The Foolish Wisdom of the Cross
Have you ever heard someone make this case against God: “If God is almighty, can he create a stone that is too heavy for him to carry?” How very clever! The creature seems to have outwitted the Creator. Man has turned God against God. He has invented a scenario in which God’s greatest strength is his greatest weakness. God seems to be undone. God is outwitted and made to look like a fool. Right?
But for those who have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we see this as a silly argument invented by fools.
However, there are real, seemingly serious contradictions that are nothing new. God even has a name for them: “mysteries of the faith.” They are divine things that defy human logic. If we Christians are startled for a moment when we hear a new one, it is because we need a moment to process the fact that all matters of faith are strange to our way of thinking and, therefore, complete nonsense to those who live apart from God.
How can God be three and one at the same time? The mystery of God is bad math to the world’s way of thinking.
How can Jesus, the Son of Mary, be completely God (spirit) (Jn 4:24) and completely man (flesh) (Lk 2:12) at the same time?
How can Jesus be born in time (Lk 2) and still be “the Lord” who has no beginning or end (Lk 2:11)?
How can Jesus fill the entire universe (2 Ch 6:18) and lie in a manger (Lk 2:12) at the same time?
How can Jesus never slumber nor sleep (Ps 121:4) and yet be sleeping in the stern of a boat (Lk 8:23)?
How can Jesus sit at God the Father’s right hand in heaven (Apostles’ Creed) and yet be present in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper (Mt 26:26-28)?
Or, more to the point of our Lenten pilgrimage:
How can God not die (1 Ti 6:16) and at the same time die on the cross (Mark 15:37)?
In the school of the Holy Spirit, we have learned to be at peace with these and a thousand other apparent biblical contradictions. And we accept them, not because we check our brains at the door when we walk into church but because, by the power of the Word, the Holy Spirit has enlightened us to sit quietly and bask in the eternal comfort of a God whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are so superior to our thoughts that, without Spirit-given faith in the Holy Scriptures, it would all be nonsense.
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. ... Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolishness the wisdom of this world?”
Let us place before the world the highest contradiction of all, and it’s not a case where God creates an inanimate object. Nor is it a case where God has the task of lifting something inert. The higher case is this: Can God lift a burden created by his creatures — his rebellious, sinful creatures? Is it possible for God to lift himself up and suspend himself on a cross? Is it possible that the God who lives in unapproachable light, who is holy and in whose presence nothing unholy can exist, bear the guilt and punishment for our sins?
During our commemoration of the Lord’s 40-day fast, we see how the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ solves this mystery. Here we find God’s wisdom and comfort displayed in the foolishness of the cross.
However at times we find our puny, fleshly wisdom reflected in the foolishness of those who surrounded our Savior. For instance:
“Where is the wise man?” Pontius Pilate, the savvy politician that he was, saw our Savior’s claims as a foolish distraction from his life’s ambitions. Even though he declared Jesus free of any blame, he chose to be muddled by what he considered the petty, moral bickering of the Jewish nation. As he stared into the face of him who is the truth, Pilate waxed philosophical: “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38). In spite of the dire warnings of his wife, the seasoned politician did what comes so naturally to the carnal mind: he sold his soul for a moment of political expediency: “Something, anything, to keep the mob from revolting.”
We have so often given in to the wisdom of Pilate that wants easy answers, the easy way out, the life of ease and comfort away from the crosses, the cancers, the problems and persecutions. Anything to keep our flesh from revolting.
“Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” When confronted with Jesus of Nazareth, Caiaphas, the high priest, could not allow the possibility that Jesus was the Messiah. The forgiveness of sins—the eternal kingdom of God—could not be achieved by a man such as Jesus. Caiaphas thought he was doing God a favor by condemning Jesus to death: “It is better that one man die than that the nation perish” (Jn 11:50).
How often don’t we buy into the wisdom and philosophy of Caiaphas that says that we can have the kingdom without the cross? Or that it was great for Jesus to perish as long as we aren’t expect to perish for him?
“Jews demand miraculous signs.” Then there was Herod, who had been waiting to see Jesus for a long time. And he hoped to see Jesus perform a miraculous sign. But Jesus did not so much as speak a word.
We were the same way when we were immature in our faith. We wanted a miraculous healing (or at least better health), miraculous wealth (or at least a comfortable middle class existence), a miraculous winning season on the athletic field (or at least one win during the season). We want some kind of proof that says Jesus is out there, that he is paying attention, that he is real.
“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Consider the ultimate mystery: God himself. This is how God described himself to Moses on Mount Sinai: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Ex 34:6,7). There you have it. God is completely merciful. By his unsearchable compassion, he chooses to forgive everything that would damn us to hell for eternity.
But that’s not all! God continues, “Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation” (Ex 34:7). God is not only compassionate; he is equally just. Therefore, he has no choice but to punish your sins and mine.
And here is the stumbling block that the unconverted world trips over every time: God is perfectly merciful, forgiving every sin, and at the same time perfectly just, punishing every sin. Humanly speaking, God is an oxymoron—two irreconcilable things at the same time—a contradiction too big for the human mind to accept.
Can the almighty God create a stone so large that he cannot lift it? That question is child’s play in comparison to the question, “Can God punish all sin and at the same time forgive all sin?” Forgiving and just. The Creator dying for his creation. Hating the sinner, yet loving and saving the sinner. These contradictions can only be reconciled on Jesus’ cross. “We preach Christ crucified”—because God laid all of the punishment for our sins upon his holy, innocent Son on that cross. On the cross God treated his sinless Son as we sinners should have been treated. “We preach Christ crucified”—because the perfect mercy and love of God came to us poor sinners from Jesus’ cross. Because of Jesus’ cross, God treated rebels, like you and me, as he should only have treated his holy Son! Foolish wisdom!
Lent is a time for each of us to consider what it means to follow One whose greatest achievement was his death. Foolishness! It just is not logical that the all-powerful God would descend from his heavenly throne of glory to take on the lowly, feeble form of a human embryo. It doesn’t make sense that the new Adam, the new head of humanity was baptized for the world, and in him the whole world covered over in a gracious Flood. It doesn’t make sense that the One who cannot die was laid in a grave. It boggles the mind that the eternal Word through whom all creation was made gave up his life to save that broken creation. It isn’t rational that the Father would pour out his wrath on his Son, instead of us. It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense. It is pure foolishness.
And yet that’s the way it is, isn’t it? “To us who are being saved,” the message of the cross “is the power of God.” We don’t have to apologize for the cross. We don’t need to try and make it more acceptable to human logic. In fact, it can’t be done. It’s simply impossible to prop uip the cross with enough human logic so that it makes sense. There really is no defending the cross. It cannot be defended. It can only be proclaimed. And that’s what you and I do. “We preach Christ crucified.” We preach Christ crucified in our pulpits, in our classrooms, in your businesses and in your homes.
There is no other message to preach. For there is no other way out from under the human predicament, no other way we could escape the eternal hellfire we deserve than for God to act in the dramatic and decisive way he did. Stepping here into this world, he took matters into his own hands. Shouldering our burdens and carrying our sorrows, he bore our sins – taking them in his own body to his cross. Jesus Christ died on that cross. And since Jesus is God, God died. Nothing else would do. There was no other way.
There is no better way for you and me to live than to live under the cross of him who died so that we might live. To the world the cross is foolishness. To us, through the gift of faith, it is the power of God for our salvation. Thanks be to God for his divine foolishness! Amen.
It certainly is too foolish for man to invent.
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