Third Sunday in Lent (B)

Sunday, March 2, 1997

The Real Cross

I Corinthians 1:18-25

Crosses are back in style. This notice appeared in Vogue: "Both as streetwise pendants and as couture pieces, crosses have had a popular revival... With medieval-inspired fashion making its mark, a cross worn at the neck or pinned to a jacket will continue to be the definitive accessory of the moment" (Noted in First Things, February 1994, p. 57) The cross was, in the first century, an instrument of capital punishment, equivalent to the gas chamber, electric chair, or lethal injection. The cross meant death. Now it is a fashion accessory.

The real cross isn't any more popular than it has ever been. The real cross is, and always has been a scandal. What power is there in a message about a man executed two millen-nia ago? What wisdom is there in an event that made little sense when it occurred and seems even more senseless now?

We're not, as our text shows us, the first people to wonder about the weakness and waste of the cross. The cross has always been a stumbling block. No one wants to hear that person on whom they have pinned all their hopes and dreams has died, and no one wants a god who can be, even for a moment defeated. Some people in the first century who looked for a Messiah looked for a compelling hero, someone like King David whose power would be undeniable and whose identity would be unmistakable. We would like that kind of power, too. As a minister once said to me, "If Jesus is who we say he is, then why doesn't he do something about my people's problems?" Instead of the signs and wonders we'd like, we have the sigh which makes us wonder. We have the cross. It is abject weakness.

The message of the cross has always sounded like utter foolishness. Some people in the first century looked for a philosophy of life that would make sense of everything, a philosophy that would be both rational and beautiful. We would like that kind of wisdom. Instead we have a sign of contradiction. The cross is unreasonable and brutal. It is sheer folly. Gods do not suffer. Dead men stay dead. Carlyle Marney once lamented the fact that God "will be forever associated vaguely with the funny papers because God and the comic section come on the same day" (Structures of Prejudice. New York: Abingdon Press, 1961, p. 170). Many in our time take the story of Jesus' death and resurrection about as seriously as they take Wile E. Coyote's peeling himself off the pavement after having been flattened by a rock rolled over him by the Road Runner.

We declare a gospel that is both weak and foolish to the world. We announce that our power isn't power and that our wisdom isn't wisdom. We preach a scandal: we can't save ourselves by being strong and smart. We cannot defeat the death that stalks us, or free ourselves of the guilt that shackles us, or lift ourselves from the shame that engulfs us. Salvation doesn't come in a "do-it-yourself" kit. Salvation comes in an encounter with the crucified Christ.