Back to the Basics - This We Believe!
I Believe in Jesus Christ . . . crucified, dead and buried
September 7, 2008
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Crosses-we see them everywhere. We see them around people's necks. We see them on t-shirts. We have seen them on church buildings and businesses. We see them on the side of the highway.
There are wood ones, gold ones, diamond encrusted ones, silver ones, brass one. Cross with a flame. Crosses with Jesus hanging on them. Crosses with words.
Crosses are everywhere.
But have you ever wondered how strange all our crosses must seem to those who don't know much about the Christian faith?
Listen to what Paul has to say:
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is 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 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 the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
(1 Corinthians 1:18-25 NRSV)
Last week, we talked about the amazing fact that in Jesus, God the maker of heaven and earth, took on flesh and dwelt among us. Today we talk an even more amazing claim-that God in Jesus took on human nature to the greatest extent possible-on a hill far away, on a criminal's cross, Jesus experienced the ultimate end of all human kind-physical death.
But Jesus wasn't allowed the beauty of a" good" death-a peaceful death. Instead, as the creed reminds us, he suffered. He was betrayed. He was beaten. And he wasn't even allowed a humane or dignified execution. Crucifixion was intended to be as cruel as possible and was reserved for rebels and the lowest kinds of criminals. And it was between two such criminals, that Jesus was hung on a cross where he suffocated and bled to death.
What foolishness to believe that anything good could come out of something that horrible! What foolishness to believe that the death of one innocent man 2000 years ago could have any impact on our lives today!
Yet that is the claim of the Christian faith!
Unlike most of the claims of the creed, history and historians will back us up on the historical fact of his death; however, as Christians we claim much more than the basic historical fact of his death. We claim something far more significant and far more astounding. The Nicene Creed-a much longer creed which expands the Apostle's creed-says it more directly: "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried."
For our sake! For our sake, he suffered. For our sake, he died. For our sake, he was buried. For our sake-for us-Jesus endured the unendurable, died a painful humiliating death, and suffered the betrayal of his friends and even the seeming absence of God so that the power of sin, the power of death, and the power of evil would no longer control us. He suffered and he died for us!
And we didn't even deserve it.
How foolish can one God get?
Last Wednesday in Bible Study, we were talking about what it meant that Jesus sacrificed the glory of heaven for us and that he ultimately sacrificed his life for us. And someone pointed out that there are many people who have sacrificed their lives for others. And as Paul would remind us many of us would sacrifice ourselves for someone we love, for someone deserving of our respect, our care and our protection. But what Jesus did was much more remarkable than that because he died for us while we were yet sinners. He died to break the chains of our slavery to sin, death, and evil before we even realized that we were enslaved.
How foolish can one God get?
Surely God could have come up with a much more sensible plan! Why not have Jesus storm into Jerusalem with a host of heavenly angels and take on the powers of this world like Batman taking on the evil of Gotham City?
Surely he could have found a more worthy group of people. Why the Israelites who time and time again turned away from his love? Why the disciples-a rather rag tag group at best-who never really seemed to understand what Jesus was saying and then abandoned him when he needed them most? Why the church which has time and time again fought amongst itself and often forgotten its very mission to proclaim and be the presence of Christ in the world? And why us? We--who so often continue in our sins. Who often stumble. Who often fail.
How foolish can one God get?
No wonder those who have never heard the gospel are a bit confused by all our crosses and our talk of blood and sacrifice. It doesn't quite make sense!
But thank God for his foolishness! Because it is the foolishness of God that gives us the power to live-not only in the next life but in this life!
On that day, when Jesus allowed himself to be beaten and killed, he took on all the pain and suffering that the world had to give. As the writer, John Steinbach once said, "Christ nailed up might be more than a symbol of all pain. He might in very truth contain all pain." And it was that very willingness to take on pain, suffering and death that broke their power for us.
You often hear it said by those outside the church that they have trouble believing in a loving and powerful God in light of all the suffering in the world. They look at people in pain, those who are hungry, those who are abused and misused and they ask: "Where is God?"
That's why the cross was such a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. They look for proof of God in the places where there is no pain, no suffering, no sin, and no death. But as preacher/teacher, Fred Craddock, reminds us the central claim of Christainity is not that were the Christ is there will be no suffering but rather that where there is suffering, there you will find Christ!
And let's be honest it is still a stumbling block for many in the church.
The cross was not a quick fix for all that ails us. Jesus death won the victory but the war is still not over! And those who believe in him are called not to sit by and wait for his return but to get to work on his behalf!
Jesus not only died on the cross for our sins, but he called on those who believe in him to take our cross and follow him. The mark of the Christian life is the same sort of foolishness that God exhibited on the cross. We are called to sacrifice for the sake of others. We are called to enter into the brokenness of the world.
Jesus came declaring we would have life-and life abundant. He promised us the blessings and love of God-and a life so worth living that we could count our sufferings as nothing compared to the glory of his love. But Jesus never came proclaiming that we would have easy or comfortable lives.
No matter what some preachers and teachers claim, God doesn't necessarily want us to be rich. Jesus didn't come to make our bank accounts fatter than they are now or to ensure we had one bedroom, one bath, one walk-in closet and a savings account for each member of our family. He didn't come so we could fulfill our highest potential. He didn't come to make us self-actualized. Nor did he come to remove our pain and suffering.
What Jesus did on the cross for us was not to remove the temptation to sin, the reality of death, of the possibility of suffering. Rather by his willingness to enter into all of those things, he brought meaning and hope to the worse things that can ever happen to us. So that while those things still exist, they lose their power to enslave us and to ultimately kill within us the hope that leads to abundant life.
So when faced with suffering and pain, we know that Jesus has been there before and that Jesus will be there with us. Faced with our death or the death of a loved one, we know that Jesus faced death and lived. Faced with the reality of our sin, we know that Jesus-knowing how sinful we are-took that sin with him to the cross so that we don't have to be held captive by it. Faced with the very real evil of the world, we know that Jesus took on the powers and principalities and won!
And if we truly believe that, then our lives will bear the mark of that cross on them. We'll live our lives as people who know they can reach up and experience the love of God. We'll want a personal relationship with the God who loved us so much that he died for us. But that won't be enough. For those who are called by Jesus, those who have experience his love and forgiveness, those who recognized the power of the cross know that like Jesus we too are called to reach out to others to draw them to God.
When we stand and say, we believe in Jesus who suffered under Pontius Pilate and was crucified, dead and buried, we commit ourselves to living a cross-shaped life-a life which reaches up to God and reaches out to the world that God so loves. And if you want a visual for it, it looks like this: a life which reaches vertically to God (arm raised upward) and a life that reaches out horizontally to the world God loves (other arm horizontal across the upward arm). A life which looks like the cross.
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