1 Corinthians 1:18–25
John 2:13–22
At the beginning of Lent, we were reminded of our mortality, with the application of the ashes, while hearing the words, from dust you came and to dust you shall return. Got to love our Christian religion, one that reminds us that we shall die and go into dust. Seems pretty foolish to be followers in such a religion.
Now we are in the middle of Lent, and what do we have to look forward to, more foolishness. Jesus will be hung upon a tree and nailed to it. He will suffer and die, because God, His father, our Father in heaven allows it to happen. God has the power to stop it. Jesus has the power to stop it, but Jesus will die.
We preach the way of the cross. That may seem like total foolishness to some. Those who look to worldly ways, or even to the law for salvation, the cross seems like foolishness. What they fail to see is that, they are headed to death and it is the cross that is the power to defat death.
The Son, incarnate in Jesus, dies upon the cross and the wisdom of the wise is totally shattered. As it is most often with God, things are topsy-turvy. God, in God’s weakest moment is insurmountably stronger than the strongest. We look for sings in our life, things that point to assurance; confirmation of our faith, things that remove faith and give wisdom but wisdom will not save.
When we attempt to follow the law, for the sake of salvation, we stumble and die. When we look for knowledge of salvation, rather than walking in faith then we are just fools. Take heart though. It has been said; “Faith without doubt is no faith at all.” God comes to us in our doubts, when no longer know the truth and know nothing. When we walk in doubts that is when God comes seeking us. We benefit in the power of God in Christ and in the wisdom of God. Jesus defeats death, not just for Himself but for all who believe, who in faith believe in the promise of God in Christ Jesus.
All this is done not for those who have proof, of what is to be but to those who have faith in the promise. It is not through our wisdom that we know God but it is in our faith, given to us by the Spirit, that we may know God. So that we might believe, the Apostles were faithful witnesses and testify to the truth that is given to them by God.
The gospels tell us the story of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Risen One, in Whom we through faith become sisters and brothers of Jesus. In turn we are heirs of all that is done for us by the Son of God. As it says in the Nicene Creed; “For us human beings and for our salvation he came down from the heavens, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became a human being. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death, and was buried.”[1]
Our salvation comes from God in the Son, who comes down and becomes incarnate in the human being Jesus. For our salvation, the incarnate Son, is crucified. For our salvation, Jesus the incarnation of the Son, suffers death. For our salvation, God sent God’s Son for us, to be buried.
On the third day Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, rises from death. The infinite Son cannot be defeated and neither can we in faith in the Son. We can turn our backs. We can look towards wisdom rather than the foolishness of the cross but our salvation is grounded in the foolishness of the death of the Son upon the cross and nothing else.
No matter what is going on in your life today, you have salvation freely given to you in the costly gift of God’s Son. A gift of grace, so foolish that it defeats all wisdom. This gift of grace given to you through the weakness of death upon a cross provides salvation for those who dare to believe in the promise of the cross.
Go out today, looking towards the cross. Go out today, rejoicing in the foolishness and weakness of our God. Knowing that God’s foolishness is wiser than wisest and that God’s weakness is mightier than the strongest. For our salvation is grounded in the foolishness of the crucifixion of the Son, on the cross.
[1] Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 23.