“The Scandal of the Cross”
Third Sunday in Lent
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
March 15, 2009
IN NOMINE JESU
Get ready to be offended. Get ready to be scandalized. Some of the
things you will hear from this pulpit may well anger you. Such is the
nature of the preaching of God’s Word. Those who hear such preaching
will at times become offended because the Word of the Lord, both Law
and Gospel, can and does offend. Such was the case in the Holy Gospel
appointed for today. The Lord exercised His wrath upon the money
changers and the animal vendors in the temple, chasing them and the
animals out, and overturning the tables. He pronounced judgment upon
them, for they had desecrated the temple, His Father’s house. The
Jews were offended and demanded a sign to show Jesus’ authority for
His actions. Here the Lord moves from preaching the Law to
proclaiming the Gospel: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’” (Jn. 2:19). They
were thinking of the building they had built for 46 years and were now
desecrating. However, the Lord was speaking of His body, for He would
be crucified and on the third day rise from the dead. His body was
indeed the Temple, for where the Lord establishes His presence, there
the Temple is as well, regardless of whether the Temple was in the
form of the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Covenant, the blessed
Virgin’s womb, or Zion Lutheran Church, Harbine, Nebraska. The Jews
were blinded by the veil of their own laws, and they failed to behold
the Temple that is the Christ, the Word-become-flesh. They could not
see the Messiah in the Scriptures. They could not fathom Him in the
temple. They could not accept Him as the Temple.
The Lord preached the cross to the unbelieving Jews. They were
offended. They were scandalized. They were caught up in their hatred
of Him. They hated Him even after they crucified Him. The Lord came
to save His people, the Jews, through preaching repentance and dying
on the cross. They refused to believe and are still waiting for the
Messiah’s first coming, which they missed 2,000 years ago. Only after
the Jews rejected Him did His preachment reach the Gentiles. As the
blessed Apostle and Evangelist St. John writes: “He was in the world,
and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as
received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to
those who believe in His Name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:10-13).
The Lord was first revealed to the Gentiles at the great Epiphany, and
He continues to be revealed through the proclamation of the cross to
this very day, to all corners of the earth.
Yet, not everyone has heard the preaching of the cross, and not
everyone who has heard the preaching of the cross has believed it.
This is why the cross is offensive. The cross is offensive because
the Gospel is offensive. More literally, the preaching of the cross
is scandalous. It is a message that kills the unbeliever. In the most
literal sense of the word scandal, which comes directly from the
Greek, the scandal was the stick used to prop open a trap. When an
animal tripped the stick and sprang the trap, it would become
scandalized, fatally ensnared. It would bleed to death, unable to
free itself. This is what happens to someone who hears the preaching
of the cross and is offended by it, considering it foolishness. The
unbeliever is caught in his own trap, the religion of the Law, the
religion of works. This is the same trap that scandalizes us. We who
believe we are good-hearted and loving are in reality hard-hearted and
loathsome toward the preaching of the cross. We think it is
foolishness. We want to hear something better. Instead of singing,
“In the cross of Christ I glory,” we would rather sing, “Give me that
old-time religion,” a religion that is all works-oriented. This
so-called “old-time religion” has been a plague upon the American
landscape for over 150 years. It is a plague that eats away at our
souls because its basic tenet is that we can get to heaven if we are
good enough, if we have performed enough good works. This is
offensive to Christ, for this false teaching seeks to rob the cross of
its power, desiring to reduce the work of Christ the crucified to a
nice story. We think we are wise, looking for something greater. But
we are made foolish by the foolishness of the preaching of the cross,
for it is how the Triune God in His far superior and infinite wisdom
communicates His Word and His will to us. But, rather than looking to
God’s Word, we look to ourselves, looking for a sign outside the
divinely-ordained signs of God’s grace: His Word and Sacraments. We
are offended at such ordinary words and ordinary elements, and God is
extraordinarily offended at us.
We live in an increasingly intolerant and hostile society that is
also offended by the cross. The world has no use for the cross,
except to wear as jewelry. Even then offense is taken. A few years
ago a teacher was fired from her school because she, a Christian, wore
a cross pendant as a witness to her faith. She was not telling her
students to believe in Christ, but she merely wore this piece of
jewelry and was fired for it. The judge handling the case, in his
wisdom, restored her to her teaching position. The world wishes that
Jesus Christ had remained in the tomb, for the world does not want to
accept the reality that Jesus Christ, by His death and resurrection,
showed Himself the only Way, Truth, and Life. The world considers it
foolishness that one Man would be the only Way to heaven and seeks to
kill Him again, as if that could be possible. So the wise, the
scribes, and the debaters in this world put forth false gods. Yet
their gods are only henchmen for the devil. Mohammed did not die for
you. Buddha is still dead. Vishnu has not risen from the dead. It
is even more offensive for us who believe, teach, and confess Christ
crucified to witness a called and ordained servant of the Word
inviting thousands of people of different faiths, Christians and
non-Christians alike, to pray together, which a district president in
our Synod did a few years ago in Yankee Stadium, in the days following
the terrorist attacks, jeopardizing countless souls by asking them to
pray to false gods, to any god they chose. He, like you and I, vowed
to renounce such practices; yet his heart gave way to the so-called
“American civil religion,” one that seeks to empty the cross of its
power and render the preaching of the cross foolishness. It reduces
the Triune God to merely one of many gods. It is not OK for
non-Christians to pray to the Triune God; their prayers will not be
heard because they reject the word of the cross.
Despite the best efforts of the devil, the world, and our sinful
flesh, the cross is still the enduring symbol of the hope that we
have, the hope that is ours in Christ. Our hope endures, for the
preaching of the cross has endured for 2000 years. This preaching has
endured since Jesus Christ, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, for
the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame. He
endured by being obedient unto death, even death on the cross. Jesus,
the holy One, became the lowly One for us and was lifted up on the
cross, as the bronze serpent was lifted up on the pole in Moses’ day.
The Israelites were punished for their rebellion, being bitten by
snakes. God commended Moses to erect a bronze serpent on a pole, and
all who looked to it would live. The Word who became flesh was lifted
up on the cross, and all who look to Christ the crucified receive
forgiveness of all their sins.
Look at the cross and remember what the Lord won there for you: the
forgiveness of sins. Jesus paid the entire debt of your sins. Your
slate has been wiped clean by the blood of Jesus. Your heavenly
Father sees you through His only-begotten Son’s blood and declares you
righteous for Jesus’ sake, for the very life He gave on the cross.
That is the reason for our joy. This is why the cross is so beautiful
to us! It is important, though, that we not remain stationary at the
cross. We dare not cling to the old rugged cross because our Lord is
no longer there. After He died, His body, once lifted up, was taken
down and laid in the tomb. We hasten early to the tomb and see where
our Lord once lay. Yet we do not remain there, either, for His body
is no longer there as well. He is not there. He is risen! The cross
could not hold Him. The tomb could not contain Him. Death has no
power over Him. Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst His
three-day prison, our faith would be in vain. But now is Christ
arisen! The resurrection of our Lord gives the preaching of the cross
its power, and it is power for us who are being saved, as St. Paul
tells us in our text. This message is offensive to the devil and our
sinful world. It is sheer foolishness to them who are perishing. But
for us...we are being saved through the apostolic preaching of the
cross. We cherish the preaching of the cross, but we do not remain at
the cross because God does not offer His gifts of forgiveness, life,
and salvation from the cross. Our Lord won our forgiveness there, but
we, led by the Holy Spirit, look to the font, pulpit, and altar, where
our Lord gives His gifts to us.
While we do not cling to the old rugged cross, we lift high the
cross, thanking our Lord for winning our forgiveness there. We lift
high the cross to tell others what He has done. We lift high the
cross as we are marked with the sign of the cross, for we and all
newborn soldiers of the Crucified bear on their brows the seal of Him
who died. We bear on our brows and on our hearts the sign of the
cross that marks us as redeemed by Christ the crucified. We have
borne the sign of the cross from the day of our Baptism, where we
became children of God, where our God, the one true God, has given us
His forgiveness, as He continues to give to us through absolution and
preaching, body and blood. We lift high the cross as we bear the sign
of the cross on our brows, telling others the message of the cross, so
that they too, by the Holy Spirit, would no longer be
offended—scandalized—but set free to be people of God, that they too
would receive the gifts the Lord won on the cross and gives in His
Word and Sacraments. This is the true old-time religion, for our Lord
presents His truth to us in His Word, the word of the cross. This is
the message I preach, the word you get to hear, the good news we get
to tell others. We are a Good Friday and Easter people, for without
our Lord's all-atoning work on the cross for us, there would be no
Easter.
Without our Lord’s bloody death and glorious resurrection, the Word
would be just words, and the Sacraments would be empty of their power.
But thanks be to God who gives the victory through Jesus Christ. The
Word who became flesh took on our human flesh and died, taking on our
sins of the flesh (and of the mind and of the lips). The Temple that
was Christ’s body was desecrated on Good Friday, torn down as He was
lifted up on the cross to take away the sin of the world. There He
gave His body and shed His blood, the very body and blood that await
you here this day, in the temple you know as Zion Lutheran Church,
Harbine, Nebraska, for here, in Word and in Sacraments, our Lord has
established His presence. It may not seem like much, as if these are
mere words, plain water, ordinary bread and wine, and simple human
flesh (as our Lord embodied). But hear the words of the blessed
Apostle St. Paul in our text: “But God has chosen the foolish things
of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak
things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and
the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has
chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things
that are” (vv. 27-28). Our gracious God uses those things we deem as
ordinary and attaches His Word to them, giving us extraordinary gifts
through them: forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation.
Having received these gifts, as we will do in a few moments in the
Lord’s Supper, we are bold by the Holy Spirit to be partakers of the
scandal that is the cross as we live in the vocations He has given us,
for it is through the Church that the song goes on.
The story continues; it continues to be told, told to all corners of
the earth. In the words of the great hymn, “Lift High the cross, the
love of Christ proclaim Till all the world adore His sacred Name. O
Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree, As Thou hast promised, draw us
all to Thee. Lift high the cross....” To aid us in this great task,
our Lord will place His Trinitarian Name upon us, the Name into which
we became baptized. With this Name we will receive the sign of the
cross to remind us of His great love for us and for all the world,
that we may all adore His sacred Name. This is the great Triumph of
the Cross, that we will live into all eternity with Christ the
crucified...and risen!
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
--
The Rev. Pr. Mark A. Schlamann, Lincoln, NE
Sermons available at http://lcmssermons.com/Schlamann
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