Meditations
on the Cross, 6
The Apostle Paul said, " ... Jews ask for signs and Greeks
seek wisdom, but we preach a Messiah who was hanged on a cross - to Jews a
scandal and to Gentiles something stupid." - 1 Corinthians 1:22, 23 (my
translation).
In my home as in many, we have crosses hanging on the wall.
Silver crosses, wooden crosses, wrought iron crosses. Some simple, some ornate. We have crosses that hang from chains around
our necks. I have a small smooth wooden
cross that I carry in my pocket. Most of
these crosses are pretty, some even beautiful.
We're Protestants; all our crosses are empty. We are embarrassed by the crosses of our
Roman Catholic friends; their crosses have a nearly naked man on them. But their crosses are pretty too.
But the cross on which Jesus hung was not pretty; it was ugly. Any instrument of death is! We would be repulsed by someone who wore an
image of an electric chair around his neck - or a gas chamber gurney, or a gallows. Even if this image were gold-plated.
Under the Law of Moses, a particularly despicable criminal was
hung on a pole or tree so that all could see his disgrace. "He who is hanged is accursed of
God." Deuteronomy 21:22, 23. The Romans who ruled the world in Jesus' day
had found it to be not simply an instrument for executing condemned criminals,
but a merciless torture device and the ultimate humiliation for the condemned.
The word "Christ" is not a surname or family
name. It is a title. Christos is the Greek translation of
the Hebrew "Meshiach" or "Messiah" - literally
"Anointed One." The Jews had
been looking for that anointed descendant of David, the coming King who would
deliver them from their oppressors and set up an eternal kingdom.
And so to the Jews of Jesus' day, of Paul's day, the idea of the
most important figure in their history and their hope for the future hanging
from the ugliest instrument of death was a skandalon, a trap-stick that caused
them to stumble.
To the Greeks, the philosophers, the seekers of wisdom, the
whole concept was moria stupidity. We
might even think of it as an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
To "the Greeks" - the brilliant thinkers of our day
and those who imagine themselves to be such, the whole idea of the cross is
still that. The idea of the need for One
to suffer for all defies their reasoning.
And "the Jews" - not only the descendants of Abraham,
but nice religious people of any ethnicity or persuasion, the need for a
Crucified Messiah is still something to trip them up. To some religionists morality is the issue;
moral pronouncements are what they struggle over - the "culture
wars." To others religion is all
about the self - self improvement, happy homes, prosperity. To still others it is about acceptance of
those who differ, not only ethnically but religiously and sexually. And the Crucified Messiah is merely a means
to an end - at times a rather uncomfortable one.
But Paul didn't stop with the words quoted above; he continues,
"But to those who are the called ones, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [that Crucified
Messiah], the power of God and the wisdom of God." (1 Corinthians 1:24)
Those who embrace this Crucified One can see the power and
wisdom - and also the beauty, of the cross.
Which of these three persons are you?
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