The Power of the Cross

Psalm 98:1-5,  I Corinthians 1:18-24,  John 3:13-17

The church I attended from birth to age 16 was the Evangelical Church close to my home.  I passed it almost every day on my way to school.  It was adorned with rather plain stain glass windows, blonde pews, and a plain cross hanging behind the choir section.  Contrast this was the Catholic Church I often visited after my piano lessons with Sister Marie Josephine.

At St. Matthias, I saw huge, dramatic windows, burning incense everywhere, and a large crucifix on the front of the church.  I would sit there, mostly staring at the cross, smelling the incense, with the thoughts and prayers changing as I grew from a youngster to a teenager.  The Old Rugged Cross has been a lifelong favorite hymn.

A lovely man from the church where I did my practice ministry, who is now with God, carved crosses and gave me one, which I have carried with me for years.  And why do I do this?  It is a reminder of what Christ has given to me, his presence, his hope, his gift of salvation, our relationship.  It helps me pray. It focuses me on Jesus.  It gives me peace. I feel safer, more centered when I hold it in my hand. I also have it to give to others who could benefit it from having it.  I’m thinking especially of people in hospitals. A few weeks ago, I gave out similar crosses and marked the cross on your foreheads during a blessing for the faithful in Jesus Christ.

We Christians often view the cross as marching orders. After Jesus explained to his disciples that he must suffer, he tells them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24)  And that’s about all Jesus says about it.

What does this cross mean to us who have never seen Jesus?  Well, this is one of the crucial questions Paul had to wrestle with in the churches he was starting, in this case the Corinthian church.  Listen to the verses that proceed our scripture today.

10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you but that you be knit together in the same mind and the same purpose.

.  He continues --

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Corinthians 1:13–17)

People are people, in the first and 21st centuries.  In both we can see the serious temptation for those who proclaim the gospel to win people to the gospel, not with the content of the cross of Christ, but with the flair of the speaker.

For Paul, eloquence that elevates the status of the preacher nullifies the power of the cross. Paul does not want to do anything that would take the focus off of the message of the cross of Christ. This is why Paul quotes Jeremiah in 1 Corinthians 1:31, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

I know that many of you come to Red Church to hear the word of God and be in community.  And that should be the main reason.  Not the pastor, or choir except for the proclamation of God’s word.

The church is not and cannot be about one person or any people. This is the church of Jesus Christ, not the church of Jan or the church of you. We need to work so that the church always stays focused on Jesus and not on us.

When we make people pay attention to us, we are emptying the cross of its power because we are causing people to take their eyes and their attention away from our Lord.

Finally, let me give you again personal encouragement to share the gospel. You can deliver the message of the gospel in weakness, fear, and trembling just like the apostle Paul. You do not need to have a methodology. You do not need to have speaking skills. The gospel does not need your skills. God’s word and the Holy Spirit take over.  Trust them.

There is only one way we can mess up the presentation of the gospel: by not presenting the gospel to people at all. We empty the cross of its power when we are ashamed of the cross.  Let us not be ashamed. Be not afraid. Let us not be divisive.  We must get our priorities straight.  When we come together, we are one is at the foot of the cross of Jesus.  Thanks be to God. Amen.