Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity - Gen 2:7-17

                                                                                                            Trinity 7

                                                                                                            Gen 2:7-17

                                                                                                            8/4/19

            When we moved into our house in 2006, Matthew and Abigail were a little over one year old.  It was, of course, a time when I was in the process of getting to know Good Shepherd.  In 2008 Michael was born, and a life that was busy with Timothy, Matthew and Abigail, became even more busy.  As the kids got a little older there was the involvement in all the various sports seasons that are part of youth life in Marion: softball and baseball, soccer, basketball, and track.

            For thirteen years we have lived in our house.  The kids have gotten older.  They have tried different activities and settled on the ones that are for them.  That has shaken out in ways so that summer has actually become a time when things aren’t that busy at our house. And in those years they have grown up and become people who can actually help us do things.

            So this summer we decided to take on a major project.  The majority of the landscaping around the front and side of our house had been covered with stone.  The bushes were things that either we didn’t like, or weren’t doing very well.  We had never liked the stone, and wanted mulch instead.  Amy and Abigail had a vision of flowers and plants that they wanted.

            So we undertook of the project of shoveling out and removing the stone – some thirty five wheel barrow loads of it. We dug out the bushes, which proved to be an exhausting chore.  We brought in dirt to fill what was needed, and better soil for the plants.  Abigail and Amy planted various flowers and plants.  And we brought in and spread bag after bag after bag of mulch – because, of course, you never have enough mulch.

            We are very pleased with the result – with our own little “garden of Eden.”  Amy and Abigail will tell you it’s not done – they will add more plants and flowers as the seasons and budget allow. But I will tell you that it was hard work.  The results are very nice, but there was nothing enjoyable about doing the work.  It has exhausting, hot and sweaty. 

            In our Old Testament lesson this morning, we see a completely different picture. There is a garden, and there is work to be done there, but there is nothing hard or bad about it.  Instead everything is very good.  And as we follow in Genesis chapter two just a little after our text, we learn that things just keep getting better.

            In Genesis chapter one, God gives us the “big picture” overview of his act of creation.  Simply by speaking he calls creation into existence as repeatedly he says, “Let there be." We learn that God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 

            In our text, in chapter two, we get a close up look at how God created the most important part of his creation – we learn how he created man.  We are told, “God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  Chapter one described how God had made a very good world – a material and physical world.  And here we have the ultimate confirmation that God made man as a material and physical creature.  God created his body from dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He created us as the unity of body and soul. 

            Then we learn, “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.”  We are told that this was a wonderful place in which was “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”  In addition, there were two unique trees identified as the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

            This is the setting in which the words at the end of our text occur as we hear:  “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

            We learn in our text this morning about the worship of God and about vocation. God told Adam that he could eat of every tree of the garden except for one.  By holding back the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God placed a located means for Adam by which he worshipped God.  Adam worshipped God has his Creator – he feared, loved and trusted in God – by not eating of this tree. The act of not eating was one of faith and trust in God.  It was the way that Adam acknowledged that God was God, and he was not.

            Adam was also given a vocation – a calling.  He was placed in the garden to work it and keep it. This was work that was not work as we know it.  There was nothing hard or bad about it.  Instead, it was Adam joyfully fulfilling what God had given him the privilege to do.  The closest we can get to understanding what this was like is probably when you are doing your favorite hobby or activity. You are working and doing, yet there is enjoyment and fulfillment in doing so.

            And since I have mentioned vocation I really can’t stop at verse seventeen where our text ends. For in the very next verse we learn, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’”  Adam could not be man as God intended him, without a helper who corresponded to him.  And so God created a woman from Adam.  He created Eve.  In doing so, God instituted marriage – the union of man and woman. Genesis tells us in words that our Lord Jesus later quoted: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”  God created the vocation of husband and wife, and Adam and Eve lived in the blessing of perfect correspondence with one another.

            Now I hardly need to tell you that things didn’t stay that way.  You know that Adam and Eve disobeyed God.  Tempted and deceived by the devil they thought could become more than they were. They could be like God.  And in so doing they lost what they had.  The tree of the knowledge of God and evil that was to be the located means of their worship became the means of their sin.

            You live with the consequences of that sin. God told Adam that his livelihood would now be one of pain and sweat.  God said that the relationship between husband and wife would be marked by conflict.  And God said that death would be final outcome for every single person.

            Those are your experiences.  You know the vocation of our work – your job – to be exactly that. It is work.  It can be hard, and boring, and exhausting.  And so sometimes you don’t do your best.  Sometimes you just do things well enough to get by.

            You know that the vocation of marriage is a place that can be marked by conflict.  Husbands and wives say stupid things that hurt the other person. They act in selfish ways, that don’t put the well being of their spouse first.

            For some of you the death caused by sin is not an abstraction because it has already taken away the spouse you loved.  Death has taken away family and friends.  And death is the enemy that stalks us all.  Even in life, you are in the process of dying. That can be the only outcome for every one of us.  And for some of you that fact presses in on your thoughts because of the cancer or the congestive heart failure in your body.

            But in his great mercy and love, God has not left us there.  Yes, by the tree in the garden Adam and Eve had plunged human beings and creation itself into sin, corruption and death. But in his first Gospel promise God told the devil, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."  He promised a descendant of Eve who would defeat the devil.

            And then he did it by a tree.  In the fullness of time God sent his own Son into the world.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, Jesus Christ went forth as the One who had come to defeat sin, death and the devil. Though without sin, God made him to be sin on the cross.  He made him to be your sin. And there God judged and condemned your sin – your every failure in the vocation of your work; your every failure in your vocation of marriage; your every failure in every vocation where God has placed you.

            After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, Peter stood before the high priest and declared, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him”

            By the tree of the cross God condemned your sin in the Christ.  But then, the Father raised him from the dead on the third day and exalted Christ to his right hand.  In repentance and faith in Christ you have forgiveness. But you also have even more that results from God’s saving action.

            It was the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead.  And now through water and the Spirit you have been born again.  The Spirit has made you a new creation in Christ. Already now, the resurrection power of Jesus is at work in you.  This means that because of Christ we forgive others in our work place.  It means that because of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us, we now forgive our spouse for the wrongs he or she has done.

            Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for you; because of the work of his Spirit in you, you now look at the vocation of your work differently.  Yes it may at times be hard, and boring, and exhausting.  But in faith we now recognize that God is using us to serve others.  More than that, we recognize that in our vocation we are serving the Lord.  In fact Paul could tell slaves in the first century world: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Yes, because of the risen Lord we see things differently.

            In the vocation of marriage, the work of the Spirit of the risen Lord leads us to love and serve my spouse as Christ loved me. The Lord draws us back to see and embrace his will for marriage as the lifelong union of husband and wife.  He leads us in ever new ways to see the great blessing that God has given us in our spouse so that we love and cherish him or her.

            And in the face of the death of loves ones or the threat of death caused by sickness and disease, we have the confidence of knowing that Jesus Christ has defeated death. By the tree of the cross and his resurrection the Lord Jesus has ended death’s power to hold on to us.  The apostle Paul told the Romans, “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.”

            In our text this morning, God shows us his will for human life and for his creation.  He has not allowed sin to deny this forever.  Instead, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ he has begun its restoration – a restoration that will be accomplished completely when Jesus Christ returns in glory on the Last Day.

            When he does, things will be very good once again.  God’s intention will not be thwarted.  It is not by chance that the end of book of Revelation describes this future as a kind of Garden of Eden restored.  For the apostle John declares: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity - Mt 5:20-26

                                                                                    Trinity 6

                                                                                    Mt 5:20-26

                                                                                    7/28/19

            When teaching the Ten Commandments in Catechesis, I always enjoy arriving at the Fifth Commandment.  Right from the start, the First Commandment drops like a hammer: “You shall have no other gods.” Then we reflect on Luther’s explanation in the Small Catechism: “We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.”  We learn that at god is anything in which you put your trust; anything you value most; anything that gives you a sense of security and well-being. 

            The list of things that take on this role is nearly endless: money, popularity, possessions, sex, hobbies, sports … and you can go on and on.  Each person knows that this is true about him or herself – that we put all kinds of things before God and so break the First Commandment.

            Certainly, when teaching youth, they recognize that they break the Second and Third Commandments.  But when you get to the Fourth Commandment, you have another one that hits them in the face.  Of course they recognized that they don’t obey their parents all the time.  They don’t obey their parents as they should.  Luther’s explanation drives home the point that is already painfully obvious: “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.”

            Then finally, we get to the Fifth Commandment, “You shall not murder.”  I always like to ask: “So has anyone here killed a person?”  And of course, the answer is always no. No one there has killed another human being.  And then, on cue, I like to say: “Great! Finally, a commandment that we can keep.”

            In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus takes that thought away as he teaches us about the truth depths of the Fifth Commandment.  He teaches us that God’s will includes the physical, but extends far beyond that.  It extends inside us to our heart – to our thoughts, attitudes and emotions.  In doing so Jesus shows us our sin.  There’s no doubt about it.  But is he only doing that?  Now that is something that we will have to consider as we go.

            Our text this morning is part of the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus begins our text by saying, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’”  In this section of the sermon, six times Jesus states, “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you.”  In each case our Lord is taking up an understanding of Scripture that was present among Jews in his own day, and then explaining how it is either insufficient or just wrong.

            This way of speaking was very striking in the first century Jewish world.  There authority was based on quoting what previous authorities had said.  “Rabbi X, said that Rabbi Y said that Rabbi Z said this” was the kind of thing people were use to hearing.  Authority was to be found in the chain of authority that went back into the past. The Pharisees spoke about the “tradition of the elders” when describing their interpretation of the Torah that directed people about how they were to live.

            But Jesus didn’t do that.  In fact he did the exact opposite. Six times Jesus declares, “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you.”  Jesus was not playing the same game as everyone else. And people noticed, “Matthew tells us at the end of the sermon, “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.”  Jesus had authority because he was the Son of God who had come into this world.  He was God with us, telling us how things really are.

            But what he tells us is hard to hear.  Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire.”

            Our Lord says that to be angry with a person is to break the Fifth Commandment and be subject to judgment. To treat another person with contempt is be subject to judgment.  And our text leaves no doubt that when Jesus speaks about judgment, he means hell – the hell of fire. 

            Now I am confident that no one here has murdered another person.  But I am also absolutely confident that every single person here has felt anger, spoken in anger, and acted in anger.  We have nourished and fed anger, cherished it and held onto it.  As fallen people, this is what we do.  Jesus said to the Pharisees later in this Gospel, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” 

            There is no getting around it.  This is Law in its most penetrating and killing form.  As we stand before the just and holy God we deserve nothing but hell. It can only lead us to confess the anger in our life, and the way it causes us to treat other people.

            Yet as we confess our sin, we need to listen to how Jesus began this sermon.  In what we often call the Beatitudes he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus began the sermon by declaring that those who are poor in spirit – those who are in need of spiritual deliverance – are blessed for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.           You are poor in spirit.  You struggle with anger in your life, and all of the things anger causes you to say and do. But Jesus says that you are blessed because the kingdom of heaven is yours now.  When our Lord speaks of the kingdom of heaven, he describes the saving reign of God that he brought into the world.  Jesus began his ministry by declaring, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  He told the Pharisees, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

            Jesus brought the reign of heaven – the reign of God – into this world as he was sent by the Father.  He came to defeat sin, death and the devil.  He came to do that by dying on the cross.  Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for you.  His suffering and death for your sin was the cost of forgiveness for you. That is what had to happen for you to be just and holy before God.  But on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead, as he defeated death itself.  And so now through faith and baptism you are holy in God’s eyes. 

            You have received the gift of eternal life with God. Sin and death cannot take this away.  And death itself which looks so threatening is already whipped.  It cannot separate you from Christ. It has no power to hold your body. Because Jesus Christ the risen and exalted Lord has announced that he will return in glory with all the angels.  And on that day he will raise your body and transform it to be like his resurrected body that can never die again.

            Yet the words of our text this morning do more than just show us our sin when we fail.  They also show us what God has now made us to be through the work of Jesus Christ. We have seen that Jesus begins the sermon by addressing us as people who have already now received the kingdom of heaven – the reign of God. To have received the reign of God is to receive Christ’s saving work through the Spirit. The apostle Paul says in Titus that God “saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”

            Those who have received the reign of God – those who have received regeneration through the Spirit in baptism – are different.  You are different.  And that is why just a little before our text Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

            Jesus says that because you have received his saving reign – you are the light of the world.  He tells us to live and act in ways that let our light shine before others – ways that cause out good works to be seen by others for this give glory to God.  Our Lord says that those who have received his reign, live in ways that show his reign. Why? Because that is what his reign through the work of the Spirit does.

            This means that while we never cease to be fallen people –old Adam - who stumble and fall, we are also a new creation in Christ who through the work of the Spirit can live in ways that are true to God’s will. We are people who want to live in those ways.  And we are people who know what those ways look like.

            In our text Jesus says, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  Our Lord describes the setting that existed in his time when the temple was still standing and in operation.  He says that if a person is bringing an offering to God, and remembers that there is someone with whom there is a dispute – someone with whom anger had been created and exists – he is to leave the gift at the altar.  He is stop right there and first go and be reconciled.  Only then should he follow through making his offering.

            So what does it mean to live as those who have received the reign of God, as those who are a new creation in Christ?  It means that we seek to be reconciled with others.  It means that we ask for forgiveness for Jesus sake. It means that we forgive others for Jesus’ sake. 

            Now this is not something we can do on our own.  It is only Christ’s reign that can make it possible.  It is only Christ’s Spirit who can make this possible.  Christ’s reign through his Spirit now is present for us in the Means of Grace.  He read God’s Word and hear it proclaimed to us. We received Holy Absolution. We come to the Sacrament to receive Jesus Christ’s true body and blood for forgiveness of sins and strengthening of the new man.  Here we find forgiveness for those times we fail. Here we also receive strength to live as what Christ has made us to be

             

                

 

 

           

 

               

Mark's thoughts: Are we ready?

This graffito was scratched onto the plaster wall of a room on the Palatine Hill in Rome.  Though it cannot be dated with certainty, most likely it was made around 200 A.D.   The inscription says, “Alexamenos worships [his] god.”  Alexamenos is pictured looking up in reverence and worship toward Jesus Christ, who is depicted on the cross with the head of donkey.  Alexamenos was obviously a Christian, and the creator of graffiti was mocking his faith.  The graffito says that to worship the crucified Jesus is to worship a jackass.

This graffito captures in graphic terms the offense that the cross of Christ presented to the Greco-Roman world.  Paul told the Corinthians, “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” (1 Corinthians 1:18).  The apostle went on to add, “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” (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). We find this same truth expressed when Paul told the Philippians about Christ: “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). 

The graffito is a reminder that Christianity in the first five centuries faced great resistance in the Greco-Roman world.  It was a “world of full of gods “and pagan worship flourished everywhere Christianity went.  This paganism was established, widespread and often possessed impressive temples.  Into this world, the Christians went forth proclaiming that a crucified Jew was the Son of God, and Savior of the world.  This message was met with public scorn and rejection by many, such as the creator of this graffito.

Most of us are old enough to recognize that a tremendous shift has occurred.  We have entered into a post-Christian world.  Where before Christianity held a privileged status in western culture, now it no longer does. Beyond this, increasingly aggressive opposition is being raised against Christian beliefs.  Powerful forces such as academia, the entertainment industry, big business, and the technology industry seek to promote a worldview that opposes God’s will, and in doing so Christians find themselves as targets.

The question then, is whether we are ready for the world in which Alexamenos lived?  Increasingly, in order to live as Christian we will be forced to confess Christ by what we do and say. This will involve cost, but we should not be surprised by this.  We read in Matthew’s Gospel:

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. (Matthew 16:24-27).

Just before this text, we learn, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21).  Jesus Christ died on the cross in the fulfillment of the saving mission given to him by the Father.  But as he told his disciples on several occasions, his death on the cross was not the end.  Instead, on the third day God raised him from the dead.  He has conquered death, and as the ascended and exalted Lord he is the One who will return in glory to vindicate his people and give us a share in his resurrection.

The apostles went into the world proclaiming Christ crucified.  They proclaimed this because they knew that Jesus had risen from the dead.  They had seen him. They had talked with him. They had touched him. They had eaten with him. They were witnesses.  Peter told Cornelius:    

And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." (Acts 10:39-43)

Peter was a witness.  He was a martyr who took up his own cross as he was crucified in Rome because of faith in Jesus Christ (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III.1.2)  Yet he did so because he knew that these words he wrote were true: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).  May the living hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ strengthen each one of us to confess Jesus Christ in the days to come.

 

Feast of St. James the Elder, Apostle

Today is the Feast of St. James the Elder, Apostle.  James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, was one the first apostles to be called by Jesus (Matthew 4:18-22).  James, John and Peter, were the only apostles present at the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration and the agony in the garden.  James was the first apostle to suffer martyrdom and the only one whose martyrdom is recorded in Scripture (Acts 12:1-2).  He was beheaded by Herod Agrippa I, probably between 42 and 44 A.D.

Scripture reading:

Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. (Acts 11:27-12:5 ESV)

           

Collect of the Day:

O gracious God, Your servant and apostle James was the first among the Twelve to suffer martyrdom for the name of Jesus Christ.  Pour out upon the leaders of Your Church that spirit of self-denying service that they may forsake all false and passing allurements and follow Christ alone, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

The cross? - Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity - 1 Cor 1:18-25

                                                                                  

                                                                                                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.”