When St Paul says he makes the cross the central theme of his preaching, it would’ve been heard by the people he was writing to as strange in the extreme. We’ve maybe lost a sense of that strangeness. We sing hymns about the ‘Wondrous Cross,’ or how we ‘Lift High the Cross’ or tell how ‘In the Cross of Christ I Glory.’ They’re great hymns; they tell the central truth of faith; they echo Paul in another of his letters, “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Only what an odd thing to boast about. Few passages of the New Testament stand out as boldly, as yet so seemingly out of place, as today’s second reading.
In the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire used the cross as an instrument of punishment and torture—and to great effect. Jesus’ crucifixion between two criminals on his right and left on Good Friday was part of a long-standing practice. Decades before Jesus, a revolt against the Roman Empire by a group of slaves resulted in the crucifixion of thousands of people, as many as 6000. A 120 mile stretch of road between Rome and the city of Capua, the Appian Way, was filled with crosses and bodies. Now if a police car sitting along the side of the road makes you check your speedometer and slow down, imagine the deterrent effect of all those crosses along the road. The Empire used this as a warning not to step out of line.
You get a sense of how dreadful the cross was because the words crucifixion and excruciating come from the same Latin root: ex cruce, ‘from the cross.’ Crucifixion was so awful that the Roman philosopher Cicero couldn’t bring himself to speak about it directly. But Paul says, “I preach one thing, Christ and him crucified.” Yet to talk about a crucified man as Lord, Savior, and Son of God would have been then, and in many ways still is, counter intuitive. “The foolishness of the cross,” Paul calls it. What could he mean by saying it’s wise, of great value and worth, the saving power of God?
When Paul points to Christ crucified, as he does today and throughout his letters, he addresses a basic question of faith for us. ‘How can I know God?’ or ‘Where will I find God?’ Who among us hasn’t raised those questions at one time or another: when trying to find purpose in the routine of schedules or looking for meaning in things around us; when wondering about the future, or worrying about it; when trying to make sense of God’s presence or absence in suffering, whether personal suffering or global news; even when asking how the small joys and good things of life fit into the larger picture of what the New Testament calls the “full weight of the glory of God.” It’s natural to try and make sense of the world and find meaning for our lives. How can I know God?’ or ‘Where I we find God?’
Paul is writing to people in a similar circumstance. Corinth was a Greek city at the center of a major trade route, a city that prided itself on its intellectual and cultural life. People there knew the world was shaped by mighty empires and important people. Isn’t that still true? Shouldn’t a God of power and might come in might and power? Shouldn’t a God of wisdom be made known in ways that are recognizably wise? What’s the use of small deeds of faith in a world like that, especially faith in man who lived in poverty and died in weakness?
As for us: power, success, and self-sufficiency are praised and strived for; self-reliance, and autonomy are valued; wisdom is found in pursuit of personal happiness, individual achievement, and the accumulation of things and knowledge. The world as we know it applauds strength, confidence, and success. And the cultural influencers we look to are wise, powerful, and beautiful. Only Paul doesn’t ask us to take the world as we already know it and fit the story of Christ crucified into it. Paul wants us to see that Christ crucified is the axis and turning point of a whole new world. He makes the cross at the center of faith and preaches about it so that we see and live in our world in a new way. To questions of ‘How can I know God?’ or ‘Where will I find God?’ Paul points to Christ crucified: weak and foolish in the eyes of the world, but the wisdom of God and the power of God. Still, what difference can that truly make?
When author and New York Times columnist David Carr died unexpectedly some years ago, he was hailed as the “finest media reporter of his generation.” Carr was blunt, shrewd, skeptical, witty, and thoughtful, said his friends. He was well-connected, powerful, knowledgeable. He was also, as one article after his pointed out, “human in the messiest way.” In the late ‘80s Carr was addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine; Carr himself once pointed out that while there might be such a thing as a social drinker, there’s “no such thing as a social crack user.” Before he hit bottom, Carr was living with a woman who was both the mother of his twin daughters and a drug dealer. Carr was also, in his later recovery, a Christian. “I’ve done terrible things,” he said. “I think something else is working on me.” That something, was someone: Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God who died for our sins and was raised to give us new life.
Carr talked about how Christian faith was the start of a whole new world for him, “It is hard to avoid a spiritual dimension in my recovery.” And as anyone in recovery can tell you, health doesn’t come from power, but surrender; not strength, but weakness—the foolishness of the cross as the healing power of God in our lives, a healing that is sometimes excruciating. Carr called all Christians and churches to be willing to care for people dealing with addiction and to be a channel of grace where all kinds of brokenness might be healed. “The unconditional love of the Church could possibly mean the difference between somebody living and dying,” not through great wisdom or headline making signs, but as a place where the wisdom and power of God in Christ crucified is the center of life.
When Paul proclaims Christ crucified as the power of God and the wisdom of God, he knows this message is unlikely to be welcomed by a world that prides itself on its own brand of wisdom and power. The cross challenges our understandings of power, success, and wisdom. But by drawing our attention to Christ crucified, the New Testament shows us that God is not safely tucked away far off in the heavens, not far removed from human cruelty or suffering, does not turn a back on us even if we turn our back on God. In the cross we see how heaven comes to earth in Jesus, how God is deeply and lovingly involved with the people he has made, right here in the thick of it all, with us and for us. When we ask, ‘How can we know God?’ or ‘Where will we find God?’ we will find Christ close to us in our weakness and fear, find him in small deeds and gentle words that offer hope in hard times, showing us not just something larger than present circumstances but someone who is with us, giving himself to us.
The cross, an ancient instrument of torture and shame, is the turning point of the world. There God, in Christ, enters the depth of human experience to lift us up in reconciliation and redemption, healing and new life. Instead of seeking signs or showcasing worldly wisdom, Jesus embraces the cross as the ultimate expression of divine love and wisdom. When, in today’s gospel, Jesus is asked to show a sign of authority for what he is doing, he points only to the cross, his death, and resurrection, the temple of his body destroyed and raised on the third day. The response to that was, as you heard, disbelief. Yet what seems foolish to the world is the embodiment of God’s wisdom—Jesus as the meaning of life in God, Jesus the ultimate influence and influencer with his lowly, self-giving, beautiful life. Rather than taking the world as we already know it and trying to fit the story of Christ crucified into it, the New Testament shows us Christ crucified as the axis and turning point of God’s own world and of our life of faith. “We preach Christ crucified…Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
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