Just then, a smiling man comes up with a big bag under his arm. "Well, folks, isn't this a wonderful day? Makes me want to sing and dance! I just love this mall! I love all you folks who come here! Today, I said to my wife, 'I'm going down to Candies on the Mall. I'm going to buy a big bag of fudge and give one to everyone who happens to be in the mall just at that moment.' So glad you're here, folks! Love you! Have a fudge!"
The Church of today feels the strong pull of a desire for approval - "we want to make a positive impression" - and relevance - "we want to be seen to be doing something."
We have the idea that this age in history is unique, that the human situation is completely different. We must leave behind that old-fashioned stuff about sin and the cross and the blood of Christ and all that. Humanity has come of age. People will laugh at us if we talk that way.
And yet about us lie the dead and the dying. The jolly man with his bag of lollies is an insult to the victims and the onlookers alike. Something needs to be done. Everyone feels powerless. The nice thought of the gift of fudge is totally irrelevant. What is needed is someone with a realistic grasp of the situation, with a real heart for all the people and a willingness to do the dirty and caring work for all concerned.
In spite of all our scientific advances, basic human need hasn't changed. We haven't managed to eliminate selfishness and greed and lust and violence. We haven't lowered the level of stress, hopelessness and despair. Domestic violence, child abuse, the divorce rate, the suicide rate… all continue to rise.
We try personal development courses to discover our hidden potential. Yet, sooner or later, we discover that we just don't match up to what we expect of ourselves. We are continually falling short. If there's a God - and we try not to admit that possibility - then Paul might just have been right when he concluded that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3.23). The description fits the evidence.
Yet the message of the promised Messiah dying - was it popular and acceptable in Jesus' time? It seemed to his disciples to be "a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" (Jn 6.60) Jesus hadn't come to pander to the majority - or to identify with the marginalised! He had come, he said, "to seek and to save what was lost" (Lk. 19.10). His aim was not to please, but to rescue. What he did was the only relevant thing to be done. His truth and integrity took him to the cross! But it was a cross where the love of God met the hatred of humanity head-on! It was the vilest act of men and the most glorious act of God! The dying Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk. 23.34). The leaders of the time said, "We've got to get rid of him! He's a threat to the orderly life and observances of our people! We don't want him!" Yet the Father could take that crucifying and make it the very means by which that stupid arrogance - and all of our other sin - could be forgiven! What incredible love! What a revolutionary and relevant plan - the only plan that could work!
Listen to what Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians, "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… Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1.18,22-24).
Paul believes strongly in the resurrection of Jesus, yet deliberately says, "We preach Christ crucified…" It was the death of Jesus Christ the Son of God on the cross that has purchased our redemption. As Isaiah the prophet put it centuries before, "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Is. 53.5-6)
The message of the cross tells us that the God of love has acted, that his forgiving grace is freely available in Christ, that he calls us and invites us to accept the offer of salvation is by repentance and faith. "I have come," said Jesus, "that they may have life, and have it to the full" (Jn 10.10).
What a message! What a life!
That isn't to say that everyone jumps at the message. Jesus himself met stiff opposition and he didn't promise any better for us, his followers! He warned them, "They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me" (Jn 16.2-3).
Listen to Paul's account. "Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers" (2 Cor. 11.24-26).
The Jews were demanding a miraculous sign. Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you." Jesus answered them, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah" (Mt.12.38-39). The sign of Jonah? Jonah spent three days in the belly of the big fish. The Son of Man will be dead for three days and then rise again.
Many still look for a sign - longing for the spectacular, looking for a guru to lead them to the truth… And Jesus has warned us that "false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect - if that were possible" (Mt. 24.24).
Jesus himself performed many miracles (described especially in John as "signs"), yet in the final count he speaks of only two authentic "signs" - the sign of Jonah (his death and resurrection) and the sign of the Son of Man (his second coming). "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory" (Mt. 24.30).
The message of Christ crucified didn't (and doesn't) satisfy the sign-seekers! It's a "stumbling block" to them. (The stumbling block was the movable stick or trigger of a trap.) They don't recognise it as the only means of truth and salvation.
The Greeks are looking for wisdom. "All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas" (Acts 17.21). They gave Paul a reasonable hearing until he began to talk about the resurrection. Then some of them began to make fun of him.
For the Greeks (and their modern counterparts) the quest is more important than the discovery, the journey more important than arriving, the process more important than the conclusion. To say that all this has happened in history is preposterous! It cuts across all our cleverness. It tries to tell us we have arrived. It insists that there is a God and he has broken into human history. It tells us we are sinners and that something has happened so we can be forgiven. Can that really be anything more than nonsense?
In spite of the Jewish rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and in spite of the prevailing wisdom of his day, Paul persisted in preaching Christ crucified. Why? Because "to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength" (1 Cor. 1.24-25). Paul also describes this group of people as "those who believe" (v. 21), "us who are being saved" (v. 18). Called, believing, saved…
What Jesus Christ has achieved in his death for us on the cross truly and effectively brings forgiveness and change. He alone could say, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (Jn 14.6). Of him alone can it be truly said, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Jn 4.12).
In chapter 6 Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6.9-11).
Paul knew that the message of Christ crucified was able to bring, not only forgiveness for sinners, but a life transformed to the plan of God.
Do you believe that God can still do it? Do you trust him to do it in your life? Do you commit yourself to spreading this message of Christ crucified - the only relevant message for our age?
Paul wrote, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…" (Gal. 6.14).
Let us "go forward together in sole loyalty to Christ the living Head of the Church" (Basis para 1)!
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