base. But as I said earlier, the Bible is littered with the stories of people completely off base – people so wrong about how God would act in the world that they had no choice but to feel humbled – even humiliated and embarrassed – by their total lack of knowledge about how God works.
No matter how wise we are, we will never be anywhere close to understanding the mysteries of God. I’ve heard people say that the purpose of science is to try to unlock the mysteries of God. And I have no problem with that – there’s nothing wrong with trying to learn and discover more about how the world works; the world that God has created. In fact, what’s great about this definition is that it shows science will always be around. If science is about unlocking the mysteries of God, then scientists will never run out of things to do. We can live for millions more years here on this earth and still just see the tip of the iceberg of God’s mysteries.
You see, even the wisest of humans are completely foolish when it comes to God. The word translated as “foolishness” in this passage comes from the same Greek root as our modern word “moron.” Basically, Paul is saying that even the wisest people in the world are still morons compared to God.
Think about the cross for a moment, about the paradox of the cross. Why did God save us in this way? We know what happened: God offered us salvation from sin and death by Christ’s death on the cross. We know where it happened: in Golgotha. We know about when it happened: around 33 C.E. We know why God saves us: because “God so loved the world.” But why did it have to happen this way? Why is salvation offered this way? When it comes to why salvation is offered through the cross, we merely have competing theories. They’re called theories of atonement: theories as to why God saves us through the means of the cross rather than some other way. And that’s all we have – theories. When it comes down to it, we simply don’t know why God acts the way God acts. “So why the cross?” we ask. And the answer is, “God only knows.”
This passage in Corinthians is often misunderstood. It lends itself to being used to say that Christians are wise and non-Christians are foolish. But verse 18 says “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Think about that for a moment. The message of the cross is foolishness – it makes no sense, it sounds like something a moron would say – to those who are perishing, those who don’t believe in the cross. But to those who are in the process of being saved, it is the power of God. Notice that Paul does not say believing in the cross is wise. He does not say it makes sense to us. For Christians and non-Christians alike, the cross makes absolutely no human sense. It is utterly ridiculous. But we are not interested in the wisdom of the cross, for the cross did not bring God’s wisdom to humans. On the contrary, the cross brought the power of God to humans.
We must not think we are wiser than those who do not believe in the cross, for as humans we are all very unwise when it comes to God. When we believe in the cross, we do not believe in the wisdom it contains, but the power it displays. For us, the cross is no more wise than it is to our brothers and sisters who do not share our belief. But for us, the cross is more powerful than it is to them. It contains the power of God that can save us, and can save anyone who believes that power is present in the cross.
We are about to sing a hymn that’s been around awhile, a hymn that’s rather popular: the Old Rugged Cross. We’re going to sing about the cross, the old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. And we love that old cross, where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain. It’s a cross despised for the world, but has a wondrous attraction for us. For the lamb of God left his glory-filled world above to bear an old rugged cross to Calvary for me. It’s an old rugged cross stained with blood, but it’s a wondrous beauty we see. Even though on that cross, Jesus suffered and died, that act pardoned and sanctified us. So to that cross, we’ll ever be true, we’ll gladly bear the shame and reproach connected with that symbol. And someday we’ll be called by Jesus to our home far away and share in his glory. Until then, we’ll cherish this old, rugged cross – the emblem of suffering and shame, a cross despised for the world, an old rugged cross that was dragged to Calvary, an old rugged cross stained with blood, a cross of suffering and death. But we love that old cross, which has wondrous attraction for us. It’s a wondrous beauty we see, a moment of pardoning and sanctifying us. So we’ll gladly bear its shame and reproach, and we’ll ever be true to it. Folks, no hymn better shows the paradox of the cross. No hymn better shows that the message of the cross doesn’t make sense – why do we cherish the emblem of suffering and shame?
The cross is paradoxical because it is the most foolish symbol we could choose as Christians – almost as foolish as a God who loves us enough to make such a sacrifice. But we are fools – we are fools for the cross and fools for Christ. So let us accept that the cross doesn’t make sense in human terms, but that it makes complete sense to God. Let us accept the foolishness of the cross, and the power that is contained in such foolishness. And may we always be surprised by the ways God works in our lives, so that we are reminded how foolish we are when compared to Him. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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