Updated slightly, but very importantly. Updates in Red.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
18 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. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 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? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
In the text before us this morning, St. Paul talks about “the word of the cross.” Paul does not say, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus and him crucified.” Paul says, “I determined to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified.” Paul knows that the cross is not the bad end of a good man, named Jesus; but a road traveled once for all by our now victorious Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Paul was an eyewitness to the Risen Christ. Therefore he looks “back” at the cross of Christ through the lens of the resurrection, and sees its true meaning.
In Romans 1:4, Paul writes that Jesus Christ our Lord was “designated Son of God in power, through a Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” In 2nd Corinthians 5:20, he writes, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting (our) trespasses against (us).” And in 1st Corinthians 15 he writes, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.”
We know from Galatians Paul thought that God had set him apart even before he was born, and revealed his Son to him, in order that he might preach Christ among the nations. We know from Romans 11, that though Paul lived and died a devout Jew, he considered himself “an apostle to the Gentiles, ” “an Ambassador for Christ.” It was because of his call that Paul preached Christ in the marketplace, argued him in synagogues, and shared him in private homes.
When Paul preached there were three responses: 1) Some few joined with him and believed. 2) Some said, “We will hear you again about these things.” 3) And many just laughed. Paul was looking back over more than a decade of preaching Christ when he wrote that the cross of Christ is “a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the gentiles.”
The Jews stumbled at the word of the cross for a good reason. In Deuteronomy 21:22-23 the Law of Moses declares “a hanged man” to be “accursed by God.” The cross was a form of hanging. The Romans used it to torture and kill both the enemies of Rome and common criminals. St. Mark tells us that two robbers were crucified alongside Jesus, one on his right and one on his left. One wonders what they stole that cost them their lives?
The crucifixion of Jesus changed our world because we believe Jesus died “for us;” but we err to think his crucifixion was unique. One historian wrote that, in AD 70 when Titus besieged the city of Jerusalem, the hillsides around the city were so densely packed with crosses that there was no room for any more crosses, and no trees from which to make them.
Understandably, for many long generations, both before and after the ministry of Jesus, Jews longed for the coming of a Messiah who would drive out their oppressors and restore the fortunes of Jerusalem. They said, “When the messiah comes the wealth and tribute of the nations will flow into the city.” And they expected the LORD God himself to make all the kings of the earth, including Caesar, to kneel before their Messiah. The kingdom of the Messiah would have no equal and no end. It was to be an everlasting kingdom. Thus, most Jews thought it was impossible that the real Messiah would die as Jesus had died, naked, broken, and ashamed, on a Roman Cross. In 2nd Corinthians 3, Paul said that when the Jews read the Law of Moses was a veil over their minds hiding its true meaning from them. It is only after one comes to the Lord Jesus that “the veil (is) removed.” (Left out of the video. Ouch!)
Paul said that the word of the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews, and folly to the Gentiles. Gentiles like the Greeks and Romans respected wisdom and power. Some lived and died by the wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the other philosophers and theorists. Others lived and prospered under the peace and order that Caesar brought to the ancient world. They were so grateful to the emperor that they even humored Caesar when he proclaimed himself a God and insisted that all the people in the empire worship him. They thought it folly and more than folly to speak of a king, much less a God, allowing himself to be driven out of the world onto a cross.
When archeologists exposed a ruin beneath the Palatine Hill in Rome, they found a drawing scratched into ta wall. It depicts a man with the head of ass hanging on a cross. A second man kneels before the ass-headed man, in worship. A caption reads, “Alexamenos worships his God.” In those days, all Christians were thought by many to be among the fools of the earth.
So, the situation has not changed. Today many people, many good people among them, think that we Christians are luddites and fools. They do not understand the struggles and disagreements we have among ourselves. Rather, they set up a straw man who is anything but representative of most Christians.
This troubles me. I shall never forget how, as a student in Clinical Pastoral Education at the University of Kentucky, I watched a film of snake handlers in the Kentucky hills. The pastor took out a box of snakes, caressed them, and passed them around. Then, for good measure, he exchanged a passionate kiss of peace with some of the more attractive females in his congregation, perhaps while their husbands looked on. From time to time he would pick-up his Bible and boast how faithful he was to it. I knew that the text he used to justify his ways was not in the original ending of Mark’s gospel, but that was small consolation. I remember thinking that when many people saw him and me they thought us kin. Likewise, I remember when the members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas picketed the funeral of several gay soldiers carrying signs that read, “God hates fags.” And “Thank God for dead soldiers.” Westboro was soundly condemned by the Baptist World Alliance and the Southern Baptist Convention, but many of this world’s people looked at us and looked at them and considered us kin. Today, I am increasingly troubled when Christians who worship the God of the Cross try to exercise economic or political power over non-believers, despite the example of Jesus. This never works. Perhaps you remember how, after Constantine, when Rome had become ostensibly Christian, a certain legion forced a tribe of pagans to be baptized into the church by the priests who accompanied them. The members of the tribe submitted, but when the warriors went under water they held out their right arm. When the priests asked, “Why?” They were told, “It is the sword arm; we might still be using it.” Likewise, I am troubled when Fundamental Christians build a fence between the Bible and Science, and say we must choose one and reject the other, we cannot accept both. I take solace that the Moravian Church denies this, and sings hymns with words that declare:
May we all science and all truth,
With eager minds explore.
Lead us (O, God) in age and youth,
Thy wisdom to adore.
I am delighted that one of the key players in mapping the human genome was a Christian, a physician and scientist named Francis Sellers Collins. Collins called the genome “the language of God,” and wrote a book about his faith. But—when I am suddenly surrounded by men and women of intelligence, I still find myself wanting to explain that my Christ lives and thrives in the 21st Century just as well and just as boldly as in the 1st Century.
Of course, the offense of Jesus Christ remains. The moment I confess that like the first Christians, I believe in the uniqueness of Jesus who died for our sins and rose again from the dead to give us a future and a hope, I lose them. This same thing happened to Paul. Perhaps you will recall his sermon in Athens. He began by quoting Greek poets and praising the people for erecting an altar to the Unknown God. The people liked that; but they turned on Paul the moment he put the resurrection trumpet to his lips saying:
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands
everyone everywhere to repent, for he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he hath appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Paul wrote that “the word of the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but, he said, “to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
The word “called” is an interesting one. In Greek it the word “call” means “to call out with a loud voice, a voice that cannot be ignored.” Those who, by faith, hear the voice that cannot be heard, are immediately called out of our sin and shame to become a part of “ecclesia”, the called out ones, the church.
The church is a strange collection of people. There are some few who live charmed lives. They are healthy, wealthy, beautiful, wise in the ways of the world, and young. But, the vast majority of us are like the people of the church in Corinth. We are common folk with common problems. We need money, we suffer various diseases and misfortunes, and we know what it is to be ridiculed, and, perhaps, in rare instances, persecuted. Though this is rare for Christians in America. Yet, the called out ones regard ourselves as blest by God, and we believed ourselves to be the children of God, by adoption, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Jesus Christ.” (Romans 8) We know this life to be just “a slight momentary affliction not worthy to be compared to the eternal weight of glory that is to be revealed to us.” (2nd Corinthians 4)
And one might ask, “How did those who were part of the Ecclesia, the church, the body of Christ, hear the call?” In 1st Corinthians 1:21f, Paul answers that question. He writes:
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.
Karl Barth said that when the “word of God” is faithfully preached then God will make himself heard. Likewise, some encounter the word that seems to be designed just for them in the act of reading the Scripture. Sometimes we hear the voice of God when it sticks in our head and calls to us even when we wish it would not. I will never forget my own struggles with a verse from James. “A wise man does not say, ‘I will go into this city to buy and sell and get gain,’ but, ‘If God wills, I will go into this city to buy and sell and get gain.’” I was not troubled by buying and selling and getting gain but with the thought that God might actually “will” something specifically for me!
Likewise, there are times when the word of God reaches us in the person of someone we admire or hold dear. The story is told of the young monk who went to St. Francis and told him he wanted to learn to preach. St. Francis said he would help. That day they traveled far and wide speaking to people and helping them with their needs, but Francis said hardly a word. That night the young monk said, “All his is very good—but when will we preach?” And Francis said, “We have been preaching all day long.”
Others hear the call and come to Christ in ways that we cannot articulate. We look upon the cross of Christ and we see the love of God and suddenly it is personal. Like Pascal, we confess, “Love has its reasons that that reason knows not.” Like Luther, we confess,
“By our own reason and strength, we cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to him; but you, O, God, call us by the Gospel, enlightens us by your gifts of grace, , enable us to believe, and establish us in the truth faith.”
It is only after we are on the inside that the veil is truly lifted, for all of us, and we can all say, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” It is only after we have made the leap of faith that we experience the witness of the Holy Spirit that we are, indeed, the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”
In short, we believe the word of the cross. We believe it is “the power and wisdom of God,” We know beyond our doubts that the foolishness of God is wiser than all human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than all our greatest human strength. God takes things that are not and brings to nothing things that are. God takes people who feel like less than nothing, and raises them to heights they can scarcely imagine.
Finis