Trinity 5
1
Cor 1:18-25
7/21/19
“It’s the cross!” That cry used to go out from the Surburg
vehicle when the kids were younger and we reached Effingham on trips to
Danville to visit Amy’s mom. It’s not
hard to understand why this cross caught their attention. Standing
198 feet tall and 113 feet wide, the cross in Effingham is
the tallest cross in the United States. Forged out of more than 180 tons of
steel, it was intentionally built to be larger than the giant cross that already
existed in Groom, Texas. Apparently that
cross is 196 feet tall. So why did they build the Effingham cross at 198
feet? Why not go even bigger? It is because FAA regulations state that at
two hundred feet a standing object must have a flashing light on top of it, and
the cross builders did not want that.
A giant
cross built in a location where it can be seen by as many people as possible -
reportedly twenty million people drive by every year. You could not have suggested something more bizarre to a person living in the
first century Mediterranean world. It’s
not just that the idea would be bizarre.
It would have been crass and offensive – something that violated basic
standards of decency.
A number of
peoples in the ancient world used crucifixion as a means of execution. It was found among the Persians, the Indians,
the Assyrians, the Scythians and the Carthaginians. It has been suggested that the Romans may
have picked up the practice from that last group, against whom they fought a
series of wars in the third and second century B.C.
To say that
the Romans embraced the practice is an understatement. They used it against
slaves, non-Romans in the provinces and traitors. In general, Roman crucifixion
began with a flogging using a whip studded with pieces of lead or bone. This shredded skin and muscle, and caused
profuse bleeding. The victim was then forced
to carry the cross beam to the place of execution. There the outstretched arms
were nailed to the beam, and the beam was hoisted up onto a vertical post that
was already in place. The feet were then
also nailed to the post.
While this
gives us a general description, we need to be aware that the practice varied
greatly. As the scholar Martin Hengel has described, “crucifixion was a
punishment in which the caprice and sadism of the executioners were given full
reign.” Some crucified victims upside down. Some impaled the private parts of
those being crucified. At the siege of Jerusalem the Roman soldiers entertained
themselves by nailing Jewish prisoners in different postures to the crosses.
Crucifixion
was a slow, painful and humiliating death. The people who were crucified – who
were subjected to this – were viewed as the lowest; as worthless; as the scum
of humanity. Crucifixion was such a
horrible thing, that polite people simply didn’t speak about it. It was considered uncouth – improper among
good company. And of course, those who died by crucifixion were not worthy of a
second thought. Often their bodies were
left on the cross until they were eaten by birds – a warning to any who might oppose
the Romans.
In the verse
just before our text, Paul has told the Corinthians that Christ sent him to
preach the Gospel, “and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be
emptied of its power.” Rhetoric – the
way that you developed, ordered and delivered speech – was the central feature
of the ancient education system. People
and their message were judged on the basis of rhetorical skill. St. Paul was theologically profound, but when
it came to the rhetoric of that message his background didn’t give him the
skills to impress people in the Greco-Roman world. And Paul said that was just
fine, because that meant that the cross of Christ would not be emptied of its
power. The Gospel wasn’t about
impressive use of language. It was about
the cross of Jesus Christ.
Paul
said that he did not want the “cross of Christ to be emptied of its
power.” And he goes on to say in our
text, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” In two verses in a row, Paul uses the word
“power” when speaking about the cross.
Now, to most people in Paul’s world, the idea of describing the cross
using the word “power” was absurd. The
cross was instead everything that was the
opposite of power.
The
apostle acknowledges this fact when he says, “For the word of the cross
is folly to those who are perishing.”
To those who didn’t believe in Jesus Christ the word of the cross was
folly. It was stupid. It was a joke.
Yet
Paul said that people who took such a view were perishing. And then he went on to say, “but to
us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The cross looked like weakness and
foolishness. But the reality was very different, because God was at work in the cross.
The apostle went on to quote words from the prophet Isaiah, “For it is
written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of
the discerning I will thwart.’” Rather than being foolishness, the cross was
God making foolish the wisdom of this world.
Paul
says, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater
of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since,
in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God
through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”
We
want to be on God’s level. That’s what the Fall was about – trying to be like
God. The world thinks that God can be allowed to be God if he makes sense to
the world – if the world can “put him in a box” and be in charge of God. And we
still act that way too. We think that
God should justify his decisions to us - the things that occur in our life and
the lives of others. But God is God, and
we are not. Not only are we creatures
acting like we should be able to understand the Creator – we are in fact fallen, sinful creatures.
So
instead, God turned everything upside down by working salvation through the
cross of Jesus Christ. The apostle says
that “it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who
believe.” Paul states in our text that
the folly preached is Christ crucified.
The
apostle says, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we
preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to
Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness
of God is stronger than men.” A
crucified Messiah was a stumbling block to Jews. A crucified Savior – a man who
died the ignominious death of the cross – was folly to Greeks.
It
did look like folly. Jesus was nailed to the cross, and like everyone else whom
the Romans put there, he died. He died,
mocked and humiliated. And he was buried.
But then on the third day, God did something that had never happened before.
He raised Jesus from the dead with the resurrection life of the Last
Day. As Paul wrote later in this letter,
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of
those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a
man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all
die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
In
the resurrection of Jesus we learn that the cross was not folly. Instead the Son of God was sent to die on the
cross – the sinless One who was sent to become sin for us; the One who received
God’s judgment against sin in our place.
That’s what was happening on
Good Friday. And so as Paul says in our text, for those who are called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of
God. Or as the apostle says in the next chapter we are those who are in
Christ Jesus, “who became to
us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
Yet, when
Paul speaks about the cross in our text in this way, he is not only talking
about how God acted to save us – about what it looked like. He is also describing how God works in his
Church and in our lives. Immediately
after our text the apostle goes on to say, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise
according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of
noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the
wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God
chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not,
to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human
being might boast in the presence of God.” The Corinthian Christians themselves were examples of how God worked in
the way of the cross – of how he worked in ways that were the exact opposite of
what they appeared to the world.
This
is true of the ways that Jesus Christ now gives the benefits of his cross. You come to church and hear the words of
Scripture read. You hear a pastor proclaim that Word of God to you. You see bread and wine on the altar. There is nothing impressive about these
things. God declares that through this Word he gives the forgiveness won by
Jesus Christ. He says that in the Sacrament
you receive the true body and blood of Jesus Christ for forgiveness and
strengthening in faith. To the world
this is foolishness. It is stupid. It is something they can blow off and ignore
altogether.
Or
think about your own life. God says he
loves you, and yet you get cancer or diabetes. You experience anxiety and
depression. You experience difficulties
and hardships in family life and at work.
To the world … and even sometimes to us … God’s claim of love sounds
like foolishness.
But
in the cross of Jesus Christ God has shown us that this is how he works. As
Paul says in our text, “For the word
of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved it is the power of God.”
It looks like folly. But in the resurrection of Jesus Christ we learn
that the cross was in fact the power and the wisdom of God for us and our
salvation. And it is in the resurrection of Jesus that we find Christ is the
power and wisdom of God for us in the midst all that the world considers to be
folly.
The
Scriptures and preaching are not mere words.
They are the life giving work of the Spirit that brings forgiveness,
strength and salvation. The Sacrament of the Altar is no mere bread and
wine. It is the miracle of Jesus Christ,
the risen and exalted Lord, giving us his true body and blood. It is Jesus present here and now giving us
salvation for our whole person – body and soul.
And because
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that the hardships of life are not
the absence of God. Yes, they are life
in cross form. But because we have seen
in the resurrection of Jesus that the cross was the power of God for our
salvation we can believe and trust that God is with us in the midst of these
too. We can believe and trust that our God will give us strength and sustain us
in faith. We can even believe and trust
that God is at work in these circumstances for his own purposes. They are not meaningless, but instead times
that God uses for our good as he crucifies the old Adam in us; as he turns us
away from ourselves and towards him.
A crucified
man as God and Savior? It’s foolishness
according to the world. But in the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have learned
that appearances could not be more deceiving.
Instead, as Paul says in our text this morning, “For the word of the
cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are
being saved it is the power of God.”
It’s not what the world wants. It’s not what the old Adam in us wants. But the Spirit who raised Jesus Christ from
the dead has worked faith so that we can see God’s saving wisdom for us. As the apostle says, “For Jews demand
signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a
stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom
of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness
of God is stronger than men.”
No comments:
Post a Comment