1 Corinthians 2:1-5
And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Nothing but the Cross for Me, Please
My sister gave me a gift for my confirmation day, oh, almost 20 years ago now. I haven’t had it for 19 years – I lost it long ago – but I still think about it. It was a little silver crucifix on a chain. I mean, the pendant couldn’t have been bigger than a nickel; it was a tiny, little thing. I absolutely loved it.
I was at the age where I thought that kind of thing was cool – to have a little “bling” peeking out from under your collar. Nothing too ostentatious, but subtle and special. I didn’t wear it all the time – sometimes I would just fiddle with it in my pocket – but I always wanted to have it around. It would remind me of Jesus when I would walk to school; it helped to put things into perspective when I would feel anxious and fidgety. I could think about that cross and the man who hung on it for me, and that meant something to me.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”[1] For Paul, that cross didn’t just mean something; it meant everything.
Let me ask you a personal question. When you come to church, what do you expect or hope to hear? Are you looking for comfort, reassurance, relief? Are you hoping to find guidance on how to live your life or strength to stand firm in your faith? Are you hoping to grow or expand your knowledge and understanding of God’s Word and his will for your life? Are you looking to be entertained, captivated, instructed and edified by the service?
I wouldn’t blame you if any of those things were your expectations or hopes. But what if all I talked to you about every single week was the cross? Do you think that’d get old after a while? Would you want to move past it into deeper, more meaningful concepts and passages? Would you get bored if every sermon was about the cross of Jesus?
If I’m being honest with you, I was kind of concerned about how to write one sermon that was exclusively about the cross of Christ without being basic or boring. But shame on me for thinking that I could ever exhaust all that the cross is and means for us in a lifetime of preaching.
Paul’s not kidding when he says that he resolved to know nothing else but Jesus Christ and him crucified – and that’s saying something. If you were a Christian missionary heading to Corinth, don’t you think you’d want to talk about the elephant in the room – the giant temple to Aphrodite up on the hill that houses so-called sacred prostitutes whom everyone in town goes to visit religiously? Don’t you think you’d want to address the port-city culture of greed, foul language and vulgar actions? Don’t you think you’d want to appeal to their love of good, public speaking, and – if you were as trained and practiced as Paul – wouldn’t you want to flex some of your rhetorical skills to grab their attention?
Paul doesn’t do any of that. He says, “I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.”[2] He certainly had eloquence and human wisdom; he just chose not to use them in favor of Jesus Christ and him crucified.
If you were a pastor today and you could preach on anything you wanted, what would you choose? Would you flip on the news and pick a hot button topic like coronavirus or political campaigns? Would you look to the social needs of our community and champion a cause like homelessness or domestic abuse? Would you develop a 12-step program to become a better version of yourself?
There are all kinds of things that scream for our attention as relevant and immediately practical. So how much time would you allot for speaking on an event that took place 2,000 years ago and that the Christian Church talks about non-stop? Can’t we have just one Sunday where the cross is assumed and move on to bigger and better things?
Paul would answer, No, and I would tend to agree – not because those things are not important, but because the cross is not irrelevant. Yes it happened ages ago, and yes we talk about it all the time, but for good reason – because the cross is a better answer to any and all of those relevant, burning questions than any wise and persuasive words my human mind could muster.
Think about what that cross means. Why do we have it in such a central and prominent location in our architecture? Why is it featured in our logo – the image that defines who we are? Why do we wear it around our necks or put it permanently on our skin in ink?
It’s a torture device! It’s a horrible thing. Bloody and gruesome. It marked the height of ancient cruelty and was reserved for the worst offenders. And Jesus died on it.
For the last 2,000 years (and until the end of time) these two intersecting lines will forever stand as a lasting reminder of how serious your sin is.
Jesus didn’t come down to earth from heaven to picnic with you. He left his home in heaven and donned human skin and bone so that he could resolve the problem of your sin, so that he could pay for all the wrong that you have done.
Have you ever gotten in trouble and had to pay a penalty for it? You’re playing ball with a friend and shatter your neighbor’s window; you have to pay for that. Or, maybe, your parents step in and pay it for you. You hit a car in the parking lot and leave a gash on the door; you have to pay to get it fixed. Or, maybe, your insurance steps in and pays it for you.
For everything you have done wrong, big or small, cumulatively throughout your whole life, there is a penalty, and the cross reminds us of the price. Jesus couldn’t just shell out a few shekels to bail you out. He had to pour out his holy precious blood to very last drop. Your sin was so great that Jesus had to die for it. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that because you wear that cross you are somehow clean or good, or that it represents your purity. That cross is a permanent sign of the condemnation that you deserve.
But it’s also a permanent sign of the depth of God’s love for you. He was not content to sit on the sidelines and passively watch you slide into the hell that you deserve. In love he leapt to your defense. He sent the Son he loved to die in your place, so that you could live. He stepped in to save you.
Don’t you think that’s a fitting place for Paul to start his missionary sermons? “Let me show you something. You all know what this is. You know the kind of people who get hung here. But you don’t know this man. Let me tell you something about him. He didn’t do anything wrong. He was falsely accused. In fact, he was the nicest and best man ever to walk to the earth. He went out of his way to help people in trouble. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He preached peace to the oppressed and brought hope to the hopeless. He didn’t belong on that cross and could have even proved his own innocence, but he kept his mouth shut. He was willing to die – he wanted to die – even a horrible death like this, for you.
“You may not realize it yet, but you deserved to be there. There are things you do unconsciously, accidentally, without thinking that offend and anger the God of heaven and earth. And even though you didn’t know him or seek him out, he loved you so much that he sacrificed his own Son to save you. This cross, this instrument of hatred and inhumanity has become the sign of God’s undying love for you.”
So, wear that cross around your neck proudly and boldly. Let it stand as a testimony – not of your character, but of the character of the God who sacrificed his Son for you, as a sign of his love for you.
It’s just two little lines, but it means so much. It tells you who you are: a sinner, saved by grace. It puts your struggle into context and helps you understand why it’s so hard to break your addiction, because we live in a body of sin that is destined for death; we live in a world that is hostile to God and among spiritual forces of evil that eagerly want to drag us away from him. It should come as no surprise that we have cravings for wicked things and slip into old, sinful habits. The cross reminds us of who we are.
But it also reminds us of whom God has made us. The cross gives us hope through the love of Jesus. We are forgiven through his blood poured out on that cross. We are redeemed; our debt of sin has been paid. It cannot drag us into damnation anymore, because we have been liberated by the cross of Christ.
And even though we live in a world that will never be free from scary headlines and will always remind us of the dangers to our communities, countries and planet, the cross also stands as an arrow pointing our eyes to the skies and to the eternal life that is ours through Jesus.
So, our goal is not to save this world or to improve ourselves – those are fine ambitions and worthwhile pursuits, but we have much more relevant and immediately practical things to focus on, like the salvation of souls and the kingdom of our God which has been opened to us and everyone who believes, by the cross of Christ.
And that’s just the beginning of what the cross of Christ means for you. That just scratches the surface of why we hang crosses in our churches and around our necks.
I don’t have that confirmation gift anymore, and I haven’t tried to replace it. I don’t have a cross tattoo. I don’t wear crosses on my clothing. I don’t even have any crosses on the walls of my office or house. But it’s all I have in mind – or at least, that’s the goal, i.e. to see the cross in all I do and all I am. To interpret the world and all my experiences in it through the cross of Jesus, who died there because of my sins, to save me from those sins, and to give me new life both now and forever.
May we all, like Paul, resolve to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. Amen.
[1] 1 Corinthians 2:2
[2] 1 Corinthians 2:1