The Next New Thing

Delivered March 25, 2012

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Video available at YouTube 

Time Magazine recently had a special annual issue on the “Ten Ideas that are Changing Your Life.” They dealt with things like technological, sociological, and environmental changes in our society. Number four on the list dealt with religion. I don’t think the topic they choose was particularly new. I have been reading about it for years. It is a variation on the “spiritual but not religious” theme that religious professionals have been talking about for the last twenty years. What is new is that this trend is growing.  The article notes that the fastest growing religious group in America is those who say they have no religious affiliation. This article calls them the Nones – not the Catholic sisters nuns, but N-O-N-E-S. When asked in surveys what their religious affiliation is their answer is ”none.”   Their numbers have doubled since 1990. They now make up 16% of the population. These people are not atheists or agnostics, which make up 4%. The nones believe in God, pray, and many will even participate in spiritual practices, but they are not involved in traditional religious organizations.  The emergent church movement of the last few years is one aspect of this phenomenon. It is reinventing Christian spiritual community. It is the next new thing in religion.

In my mind it is not really new. The prophet Jeremiah was talking about something like this 2500 years ago. Jeremiah prophesied about the “next new thing” in religion in his day. He called it a new covenant. I think it is the heart of true Christian spirituality. It is what causes periodic reformations in the Christian church. There is a phrase from the 17^th century Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda: The church reformed and always  being reformed. (Dutch Reformed theologian, Gisbertus Voetius, 1589–1676) It was understood that the Protestant reformation of the 16^th century was not a one-time event, but that the church needed to continually be reformed. This was not understood as the church reforming itself; it was understood that God would undertake this reformation in each generation. Christianity easily falls into legalism and dogma. It continually needs to be revitalized. This is what Jeremiah was talking about concerning Hebrew religion in his day over 500 years before there was a Christian church, and it is what I would like to talk about this morning using his words as my format.

Jeremiah talks about a new covenant that was different than the old covenant. He says,  “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.” Christians understand this prophecy to refer to the new covenant established by Jesus. Jesus used Jeremiah’s phrase at the Last Supper, “For this is My blood of the new covenant.” The Letter to the Hebrews calls Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. This new covenant needs to be a continually renewed covenant; otherwise it just sinks back into the old legalism and dogmatism. Jeremiah describes four aspects of this new thing – this new covenant.

I. The first is INNER GUIDANCE. Jeremiah says in verse 33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts….” Jeremiah is talking about the difference between outer religion and inner religion. The old covenant was about following external rules. It was Law. Laws are not bad. We are a nation of laws. Our country has countless laws and ordinances at the federal, state, county and local level. Congress seems to love passing more and more laws. And the judicial branch of government interprets these laws, and the law enforcement enforces these laws. We Americans are in love with laws. If we think something is wrong with the world, we will pass a law. We assume that every problem can be solved by new laws and regulations. We are a nation of legalists. There is no wonder that there are movements in our country devoted to trying to get government off our backs.

Religion tends to follow the same pattern. We think that spiritual and moral problems in life can be solved by following moral laws and religious rules. Jeremiah is saying that when it comes to spiritual matters there is a need for something new. God says, “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts….” Jeremiah is saying that true religion and morality is from the inside out rather than from the outside in. It is internal and not external. This does not mean that there is no right and wrong – or that everyone decides for themselves what is correct. The Bible describes the period of lawlessness in the OT called the time of the Judges as a time when “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” That is not what Jeremiah is advocating.  He is not advocating anarchy or moral relativism. He was saying that God’s guidance had to come from the inside of the human being and not be imposed from the outside.

When it comes to practical application for us it means that we do not surrender our moral responsibility to external religious authorities. We are not children who need to be told what to do by religious organizations or institutions. We don’t follow a religious rule book. We follow God’s law written on our hearts and in our minds. It means that we trust God within us more than those religious authorities who say they speak for God.

II. The second point Jeremiah makes is in the rest of verse 33 “and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” My first point was about Inner Guidance. This second point is about INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP. True religion is about a real relationship with God. Evangelicalism talks a good game when it comes to this point, but I don’t think it has always practiced what it preached. My experience being a pastor of churches – both mainline Protestant and evangelical - is that many people who talk the most about the importance of a personal relationship with God don’t really have much more of a relationship than those who don’t talk about it as much – traditional Protestants.

A lot of people don’t have what one would call a close relationship with God. I don’t know this for sure; I can’t see into anyone’s heart. Only God knows. But I know what people have confided to me in private moments over 38 years of ministry. Many people have a belief in God. They believe God exists and that he got the universe going sometime in the distant past, but they don’t really feel connected to him. God is not directly involved in their lives. Others have spiritual experiences and strong emotions connected to religion and are very faithful to a religious tradition, but it can’t really be called a relationship. Jeremiah is describing something more. He is describing an intimate relationship.

Of course, atheists don’t think I have a real relationship with a real God either. They would describe God as my imaginary friend. Like children growing up have an imaginary friend, they think Christians simply haven’t outgrown our childhood imaginary friend. They don’t think God is real; they think I am just making God up and believing a figment of my own imagination. They might be right. But I never had an imaginary friend as a child, so I wouldn’t know what that was like. I didn’t believe in God as a teenager. I never had a relationship with God until I was in my twenties, and this connection with God I have now certainly feels real to me. I believe that I have a real relationship with God. And I don’t think I am unusual. I believe that anyone can have such a relationship. This leads me to my next point.

III. Third, Jeremiah says that in his new covenant there is INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. He says in verse 34 “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord.” How do you develop an intimate relationship with God? It is more intuition than objective knowledge. There are things we know physically with our five senses. There are things we know mentally through deduction and reasoning. For me God is not like that. I do not know God through my senses because he is not physical. I do not even know God through reasoning, even though I think it is reasonable to believe in God. I don’t think you can logically prove the existence of God. That is why I do not get into the Intelligent Design arguments for the existence of the Creator.

I know God through my spirit, which is just as real to me as my mind or body. I know God through intuition. I know his will through conscience. I commune with God in my heart. The way to have a real relationship with God is to cultivate this dimensions of your soul. There is no three or four step formula for this, any more than there is for any relationship you have. You have to find your own way and develop your own relationship with God - like with any human relationship . But if we desire a relationship with God we must devote time to that relationship. Spend lots of time thinking about God. Spend lots of time with God. I am not just talking about formal prayer or printed devotions. Those are fine to do, but what if the only time you spoke with your spouse or your friends was when you read something that someone else wrote, then you will not have much of a relationship.

I am talking about cultivating a continual awareness of God – living in the presence of God. Living in God like we live in this world. Breathing God like we breathe air. Swimming in God like a fish swims in the ocean. If you asked a fish what water was he couldn’t tell you because he lives in it. In the same way we live in God. “In Him we live and move and have our being” the Scripture says. The key to a relationship with God is to direct our attention to our intuitive awareness of the presence of God. God is here now. That is not just a doctrine of the omnipresence of God. It is experienced reality. All we have to do is use our intuitive knowledge to notice that reality. We can do that right now. Sense the presence of God right here right now. It is obvious. In fact it is so obvious that we often miss it. We take it for granted like the light around us. Developing a relationship with God is taking the time to pay attention to the God you can sense is here and foster a conscious awareness of this Presence throughout the day.

IV. I want to move on to the fourth point that Jeremiah makes in this passage. It is TOTAL FORGIVENESS. The last line of our passage says, “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Forgiveness has historically been the main focus of Christianity. There is a lot more to Christianity than the forgiveness of sins, but forgiveness is the heart. This is exactly why some people don’t like Christianity – there is too much talk of sin and forgiveness. But this is an important dimension of our human condition which needs to be addressed. That is what the gospel does. It takes the reality of sin seriously and deals with it directly. It doesn’t explain sin away psychologically or sociologically. It doesn’t downplay it or minimize it. It acknowledges that guilt is real and needs to be addressed.

The Christian gospel frees us from the power of guilt and sin. A lot of people think that Christianity is all about making you feel guilty. It is just the opposite! It gets us to acknowledge guilt and then eliminates it, so that it does not control us. It is a powerful spiritual and emotional freedom! We can be free from the bondage of the things that we have done wrong and the things that people have done wrong to us. We can experience complete forgiveness and have the ability to completely forgive those who have harmed us. That is the power of the gospel. If you don’t sin and have never been sinned against, then you don’t need the gospel. But if you have ever wronged a person and if a person has ever wronged you then you need the gospel. We can go through all the counseling and psychotherapy we want to. I am a believer in counseling; it does a lot of good in helping us to emotionally deal with psychological harm that is done to us. But we also need a spiritual solution to the spiritual problem of sin and guilt.

That is what the gospel does. It does it through the Cross of Jesus. I can’t explain very well how it does it. The theology of the Cross can get very complicated, theoretical and philosophical very quickly. I don’t think we need a new philosophy. We need the inner assurance that our sins are completely dealt with and forgotten by God. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” We need the power to be able to forgive people for the things that they did that we can’t forget. That is what the Cross provides. Somehow by the power of God, Jesus dealt decisively with sin by dying on the Cross and rising from the grave. That is what the gospel says. This power of forgiveness can be appropriated into our lives and experiences through faith in Christ. That is the bottom line. We can spend a lifetime trying to understand it, but it only takes a moment to accept it and experience it.   That is the new covenant that Jeremiah prophesied, and that is the new covenant that was established by Jesus Christ.  

Snake on a Stick

Delivered March 18, 2012

Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21

See the video of this message at: http://youtu.be/m-4KqUq5qhY

You have had ice cream on a stick and candy apples or caramel apples on a stick. Perhaps you have even had the misfortune of having a corn dog on a stick. Well today I am going to talk about a snake on a stick. Thankfully it is not a new culinary delicacy. It is an ancient symbol. You have likely seen the image pictured on ambulances. Actually there are two very similar symbols; one is called the Rod of Asclepius, also known as the asklepian. It is a single snake entwined around a staff. It is associated with the Greek god Asclepius, god of medicine and healing in Greek mythology. A similar symbol is called a caduceus. This symbol has a staff with two snakes wrapped around it and facing each other; another difference is that the staff has wings on top. It is also a medical symbol today, although originally it was the symbol of Greek god Hermes, the messenger god, hence the wings. There is a Biblical symbol that looks like this as well. It is called in the Nehushtan, and like the Rod of Asclepius, it is a single snake on a staff. It predates the Greek symbol and is also associated with healing. We in the West have inherited the symbol from both the Greek and Hebrew traditions. Today we are going to look at the Biblical story behind the symbol.

The Old Testament account takes place during the 40 years that the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness before they were allowed to enter the Promised Land. The people of Israel had been bittten by what are called ‘fiery serpents,” which means poisonous snakes. Many of the Israelites died. Moses prayed for a cure, and God told him to make a replica of the fiery serpent out of bronze and lift it up on a pole. When the people looked upon the bronze serpent, they were healed. That is the story in a nutshell. This snake on a stick means four things.

I. First it is a symbol of suffering. The poisonous snakes in this story caused suffering and death in the people who were bitten. So first of all the snake in the story is bad – the source of poisonous evil, suffering and death. The snake symbol in the Bible often represents evil.  That is not true in all religions and cultures, but it certainly is true in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The first time a serpent appears in the Bible is in the Garden of Eden; there the serpent represents the tempter and deceiver. That is true throughout the Bible all the way to the Book of Revelation where the dragon is called “that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan.” We are conditioned to think of a serpent as the symbol of evil which causes suffering and death. These fiery serpents in this story in the Book of Numbers are creatures that are causing suffering and death.

This throws us headlong into the whole theological question of the source of suffering and death in the world. It is too simple to attribute all suffering to an evil force in universe, as our story makes clear. Verse 6 of the story says “So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people….” The serpents are the instruments of God in this story. This complicates matters. I wish the problem of evil and suffering was so simple that we could blame all suffering and evil on the Big Bad Guy - the devil. But we know that is not the case. Even the ancient Hebrews who wrote this story knew that. In the story of Job, Satan can do no bad thing to Job without the permission of God. God ultimately permits everything bad that happened to Job. Job knows that and spends almost all the book struggling with that and yelling at God. And we never really stop struggling with that problem of suffering and evil. It is one of the most difficult theological problems.

Ultimately in the Bible the buck stops with God. As Christians we do not have a theological dualism – two equal celestial beings - a good god and a bad god battling it out on the cosmic stage. Satan is not divine in the Scriptures, nor is he described as equal to God in any way. Ultimately we have to trace everything – good and bad - back to God. President Truman was famous for the sign on his desk in the oval office which read “The buck stops here.” We could use more of that in politics these days. It seems to me that today every politician wants to blame someone else, especially the other political party, for everything that goes wrong in our nation and our world. No one wants to take responsibility. Politics is increasingly one big blame game. Theology is not. Picture God at his heavenly desk with a sign that reads, “The buck stops here.”

You can blame some suffering on natural causes if you want. You can blame some on human choices – our freewill – if you want. But ultimately God made the natural world and free human beings. The buck stops with God. Christian apologists mean well when they try to get God off the hook – explaining that it is not God’s fault when bad things happen to good people. Even here in this story you could point out that the bad things are happening to bad people. The people admit they did wrong in our story and it prompted the snakes. In verse 7 they confess their sins to Moses, saying, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.”  But you still have to deal with the fact that in the story God sends the snakes to bite the people as well as heal the people of the snake bites. The snake on the pole represents suffering and death.

II. The snake on the pole also represents judgment. In the story, the serpents are sent as a divine judgment on people for their disobedience. That is another very difficult issue in Christian theology. Judgment is a very unpopular topic. We do not like the concept of God as Judge. We like God as the kindly Father. In fact we prefer God as the kindly Grandfather in the sky. I am a grandfather. We have two grandsons, and soon we will have another grandson due to be born on Easter Sunday. It is so much easier being a grandfather than a father! A father has to discipline his kids. I don’t have to worry about that. I am not expected to discipline or punish them. I can spoil them. The parents have their own ideas on what is appropriate or not when it comes to discipline; I am fine with that. I still have my opinions on the subject of discipline. We used to spank our kids, and it didn’t do them any harm physically or psychologically. But I keep my opinion to myself, and I will not lay a hand on the tender backsides of our grandkids. We may scold them and instruct them, but any stronger form of discipline is for the parents to administer.

That is the type of God people want - a grandfather God who spoils us, and never disciplines us. But the Bible presents God as a Father who disciplines his children. The Book of Hebrews says: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, ⁶ because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” ⁷ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?”

Our story in Numbers goes beyond discipline to judgment. That is a much harsher concept. The whole concept of divine judgment is very difficult for people today. When it comes to religion, we say, “Judge not lest ye be judged” and we think that applies to God as well. But the fact is that as a society we believe in judgment. We have courts and judges and juries who judge people and exact punishment on people – all the way from fines to imprisonment to capital punishment. So we believe in judgment; so judgment is not really the issue. So let’s get over our self-righteousness – our feigned righteous indignation at the concept of divine judgment. We judge people as an American society, as does every society that has ever existed. Why would we think that God’s kingdom would be any different? Why wouldn’t God judge, especially when human courts fail in their administration of justice? When the guilty get away with murder in our society, we hope God will hold them accountable them in a higher court. So we need to get over our reluctance at seeing God as Judge. There is nothing inherently wrong with that idea. Here in this story the snake on a pole is a symbol of divine judgment.  

III. Third, the snake on the pole represents healing and salvation. It is amazing what the Bible does with this symbol! It takes this symbol of suffering, death and judgment, and reinterprets it to mean something healing, salvation and life. This is how the apostle John interprets this story. Our Gospel Lesson says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Then comes that most famous verse in the Bible: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John sees the snake on the pole as a symbol of salvation representing Jesus on the Cross.

The parallels between the two symbols – the snake on the pole and Christ on the Cross - are striking. Like the snake is a symbol of evil in the OT, the death of Jesus on the Cross was a great evil. No greater evil has ever been done than when human beings killed the Son of God on the Cross. They executed an innocent man. We read and hear today of cases when an innocent man was unjustly convicted of a crime he did not commit. Years later DNA evidence reveals that the man is innocent, and he is set free. It makes us wonder how many innocent people have been executed by our legal system for crimes they did not commit. Jesus was an innocent man, yet he was executed by guilty men. He was executed for no other reason than thatt they could not stand to have a perfectly righteous man in their midst. His very presence among them judged them for their sins. When you feel judged, people judge in return. And that is what they did. They tried, judged and executed Jesus unjustly.

The snake on a pole was a symbol of suffering and death. So is the Cross. The Roman cross was an instrument of torture and execution. It was a disgraceful and painful way to die. On the Cross Jesus suffered and died. We sing the hymn: “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the symbol of suffering and shame.” Symbols are important nowadays. Corporations spend lots of money to get just the right graphic to represent their business or product. Religious denominations have symbols. The symbol of the United Methodist Church (one of our two denominations) is a black cross with a red flame of fire coming from the base. It is supposed to represent the cross of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But a survey was done some years ago, and it was found that more people thought it was the burning cross of the KKK than the Methodist Church. Methodists obviously have an image problem.

The Roman cross was a symbol of punishment, torture, suffering, and death. Christianity has reinterpreted it to mean a salvation and eternal life. That is what God did in our OT Reading. God told Moses to make an image of the snake that was killing people and make it into an image that healed people. Whoever looked upon that bronze serpent on the pole would be healed and not die. The apostle John says that the Cross does the same thing. When people look upon the Cross of Jesus Christ in faith, then they are spiritually healed and given spiritual life. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” It is a symbol of salvation.

IV. There is one final meaning of this symbol of the snake on a stick. It is more of an interesting postscript than a point. This bronze snake on a pole makes another appearance in the OT. It seems that this bronze serpent on a pole that Moses made was preserved. The Hebrews didn’t just throw it away after it had served its purpose in this chapter. They kept it. After the temple was built in Jerusalem, it was stored there in the temple. At some point it was taken out of storage, erected in the temple, given the name Nehushtan and worshipped, in direct disobedience to the command in the Ten Commandments not to make an image and bow down to it and worship it. Centuries later King Hezekiah carried out some religious reforms in Jerusalem. At that time it says in 2 Kings 18 that he destroyed this bronze serpent on a pole because the people had burned incense to it and worshipped it. This symbol of salvation had become an idol.

This serves as a warning to us about our religious symbols.  Anything can become an idol. Even the cross – as central as it is to Christian theology - can become an idol. Our theology can become idolatrous. As soon as we think that only we have it right, then our theology has become an idol. Our theological interpretations of the cross can take the place of the spiritual power of the cross. Our doctrines about Jesus can take the place of Jesus himself. Instead of knowing and serving the living risen Christ, we can create a designer Jesus the way we want him to be and worship our man-made Messiah. We need to follow in Hezekiah’s footsteps and tear down the idols so that nothing takes the place of the living Lord Jesus in our lives or our church.

Moses crafted a snake on a stick. Those who looked upon it were healed and did not die. It served as a prophecy of the one who was to come – a man on a cross, so that whoever looks to him and believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. 

Playing the Fool

Delivered March 11, 2012

I Corinthians 1:18-25
To view a video of this message please click this link: http://youtu.be/7wwdKZu8vlQ

There was a time when fools had a place in society. It was not exactly an honored place, but it was role that allowed them to make a living and even move in high social circles. I am talking about jesters who were a part of court life. In Medieval times jesters were a common sight in royal courts, and in Renaissance times aristocratic households employed them. The stereotype of such a fool is a man who wore a distinctive colorful costume with a three-cornered hat with bells on the ends. They were regarded as court mascots, who not only provided some comic relief, but were supposed to speak the truth when others were afraid. They were expected to criticize their master or mistress and their guests. In fact Queen Elizabeth I is said to have rebuked one of her fools for being insufficiently severe and critical of her. Excessive criticism, however, could lead to a fool being punished, or even executed, if the royal family decided the fool had overstepped his bounds. So it could be a precarious position to hold; you had to play the role of the fool wisely.

Today there are no such wise fools that I can think of. We have comedians who make fun of the powerful, it is not quite the same. In the Bible we find the word fool used most often in the book of Proverbs where the fool is contrasted with the wise person. The word fool is used to describe the one who departs from God’s ways. The Psalms go so far as to declare, “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” In fact the term “play the fool” comes from the King James Bible. It is from a scene where King Saul, who was a bit crazy, apologizes to David, whom he is trying to kill. He says to him, “I have sinned. Return, my son David. For I will harm you no more….  Indeed I have played the fool and erred exceedingly.”

In the New Testament Jesus tells the parable of a rich man who stores up possessions on earth, and neglects his spiritual life. When he dies, God calls him a fool. But in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warns, “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” You would think that Jesus’ admonition would cause his followers to delete the word from their vocabulary, but we haven’t. The word fool is regularly used to describe those we wish to criticize in the harshest fashion. To be called a fool is the harshest putdown.  No one wants to be thought a fool. As the saying goes, we do not suffer fools gladly. No one wants to be made to look a fool. And that brings us to our Epistle Reading for this morning. The apostle Paul uses the term fool in connection to the message of the cross. He describes how the gospel is viewed by people and how he views it. There are three things he says about the message of the cross.

I. First, he says the message of the cross is foolishness. He says in 1:18 “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.” He says in verse 23 “we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.” The heart of the Christian gospel - the cross - is considered foolish to many people today. As a pastor I have come across this very many times. I am considered a fool by many people for what I believe, and you would be considered fools also, and not in a light-hearted jesting way. The so-called New Atheists, who would be more accurately described as antitheists, make it clear that they consider Christians to be fools for believing what we do. It goes to show that things have not really changed in the two thousand years Paul penned these words. The message of the Cross is still considered foolishness. Why?

The message of the Cross is considered foolishness because the existence of God cannot be proven. This is the one argument I keep hearing over and over again. We live in a Western society that considers science to have the final word on all truth. The scientific method can only speak about the physical world. It can say nothing about the spiritual realm. God is not an object somewhere in space and time in the material world. God is not an energy field that can be measured.  By definition God is Spirit who transcends the physical world. Therefore science has nothing to say about God one way or the other. Those who dismiss God on scientific grounds have assumed that the only reality is that which can be measured with scientific instruments or deduced from scientific data. Their presupposition is that nothing else exists. That assumption cannot be proven. Science cannot prove or disprove God; God is outside the domain of scientific investigation.

The message of the Cross is considered foolishness because Jesus – especially his nature as the Son of God and his resurrection from the dead - cannot be proven. That is true. Jesus lived 2000 years ago. You can’t even use the word “prove” when it comes to ancient history. You can only look at the archeological and written evidence. When it comes to ancient personages, the life of Jesus is better documented than any other life. Of course the events of his life were not recorded by impartial historians using the modern methods of gathering and confirming information. There was no modern discipline of historical science back then. But Jesus’ life, works, deeds, and even his resurrection are better documented than most other events in the ancient world.

Even people in the first century thought the idea of Jesus’ resurrection was foolish. There is a scene in the book of Acts where the Apostle Paul has the opportunity to present his case before the distinguished philosophers of Greece at the Areopagus – Mar’s Hill in Athens – a gathering place for thinkers located right below the Parthenon at the Acropolis. The intelligentsia of the time listened respectfully to Paul until he mentioned the resurrection. Then they began to mock and heckle him. It is the same today. People today often dismiss Jesus’ resurrection out of hand, saying it is silly to believe this because it is obviously impossible for a man to come back to life after really being dead from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. Yes, of course it is! That is the whole point of the resurrection of Jesus – it is a once-in-history event! If it was commonplace or scientifically repeatable in the laboratory, it would have no historical or theological significance! Of course, you can’t prove it two thousand years after the fact. But the historical scientific method can’t say it didn’t happen either, only that it is highly improbable – which is the Bible’s point. You have to weigh the historical evidence. As far as Jesus’ divine nature is concerned, of course you can’t prove that Jesus is the Son of God. But it is a reasonable inference if the New Testament documents are reliable in what they say about his life.

II. I want to move on to my next point - that the Message of the Cross is a Stumbling Block. Again verse 23 says, “but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness….” The Greeks thought it was foolish to believe the Christian gospel, but to the Jews it was a stumbling block. Someone asked me after worship last month why most Jews do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah. The answer is the Cross; it is a stumbling block. The Greek word used here is skandalon, from which we get the word scandal. Literally the message of the Cross is scandalous. Again, why?

It is scandalous for two reasons. First because Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. That was and is blasphemous to monotheistic faiths like Judaism and Islam. It is considered idolatry to say that a human being is God. This is why Jesus was crucified according to the four gospels in the NT, because he claimed to be the Son of God. At his trial Jesus was interrogated by several authorities secular and religious. As you follow his trial in scripture there was no case against him until he admitted he that was the Son of God and the King of the Jews. One was blasphemy to Jews and the other was treason to the Romans. For that reason the Sanhedrin condemned him and Pilate gave the order for him to be executed.

Today in many spiritual traditions it is not scandalous for a man to claim divinity. There are all sorts of gurus and avatars who claim to be divine. There are religious philosophies that teach that we all are divine. In fact they preach that salvation is waking up to this self-knowledge that we are all God. Claiming divinity is not likely to get you crucified today; indeed it is likely to get you a following with TV appearances and a best-selling book. What is scandalous today is to claim that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. That is seen as intolerant and exclusivist. One will be labeled narrow-minded or fundamentalist other pejorative terms. The message of Jesus as the only begotten Son of God is still scandalous to people; it is still a stumbling block.

The other reason the gospel is considered scandalous is because this Messiah Jesus, this only begotten Son of God, was crucified. It was scandalous to the Jews at the time because they expected the Messiah to be a national hero of great strength and power who would conquer the enemies of Israel, not be killed by them. No one likes weakness any more than they like fools. What if one of our presidential candidates advocated weakness as a virtue for our nation? What if he advocated loving our enemies and turning the other cheek even if it meant being our death as a nation?  Any chance that person would be nominated or elected president? Of course not! Likewise there is no chance such a person would have been hailed as Messiah - which was a political and military role - by first-century Jews. That is why a crucified Messiah was and is a stumbling block.

The crucified Jesus is still a stumbling block today, but for another reason. Today it is considered scandalous to say that it was necessary for Jesus to die on a cross for us to be redeemed from sin. People don’t have a problem with Jesus the Teacher, Prophet or even as Martyr for truth –like a Hebrew Socrates. But to say that he intentionally offered himself as a Sacrifice for sins is not very popular, even in many Christian circles. And to say that God the Father wanted this is scandalous. The New Atheists describe God the Father as a Cosmic Child abuser. The Cross is too violent for people to accept as God’s plan. It feels primitive and messy and wrong. The idea of Christ as an Atonement for sin is uncomfortable.

People do not understand why it is necessary. Why couldn’t God just be a nice Guy and just forgive with a snap of his divine fingers. God as Harry Potter – a wave of the divine scepter, say the magic words and everyone is forgiven. That is what people want. That is the type of popular deity that people make in their own image. To present Jesus Christ as a Sacrifice for sin is offensive. It is scandalous. It is a stumbling block in our post-modern religious world as much as it was 2000 years ago.  What the apostle Paul says is still true. “¹⁸ For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” “we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”   

III. This brings me to my third point this morning – that the message of the cross is revolutionary. By that I mean that it turns everything upside down. To most people the Cross is foolishness and scandalous, but to us it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

It is the power of God. The cross looks like weakness. On Good Friday it looked like Jesus and his movement was defeated. The Leader was executed and his followers all fled in fear. What else could this be but weakness and defeat? How else could the world possibly see it? But in fact with eyes of faith it is seen as the power of God at work.  The Cross was part of God’s plan. It was not a mistake or an unforeseen development. The gospels make it clear that it was Jesus’ plan to go to Jerusalem and die. At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry John the Baptist pointed to him and declared, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” The Cross is divine power clothed in weakness.

In the Cross something happened that could not be accomplished any other way. On the Cross it was not just a man dying. It was death dying. It was the power of sin dying. It was evil being defeated. This is why I call it revolutionary. It was exactly the opposite of what everyone thought was happening. Everybody thought this was the end, but it was only the beginning. Everyone thought this was the end of Jesus life, but he was just getting started. That would not become clear until Easter morning, but it was already true on the cross. The cross of Jesus looks like death, but it is life. It looks like condemnation, but it is salvation. It looks like judgment, but it is mercy. It looks ugly to the world, but to us it is beautiful. It looks like the triumph of hate, but it is actually the victory of love. It is the power of God for those who have been called by God.

And it is the wisdom of God. “we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”   Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah in our passage, saing, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”²⁰ Then he says, “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”

Christianity is viewed as foolish by those who consider themselves wise. Christians are characterized as ignorant by those who consider themselves educated and intelligent. Religion is seen as a crutch for the weak and feeble-minded. The resurrection is viewed as a myth to be believed only by the gullible and superstitious.   The gospel is ridiculed as a self-deception accepted only by the foolish and the weak. But scripture says, “we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.”   Therefore I will gladly play the fool, and I invite you to play the fool with me.