Third Sunday in Lent 2012

Third Sunday in Lent 03/11/12 Text: I Corinthians 1:18-31 Title: Saved By The Foolishness Of The Cross. Sometimes a pastor when speaking the Word of God will say something that sounds foolish or even offends you, something like I said a couple of weeks ago when I told you that the popular belief that God hates sin, but loves the sinner is not in God’s Word. The problem with the statement that God hates sin but loves the sinner is that the statement is incomplete and thus lets sinners off the hook for their sin, because it leaves Jesus’ saving act out of the picture. God loves sinners because of and through Jesus. I am sure that when I made that statement a couple of weeks ago, it made some of you, at the very least uncomfortable. You might have even rejected what I said, as being false, for isn’t God love? God must love me. And I would have to answer, “Yes God is love, but he still hates sin and the sinner.” It is one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith like God is love and yet he hates, God died on the cross and yet God does not die, and that we are saints and sinners at the same time. All things that are true, but this side of heaven we will never fully understand. In our Gospel reading for today we see the anger of God for sin and sinners, as he drove out the animals, upset the tables of the money changers chasing them all out of the temple. His judgment fell on them for they were desecrating the temple, his Father’s house of worship. There is no doubt that the Jews that were there that day were offended by Jesus’ words and actions. They wanted to know what gave Jesus the right to do what he was doing. He tells them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They heard law because they were thinking of the building that they believed he was now desecrating and according to their understanding of his words threatening to destroy and then the most foolish thing of all he is going to rebuild in three days what took 46 years to build. Jesus is not speaking of the earthly temple they were so proud of. He is speaking of his death and resurrection. Jesus is the temple, for where God establishes his presence there is the temple regardless of whether the Temple was in the form of the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Covenant, the blessed Virgin's womb, or in our case Saint John Lutheran Church in Hattiesburg Mississippi. Jesus preached the cross to the unbelieving Jews. They were offended, as they stumbled over his words. In the Greek the word is scandalized by his words, a much stronger word; for to be scandalized is to fall and be impaled, not just stumble over something set in one’s way and then get up and go on one’s way. They refused to believe; that is they died to his words and because of that they are still waiting for the Messiah's first coming, which they missed 2,000 years ago. But it is not just the Jews who thing the preaching of Jesus on the cross is scandalous. Anyone that does not accept his death for their payment of sin believes the preaching of the cross is offensive or even scandalous. There are those who call it child abuse and refuse to accept the forgiveness won on the cross for them because God the Father killed his son. Others just flat out reject the Gospel message of Jesus dying on the cross for the world. You probably know some of them, for they are the ones who don’t get that they are damned without Christ and his saving work. It is all foolishness, a scandal, they would say. The preaching of the cross is scandalous, for we who believe we are good-hearted and loving are by nature hard-hearted and loathsome toward the preaching of the cross. We want to hear something better. We by nature would rather sing “Give me that old-time religion." Get a spiritual high. Have the pastor preach on anything but our sinfulness and the cross. To sing "In the cross of Christ I glory." is scandalous. We live in an increasingly intolerant and hostile society that is also offended by the cross. The world has no use for the cross, except to wear as jewelry. But that does not stop people from taking offense of the cross, for it was not too long ago that a teacher was fired from her school because she, as a Christian, wore a cross pendant as a witness to her faith. She was not telling her students to believe in Christ, but she merely wore this piece of jewelry and was fired for it. The cross scandalizes people today. The world as we know it wishes that Jesus Christ had remained in the tomb, for the world does not want to accept the reality that Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection, showed himself as being the only Way, Truth, and Life which in itself is offensive. To say that Jesus is the only way to heaven is wrong and proves how foolish those who believe are. It is scandalous. Yet in the cross we still have hope, for despite the best efforts of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh over the last 2000 years, the cross is still the enduring symbol of the hope that we have, the hope that is ours in Christ. Our hope endures, for the preaching of the cross endures. Look at the cross and remember what the Lord won there for you: the forgiveness of sins. Jesus paid the entire debt of your sins. Now God sees you through his Son's blood and declares you righteous for Jesus' sake. You are now loved. While the cross is still offensive and foolish to the devil and our sinful world we find joy and comfort in it, for we are being saved through the preaching of the cross. We cherish the preaching of the cross, but we do not worship the cross, for God does not offer His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation from the cross. He won our forgiveness there. Today he gives forgiveness at the Baptismal Font, the Lord’s Supper, the Absolution, and the preached Word of God. Without Lord's bloody death on the cross and his glorious resurrection, the Word of God would be just words, and the Sacraments would be empty of their power. But thanks be to God who gives the victory through Jesus Christ. The Word who became flesh took on our human flesh and died, taking on our sins of the flesh and heart upon himself. It may not seem like much; those things we use and do in the church; plain water, ordinary bread and wine, and a sinful pastor’s words; all foolish things right? But hear the inspired words of Saint Paul in our text: "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are". Our gracious God using those things we deem as ordinary and maybe even foolish attaches his Word to them, giving us extraordinary gifts through them; forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. Having received these gifts; Absolution, preached Word of God, and it a few moments the Lord's Supper, we become partakers of the scandal that is the cross. And being partakers of the scandal our hearts and minds have been changed. In the words of the great hymn we tell others of the scandal of the cross, "Lift High the cross, the love of Christ proclaim Till all the world adore His sacred Name. O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree, As Thou hast promised, draw us all to Thee.” This is the great triumph of the Cross, that we who are still sinners, deserving of God’s wrath, are loved by God because of Jesus’ saving act and will live into all eternity with Christ the crucified and risen! Amen.