Foolishness and Weakness

Psalm 19: 7-14
1Cor1: 18-25

Have you ever tried to explain your faith to an atheist? Which part is harder, when you describe how God became a human only to allow himself to die on a cross to save all of humanity, or when you try to describe the Trinity which has puzzled most Christians let alone non-Christians?

Christianity, especially our faith in the saving grace of the cross, appears to be utterly foolish to those who do not believe. But Paul tells us that to those who are being saved, the cross of Christ is God’s power being shown to the world. We are left to wonder how to explain that in a moment of nonviolent self-giving, God created the most powerful moment in history by allowing his Son to die on a cross.

The cross is a symbol of death the way the electric chair is today. For Christians, this part of our faith is the most puzzling which is perhaps why it is so hard to explain it to others. It could be why we have such a hard time articulating our faith the way God has asked us to do.

When Jesus is betrayed at Gethsemane, some of the disciples pull their swords, ready and willing to fight for Jesus even to their death. But Jesus tells them to put their swords away because if he wanted, he could call down legions of angels to defeat these people and save him from their plans. Instead, Jesus willingly walks with them to the synagogue to be convicted. Then, when no two people could come forward with the same testimony, it is Jesus himself that gives damning testimony by proclaiming that he is the Messiah, and claiming a kinship to God when he says, “I am.” which is the name of God and considered a great blasphemy by the Jews.

Jesus gives himself to the people. The people do not see the Messiah they want, the Messiah they think they need and so they cry out to crucify him. Are we any different?

We often will pray for the things we think we need or for God to make certain things happen the way we want them too. We imagine God to be like us instead of wondering if we should be more like God. We wonder where God is when we need Him, but we never ask God what He is up to. We look around and see all the bad things in the world and think to ourselves that God has abandoned us, but we never look at our own two hands and wonder what we could do in the name of Christ to make the world different.

The scripture we read today is about the people in Corinth who have gotten caught up in trying to live and save their selves. They forgot Paul’s message that the only way to live is to die and the only way to be saved is through Jesus Christ. It’s a message today’s church often forgets as well. It’s one we don’t like to broadcast too much because it’s really hard to explain how death can allow a person to live. We also have a hard time explaining to the rest of society that believes in freedom of religion that in Jesus Christ we will know salvation.

How do we navigate these roads? With humility and the Holy Spirit guiding the way.

What Paul is trying to get through to the church in Corinth and to us reading today is that all of life leads us to one place – death. Every living thing will someday die. It is an inescapable fact of life. However, Paul tells us that in the death of Jesus on the cross, the way he sacrificed his body and soul, the way he emptied himself for humanity – we have been given a way to live beyond the death of our bodies.

In and with Christ, we will live beyond the death of our mortal self. God brings us into his relationship with His Son because of what Jesus willingly did for us two thousand years ago. Jesus appeared weak to the Jews and the Romans, but it is through his willing weakness that God’s power has changed our lives.

This is what we struggle to express to the world - how the weakness of God is stronger than our greatest strength, and how the foolishness of God is wiser than our wisest person.

It makes no sense, it holds no logic that can be easily explained or expressed. We are left with a bunch of nonsensical words to explain why we believe that through a man who is also God, we have been given the gift of eternal life. But even more than that, we have been given a chance to make our lives new and better NOW rather than waiting until the day we die.

You see, the real gift of Christ when he died on that cross is that we are continually being saved from ourselves and our own sinfulness. The truth is that we are part of the group that is perishing even as we are part of the group that is being saved. We are sinful, which creates death. We are forgiven through Christ, which creates life. So we seesaw back and forth, and each time we ask for forgiveness for the sinful things we have done, we are given a new chance to reform our lives. We are given a new chance to change and be better and happier than we were before.

It’s why it is so important to share this Good News. Every person needs to know that they have a chance to live a better life NOW rather than later. Every person should be given the chance to change their life for the good. It is not just non-Christians that need to know this, it is Christians too. There are too many people who call themselves Christian and do not know that God continually saves us from ourselves. There are too many of us who have forgotten what it means to take up our cross and deny our own wants.

Jesus challenges all of our misconceptions and presumptions. Jesus, who could have walked away from the pain, the humiliation, and the torture, challenges us to stay and fight too. Jesus fought by willingly walking to his death. As a church, as a society, as an individual – what are we fighting for in the name of Christ? What are we doing that shows we are not afraid of death or humiliation? What are we doing to show that we have taken up our cross and we are following in Christ’s footsteps?

Amen.