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Sermon for March 11, 2012
Based on 1 Corinthians
1:18-25
By Pastor Michael Cromer
“On a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross, the
emblem of suffering and shame.”
These are the words
from the first verse of one of the most beloved hymns ever written.
When I was a chaplain in a retirement home, it was this hymn; “The
Old Rugged Cross” written in 1913 that most of the residents
would tell me was the hymn they most loved. Sometimes I would invite
them to sing this hymn with me. As they sang it in their feeble
barely audible voice they would weep. The cross is seen almost
everywhere but is not always worn as a symbol of Christianity but
sometimes as fashion jewelry around the necks of pop singers.
Crosses can be found made from crystal, wood, stone, iron, gold,
silver, resin, and plastic. There are many versions of the cross.
There is the anchor-shaped cross, the Byzantine cross, the Greek
cross, the Jerusalem cross, the Latin cross, the St. Anthony’s
cross, the swastika is actually a cross, there is the Maltese cross,
the Egyptian Ankh, the Papal cross, the St. Andrew’s cross to
name a few. For most of us as Christians it is the Latin cross that
we are most familiar. It is the Latin cross that is symbolic to us as
the cross on which Jesus was crucified.
There were several
versions of the cross used for crucifixion, one of the most cruel and
barbaric forms of execution known to man. Crucifixion probably
originated with the Persians but it was used by a number of cultures
including the Egyptians. Crucifixion was so dreaded in its day that
the troubles of a person’s life were compared to a cross. We
still say when someone is going through a difficult time in their
life “We all have our cross to bear.” Crucifixion was a
form of execution used by Alexander the Great, adopted by the Romans
and finally abolished by the emperor Constantine. It was Constantine
who declared the cross to be a symbol of Christianity in 325 AD.
Sometimes crucifixion is referred to as a person being “hung on
a tree.” But that expression meant that crucifixion was a
public display of someone being cursed by God in the same way as
being publicly stoned to death.
For the Romans, crucifixion
was a way to deter people from rising up against the government.
Crucifixion was preceded by scourging. The person would be
whipped with leather embedded with pieces of sharp bone and metal. It
was a common practice for the condemned person to carry the cross
beam of the cross to the place of execution. The expression
“take up the cross” refers to that custom. The condemned
person would be stripped and mocked before being nailed or tied to
the cross further humiliating them. A body hanging on a cross after a
long period of time developed a high fever. Eventually the blood
dropped rapidly to the lower body. Within six to twelve minutes
the blood pressure would drop to half while the pulse would double.
The heart was deprived of blood and fainting occurred. Death was due
to heart failure. Death did not usually occur for two to three days.
Sometimes a fire would be built below the cross so that its smoke
might more quickly suffocate the person suffering on the cross. The
body was usually left on the cross after death for scavengers to eat
such as vultures and dogs. The compassionate Jewish women of
Jerusalem had a tradition of offering a particular drink to the
condemned person that would dull the pain. Jesus refused to accept
the drink that would lesson his pain.
Crucifixion for many
Christians, myself included, is a hard thing to think about and
accept because it so disgusting and cruel. And yet crucifixion and
the object that was used to carry out the crucifixion of Jesus, the
cross, is an important symbol of our faith. There are those who
don’t understand why a cross, which represents something so
horrible, an instrument of torture and execution could be a symbol of
Christianity. Why does the church hang a cross on the front of
its sanctuary and place a cross on its altar? Why is there a cross on
the lawn in front of many churches? Why is a cross prominently
placed at the pinnacle of a church steeple for all the world to see?
Why have there been endless hymns written about the cross? The
Old Rugged Cross, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Lift High the
Cross, Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, and many more hymns whose
lyrics mention the cross. All of these things created about the
object that killed the son of God.
In our scripture reading
this morning Paul, one of Jesus’ followers, and one of the most
influential people in spreading the gospel, is writing to the
Christians in the town of Corinth. It is the church he himself
founded. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul has addressed
many issues that these new Christians are dealing with. It has
been hard for them to let go of many of their past behaviors, their
old ways of looking at life, their old ways of understanding the
world. The people of Corinth were often led astray by people
whose wisdom and intelligence stole their minds away from what Paul
has taught them about Christ and what is means to be a Christian.
Paul must again take the people of Corinth back to the basics of
Christianity that he originally taught them. He must again
explain to them the meaning of the gospel that brought them together
as a community of faith.
Paul describes to them two kinds of
people in the world; “those who are perishing” and
“us who are being saved”. The people who
are perishing and those who are being saved are perishing and being
saved at the same time in the same world. He tells the Christians of
Corinth that they should be identifying themselves as the
people who are being saved. They should believe that God began a new
world, a new creation for them when Jesus came into the world, died
and returned from the dead. Because from that time on the old
world that was filled with sin began to pass away and a new world was
beginning to emerge.
But the non-believers, whose lives
continued to be led by sin, could not understand or see that God had
begun a new creation in the world through his son Jesus. For
non-believers any mention of the cross, that ultimate symbol of
shame, humiliation, and rejection seemed silly to them. But to
those who believed, for those who saw that a new creation had begun
in the world, the cross was a not a symbol of shame and humiliation.
Instead it was a symbol of the very power of God’s love that
was changing their lives even though the world had not yet become an
entirely new creation.
Paul described Jesus crucifixion as a
scandalon, a Greek word that means “a stumbling
block”. It is the word that the English word “scandal”
comes from. Jesus’ crucifixion was a scandalous event that is
offensive and repulsive to people. When someone hears it said
that Jesus’ crucifixion is the center of the gospel it is
shocking to them. How could anything as horrible and shameful
as a person’s crucifixion be at the center of the good news of
the gospel? Crucifixion and good news don’t go together.
Wasn’t someone who was crucified cursed by God? Jesus’
crucifixion is a scandalon, a stumbling block that makes
people want to run from the gospel, not embrace it. How something
like a crucifixion could be such an important part of the gospel
message makes no sense to the rational mind. But God’s
power and how God display’s his power is not only different
from the wisdom of the world; it is the opposite of the world’s
wisdom. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are an example of
the power and the wisdom of God. In the eyes of the world the cross
was a symbol of weakness and futility. But the power of God is
measured by a different standard. Those who simply believe are saved
but not by their intellectual understanding. They are saved by
their understanding of a new power in the world.
The Greeks
were often attracted to Christianity more on an intellectual level
than on a spiritual level. They had a great love of wisdom. But they
were often more receptive to new ideas than they were to spiritual or
moral ideals. They were often eager to hear what some new
eloquent speaker might have to say who came into town, someone with
some new philosophy they hadn’t heard before. The gospel of the
cross did not interest many of them. It did not satisfy their
intellectual cravings. Paul knew that it was not possible to
understand God through human wisdom and philosophy. The Greek people
wanted clear answers that made sense to them. This gospel with a
horrible crucifixion at the center of it made no sense to them. It
could not be rationally explained in a way that made sense to the
human mind. The ancient Greeks, like many people even today, wanted
clear-cut answers about God.
Paul said “For God’s
foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is
stronger than human strength.” The Jewish people of that
time had been expecting God to send them someone who would help them
conquer the cruel and oppressive Roman government they lived under.
Someone who would rise up the Jewish nation. If only Jesus had
led them into battle when he was alive they would have surely
succeeded in defeating the Roman government. To have him now dead,
shamefully crucified was a joke, it disgusted them. They wanted
nothing to do with any of it. But what they didn’t understand
was that the message of the Cross has a wisdom and power of its own.
It is an example of the power and wisdom of God. The gospel is not a
product of human wisdom. The Cross represents weakness, tragedy,
pain, suffering and failure. So how are we to put our trust in a God
who reveals his power to us this way?
By allowing himself to be
crucified, Jesus revealed God to the world, the one whom he served
until death. Jesus’ death on the cross was his last act of
conquering the darkness of the existing world. He obediently
went to the cross with all of his goodness, his love, and his grace.
And from the Cross a new force began to grow like mankind had never
known before or since, a force of life, love and goodness that would
change the world forever.
To understand the power of God that
sprung from the Cross we need to understand God’s desire for
this world. God’s desire is to create a commonwealth, of God, a
world of nations of the earth in which every single soul in the world
is a part of. God’s purpose and desire is to bring all of the
people of the world together into the kingdom of God. Thy kingdom
come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. The real
hope for the world lies in this happening; that all people come
together as one into God’s kingdom. That will occur when all
people respond to the gospel and begin to live the gospel. God chose
to use the death of his Son on a cross as a sign of his great and
eternal love for us. When the power of darkness had done its worst in
the world, to go on loving the world, loving us, was the true
victory. The ultimate quality of love is that it must endure
the worst and yet remain true to itself; it must sustain the worst
defeat and still be love. There is no power in heaven or on earth
like the power of love that suffers to the utmost, is battered,
beaten and bruised, humiliated, spat upon and crucified and yet
remains love. For Paul the cross of Jesus was the bridge between
humanity and God. The Cross broke down the barriers between all
people. It united heaven and earth.
It was Jesus’
insight into God’s plan that drove him to the Cross. He might
have allowed himself to be killed by the sword which was the Jewish
custom of execution. He could have called together an army of his
followers who would have risen up in an instant against the Roman
government, defeated it and made him king. Instead he refused the
crown of a king for the Cross. He could have just said “no”
I won’t allow myself to die this way. But Jesus chose the Cross
because it was the only way to bring his kingdom, God’s kingdom
into the world. It was the only way that would win and change
people’s hearts. That example of God’s wisdom, of God’s
love for us is hard for the spiritually wise to ignore. It
calls us to repent, to turn back to God. It calls us to allow
our lives to be renewed, to be reborn.
To those who
witnessed Jesus crucifixion his death was a sign of weakness and
defeat. To them his life and his message were over and would
soon be forgotten. But Jesus remains the most influential man who
ever lived. The greater power of God’s love for us by way of
the Cross has outlasted the power of the Roman Empire, and every
empire since. The Cross and its purpose have withstood the criticism
of two thousand years. The message of the Cross still has the power
to change people’s lives.
As much as the world has changed
in two thousand years it has in many ways remained the same.
People still want intellectual answers to their questions about God,
answers that make sense to them. But God does not operate by the
world’s standards of intelligence and wisdom. As people
of faith we must accept that or we will be forever frustrated trying
to figure God out instead of just accepting the peace that comes from
knowing that God loves us and knows what is best for us. In
simply believing we come to understand the true beauty of the Cross.
Perhaps the hymn “The Old Rugged Cross” is so beloved by
those who have reached the end of their lives is because they have
come to understand the true meaning of the Cross. Having lived many
years of life with its ups and downs, it disappointments, its
tragedies and pain they see that the Cross has been the one enduring
symbol of God’s love for his people, the one great thing we can
cling to in this world that will never let us go.
“I
will cling, to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a
crown. Amen.