The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC
RCL Year B (Lent 3) - March 15, 2009
I wear a silver cross around my neck. It’s not only a symbol of my Christian faith, but it also commemorates the education that I received at The University of the South; School of Theology in Sewanee, TN. A silver “St. Luke’s” cross, that was given to me upon my graduation. Only Sewanee graduates wear such a cross as this. It is a piece of elegant jewelry that was made specifically for us Sewanee alumnae by the famous craftsman James Avery…
How crazy is it, that we have the cross as a symbol? A symbol that unifies our faith… a symbol on which we gaze that recalls God’s love for us. It doesn’t matter if we are Catholic, Russian or Greek Orthodox, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Church of Christ, or any other of the more than 100 brands of Christian, we all gather united under the cross of Christ. It doesn’t matter how different our theological arguments, or how diverse our worship practices, we are all one body united under the cross of Christ.
How crazy is it, that we have the cross as a symbol of our faith? A cross, on which thousands and thousands of people in ancient Rome were put to death by crucifixion. A cross – an instrument of capitol punishment, at which some people cower in fear and wince at the brutality of treatment of human life.
How crazy is it, that we hold high a cross as a point of reflection and focus? If Jesus were around in the 21st Century, it would be as if we adopted an electric chair to be the icon of our salvation, or a needle used in lethal injection to be the representation of our faith.
But it’s not crazy for us at all, is it?
For us, who proclaim Christ Crucified, the cross represents the power of God. In it, we see the vehicle of our salvation, and the strength of our faith. On the cross, Jesus died for us.
Paul tries to explain this to the Christian church in Corinth who were having problems balancing the influence of Greek philosophy and those that were holding the old Jewish ways. The city of Corinth was a port city with a transient population… this created problems with the constant influx of different peoples.
The plethora of problems resulting from Corinth’s diverse population compels Paul to write to the church in Corinth more than any other church. The issues that Paul addresses in his letters to Corinth include cultural differences, sexual immorality, marital responsibilities, and church practices.
His first letter deals with several of the many of the problems in Corinth. In our reading today, Paul uses the image of Christ Crucified, Christ on a Cross, to explain the basis of faith and he sets it up as a paradox against the world…
Here, in the twenty first century, we have forgotten how cruel and hideous crucifixion really was. We have somewhat glamorized the cross. We have jewelry and ornaments made of silver and brass. They are attractive, but don’t carry with them anything of the real story of the crucifixion. Crucifixion was the most painful public method of death in the first century. The victim was placed on a wooden cross. Nails were sometimes driven into the wrists and ankles of the victim, and then the crosspiece was lifted high and jarred into the upright position, tearing the flesh of the crucified person and racking the body with excruciating pain. Historians remind us that even the Roman soldiers could not get used to the horrifying sight, and often took a stiff drink to numb their senses.
There was a lot of controversy surrounding the movie The Passion of the Christ that Mel Gibson made a few years back. Comments were made about the movie like it was too gory or too violent. But if we stop and think about it, seriously consider how brutal this form of death really was, it may not have been gory or violent enough to capture the true essence of the event…
So, if we think about it in worldly terms, for a non-Christian, it is crazy to hang a device of capitol punishment around our necks to symbolize our faith in God… Paul agrees… In his 1st letter to the church in Corinth, he says that “the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those being saved it is the power of God.”
Foolishness to the self proclaimed wise, educated, Greek philosophers who where gaining influence in the Corinthian church. Foolishness to the world’s wisdom… The gentiles who do not believe in anything that they can’t rationalize.
And a stumbling block to the Jewish converts that were expecting a Davidic messiah to free them from Roman oppression yet were given a man that died a criminal’s death.
We can only imagine the chaos of Corinth… a city with the long reputation for both quick money and fast living. The hustle and bustle of busy streets, right in the middle of the trade route overlooking two sea ports on the narrow isthmus in Greece. With their educated elite, they had abandoned Paul’s teaching and had started to follow Apollos, an Alexandrian who was rhetorically skillful in his speech.
Paul knew he wasn’t a good speaker. He admitted it several times in scripture. But Paul clings to the root of the message of his Gospel, the cross of Christ… Paul understands the cross…
Paul knows that our sinful ways have already lead to our pain and death. In this life, we have already experienced the alienation and enslavement that are the results of our participation in sin… And from his view, Paul sees the meaning of Christ’s death as a powerful one.
It is a death that encompasses our fear of death and our desperate desire to be free from the horrible consequences of our transgressions. To Paul, it is the only thing that offers us the salvation that we need… the ongoing salvation that Paul knows we experience by the transformation of our lives after God is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Paul offers us the cross of Christ as a point of ponder this morning. A point from which to look at the demands and foolishness of the world around us. A point from which to see the grace of God…
Paul mentions “foolishness” five times in this passage… “foolishness to those who are perishing” – those who don’t know Christ and Him crucified… “being made foolish the wisdom of the world” – the Greek world that demanded reason and rationalization. “The foolishness of our proclamation,” and “foolishness to Gentiles,” – because to the non-believer, it doesn’t make any sense… and “God’s foolishness” – wiser than the wisest of this world…
The world around us is full of chaos and foolishness... It may not be first century Corinth, but it is still chaos… Chaos trying to fool us into believing a false gospel of self-reliance and status. We become fools who believe that having the best job, the best car, the best house, the best education or the best bank account will somehow save us, or provide us with real security and everlasting peace. We get comfortable with our “personal” lives as we live out this gospel of self reliance.
The world says that we need an enemy and our sins have tricked us into thinking that we can save ourselves, or that if we have enough money, we can hire someone else to save us. It is a vicious trap to fall into… We need a savior… We need Christ crucified…
Paul teaches Corinth, using the absurd image of the cross to them, and teaching them Christ Crucified… what Paul calls a “foolish proclamation” to save those who believe.
The world does not know God through wisdom… but through the foolishness of Christ’s death on a cross… We do NOT experience God through isolation or rationalization, but through a Christian Community that confesses Christ Crucified… The world does not know a savior, but through the actions of a man that was hung on a tree, cursed and despised by society, becoming sin for us… saving us from our sin.
As crazy as it seems, we are ones who worship a God who showed his power and strength by suffering and dying for us… and by his death, we experience new life…
We are all on a journey through the season of Lent… a journey that will ultimately lead to the death of Jesus on a cross, on a trash pile just outside of Jerusalem.
This morning we take some time to ponder for a minute at the foot of the cross, and proclaim Christ Crucified… We stop and ponder for a minute… and put away our different theological arguments, and our diverse worship practices…
Everything that makes us Christian, and everything that makes us Children of the One True living and loving God is hanging on the cross of Christ. To the world, it's crazy, it doesn’t make sense… but to us, it IS the power of God.
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