It's All About the Cross

Bishop Willimon, in one of His Weekly Messages, wrote about Paul’s focus on the cross. He began his reflection on Paul’s preaching this way:

Imagine being asked to stand before a grand gathering of the good and the wise and being asked to make a speech about goodness, beauty, the meaning of life, the point of history, the nature of Almighty God or some such high subject and having no material at your disposal but an account of a humiliating, bloody, execution at a garbage dump outside a rebellious city in the Middle East. It is your task to argue that this story is the key to everything in life and to all that we know about God. This was precisely the position of Paul in Corinth. Before the populace of this cosmopolitan, sophisticated city of the Empire, Paul had to proclaim that this whipped, bloody, scorned and derided Jew from Nazareth who was “God with Us.”
In that setting Paul said he focused on the cross: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2; NRSV) Paul knew that such preaching “about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18; NRSV)

This may explain why this week, which we call Holy Week, no longer receives the emphasis it once did. The cross has become “foolishness” to some. Even in segments of the institutional church the cross is seen as foolishness. It was not long ago that a Bishop said that she did not need someone hanging on a cross to save her. Like the Greeks of Paul’s day, the cross is foolishness to her.

Here is how Paul addressed such foolishness:
“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where it 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, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and the Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:20-24; NRSV)

Later in his message, Bishop Willimon wrote:
A crucified Messiah? It is an oxymoron, a violation of Israel’s high expectations for a messianic liberator. In order to bring such a scandal to speech, Paul eschewed “lofty words or wisdom,” the stock-in-trade of the classical orator. Rather than avoiding the scandal of the cross or attempting to sugar coat its absurdity in order to make it more palatable, he limited his subject matter so that he knew, “nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” His manner of presentation, his delivery was “weakness,” “fear and trembling,” a rather peculiar demeanor for a public speaker. Why? So that nothing might move his hearers, nothing might convince them but “the power of God.”

For God the Father to allow God the Son to be crucified, dead and buried is for God to be pushed out beyond the limits of human expectation or human help. The cross is the ultimate dead end of any attempt at human self-fulfillment, human betterment or progress. Hanging from the cross, in humiliation and utter defeat, there is nothing to be done to vindicate the work of Jesus or to make the story come out right except “the power of God.”

That power of God is what we celebrate on Easter. It is the power of the resurrection that turned the cross into a cherished sign of victory. God took what seemed foolish to the world and through the touch of His Power, made it the Key Event in human history. Everything changed because of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The next two nights we have special opportunities of Worship to help us celebrate the “foolishness” of the cross. During our Maundy Thursday Service (6:30 PM) we will celebrate the meal that Christ gave to us as a means of remembering the cross. My message that evening, “Give Thanks – Christ Died!” will look at how Holy Communion is a regular reminder of the tremendous love of Christ in going to the cross.

Our Good Friday Service (6:30 PM) will also focus on the cross. Through scripture and song will we remember the depth of the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf. This is sometimes called a Service of Darkness, for we leave in darkness remembering the utter despair that was felt when Jesus was placed in the tomb. It seemed that the powers of darkness had won.

But we know the tomb is not the end of the story of Jesus. The power of God transformed the cross by raising Jesus from the dead. We will have four opportunities to celebrate the resurrection this weekend: Saturday night Easter Celebration at 6:30 PM and Sunday morning Easter Celebrations at 8:30, 9:45 and 11:00.

I appreciate the commitment of the Crossfire band to give leadership to the Saturday night Celebration as well as the 9:45 service on Sunday. The “Pairs and Spares” Sunday school class is coming to the Saturday service and then many of them will be back on Sunday morning serving as Parking Ushers. Others are coming to worship on Saturday night and coming back to serve as Ushers, Greeters and Nursery Servants. And others have found guests were receptive to an invitation to come worship with them on Saturday night.

I was talking to a person this week, inviting him to worship this weekend. He had seen the announcement about the Saturday night service and said that he was thinking about coming on Saturday night. Who have you invited to worship with you this weekend?

There has been a change of time for the Community Sunrise Service. We received word this week it will be at 6:30 AM, not 6:00 AM. This is a wonderful way to begin Easter Day, joining other believers at Oakwood Memorial Gardens to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.

As always, your responses to these Reflections are welcome. You can email me at rguess@gmvumc.org.