Year A Epiphany IV Micah 6: 1 – 8
Psalm 15
I Corinthians 1: 18 – 31
Matthew 5: 1 – 12
A homily by: Fr. Gene Tucker
Given at: Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, January 30, 2011
“WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED”
(Homily text: I Corinthians 1: 18 – 31)
“But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.”
Have you given thought to the Cross lately? Ever think about its true significance and meaning?
The reason I pose these questions is because it’s possible that the cross’ true meaning is sometime obscured in our contemporary estimation of it.
Allow me to explain.
Notice some of the examples of crosses that are in front of us today (during service, several examples were shown):
· Some are highly decorative
· Others are made of some sort of precious metals, or often are decorated with jewels
· Still others have highly ornate designs worked into them
· While others are plain
· While still others have the corpus (Christ’s body) on them[1]
In seminary, we used to talk about the significance of the Cross, and especially about the fact that some of the real meaning of the cross is often obscured by the things we do to the symbol itself. We make the Cross into a piece of very attractive jewelry, for example, or we adorn it with embroidery or other designs. People wear crosses as an accessory, it seems as though, and not especially as a symbol of the Christian faith.[2]
But can we recapture the meaning and significance of the Cross?
In order to understand what St. Paul is saying as he writes to the Corinthian Christians, I think we must take steps to remember and recall what the significance of the Cross actually is.
And so, in order to do so, we must step back into the Roman Empire, and into the first century.
My next-younger sister said recently, “What an awful idea, to kill someone by nailing them to a piece of wood.” In reply, I said, “Yes, that’s true. Actually, however,” I said, “the Romans didn’t invent crucifixion – that development came along centuries before the Romans – but they made very widespread use of it.”
My statement is borne out by the record of history. In the Roman Empire, death by this cruel method was reserved for the most heinous of crimes, and its use was restricted to persons who were either slaves or non-Roman citizens.
So to recall someone who’d died on a Cross was to acknowledge that they were probably a horrible criminal, and a person who was also from the lowest classes of society.
Back to the discussions we had in seminary for a moment…We used to comment that, in order to recapture some of the significance of the Cross, we said that maybe it would be better if people started wearing a model of an electric chair, or maybe a gallows, for awhile.
If someone wore such a thing, we might wonder why they were doing so. We might be tempted to ask them why they had that electric chair or gallows around their necks.
And if they had a family member or a relative, we said, who’d been executed in some way, most likely, that person wouldn’t want to own up to the fact.
After all, associating with someone who’d been executed for some heinous crime isn’t a part of our lives we would want to shout from the housetops.
Maybe our attempts at trying to understand the ways in which the early Christians proclaimed the central reality of the Cross were a little clumsy. I’m not sure about that.
But surely we can understand that those early Christians’ proclamation of Christ crucified didn’t seem to make much sense to the Jews and non-Jews with whom they lived.
It would be like saying, “Our leader died as a common criminal, as one who’d done the most horrible thing imaginable.”
No wonder St. Paul said that the Cross was “a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles.”
The basis for the Jewish objections to Christ crucified rested on a text from Deuteronomy 21: 22 - 23, which says “For a hanged man is accursed by God.” Therefore, to claim Jesus Christ as Lord went against this prohibition from the Law of Moses.
And what would be the Gentile observation that to claim Christ as crucified Lord is folly? Perhaps that puzzled reaction rested in the pagan concepts of divinity. The Greeks, for example, were well familiar with the myths of the pantheon of Greek gods who were said to live on Mt. Olympus, and who took on human likenesses. However, the Greek concepts of the pagan gods did not include the idea that such gods could have a genuine love and care for the human race. The ancient Greeks thought that, if the gods moved among human beings at all, they were either largely indifferent to the concerns of human beings, or were present to make some sort of trouble. So the concept of a loving God who would sacrifice Himself in order to save human beings didn’t match the concepts of the pagan deities that the Greeks were familiar with.
“But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles,” St. Paul says.
Paul goes on to tell the Corinthian Christians that the proclamation of the central message of the Cross, and Jesus Christ as the crucified one, goes against the wisdom of this world. The reason is that our worldly heroes are those who are conquerors and victors. We do not celebrate those who end their lives in defeat.
But Paul’s point seems to be that, on the surface, Christ as the crucified one looks a lot like a victim, not a victor But on deeper reflection, Christ’s apparent defeat is closely connected to the victory of the empty tomb.
Seen this way, the drama of the victory of Christ over the powers of death, hell and sin is heightened by the depths of apparent defeat that Good Friday represents.
Put another way, if we look at just the events of Good Friday alone, we will conclude that Jesus’ death represents an ignominious defeat, an inglorious end to a sad and troubled life.\
But it’s necessary to look at the total picture, setting the rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday in close connection to the death and burial which took place on Good Friday.
This is the wisdom of God, that divine wisdom that is often seen only by the spiritually wise. For God often works in ways that take some digging to discover. God often works by using the very things that the world regards as weak and ineffective to bring His purposes to reality.
And what about us?
Perhaps it’s time we re-evaluate the true meaning of the Cross, whenever we see the symbol, or make the sign of the Cross on ourselves, or whenever we sign someone with the sign of the Cross as we anoint them, or when we baptize them. For in so doing, we say that we are followers of the One (Jesus Christ) who immersed Himself fully in our humanity, even to the point of the depths of shame and dishonor that the Cross itself represents.[3]
By so doing, Jesus Christ, the crucified One, makes holy every part of our human condition, even the pain, suffering, loss and apparent defeat that the Cross represents. For our Lord Jesus Christ crucified knows the pain, suffering, loss and apparent defeats that we ourselves experience, having walked with us in the human condition.
This key fact of the Christian faith sets it apart from all other forms of believing. For we Christians still proclaim Christ as crucified.
May this proclamation never cease, until the Lord returns again in victory and triumph to be acclaimed by all as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
AMEN.
[1] These are known as crucifixes.
[2] The Cross did not emerge as the primary Christian symbol for sometime after the Resurrection. The first Christian symbol was probably the sign of the fish.
[3] I commend St. Paul’s wonderful description of Jesus Christ’s total immersion in the human condition as it is found in Philippians 2: 5 – 11.
