THEME: The Power and the Wisdom of God
TEXT: 1 Cor. 1:18-31
DATE: 03/21/04
Pastor Bruce Skelton
Once there was a small boy who was part of a Sunday school play that was given in front of the congregation on Sunday morning. And as is sometimes the case when the time came for him to say his line his mind went blank. His mother who was sitting in the front pew tried to gesture and mouth the words to him, but the poor little guy just wasn’t getting it, so finally in compassion she leaned forward and whispered his quote from John 8:12 “I am the light of the world.” With a big smile and beaming with confidence the young boy then said in a loud voice for all the congregation to hear “My mother is the light of the world.”
When St. Paul wrote to the congregation in Corinth, he was writing to people who lived and worked in a culture that was largely trapped in spiritual darkness. The two main groups that made up that culture were Jews who demanded signs or shows of God’s power and Greeks who looked for wisdom, wisdom that is, as the world reckons it. And when they heard the message of light or the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the cross, they thought it was utter foolishness.
"Where are the signs?" the Jews said, "Give us a sign, show us a miracle, then we will believe." This wasn’t any great surprise, because throughout Jesus ministry here on earth, which was primarily among the Jews, he too was always being asked for a sign or some show of power. Where would such a request come from do you suppose? Well, it might help us to ask, "Who was the first to demand a sign? The account was in our Gospel lesson three weeks ago. Let me refresh your memory.
“If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into loaves of bread." Or "If you are the Son of God throw yourself off this building.”
It was no coincidence that two of the devil’s three temptations were demands for a sign. And every demand for a sign thereafter even though it came from the lips of people came directly from the evil one. Even to the very end when the chief priests and the leaders wagged their heads and taunted him as he writhed in agony on the cross, "If you are the Son of God, come down off the cross, save yourself." Give us a sign; prove that you are God.
The Greeks, on the other hand, wanted wisdom. Oh, how they loved human wisdom and by human standards they were wise. In fact, the great civilizations of the Western world have been built largely on their wisdom, their philosophies, and their systems of thought. The Roman Empire was built not only on military might but on Greek wisdom and intellectual achievement. Most historians agree, there would have been no Roman Republic had their been no Greece first. And this is true for the U.S. as well. It comes as a surprise to some people that almost to a man, our founding fathers knew Greek and read the great Greek thinkers especially Aristotle often.
I don’t think it an exaggeration to say that in many ways the Greeks reached the pinnacle that mankind with his natural knowledge could reach. But natural knowledge even at its best only enabled them to see the laws of God and of nature and led them to believe that it was by their own preparations or works or with their own intellects they could gain heaven.
You see the love and the forgiveness of God cannot be apprehended merely from observing nature or by looking within oneself with human logic or human reason, it can only be grasped with faith, which is a gift from God and comes solely through the working of the H.S. in our hearts in word and sacrament.
Well, as the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. People are still demanding signs today. People, both non-Christian and unfortunately Christian alike, want to be shown proof of God’s existence and His power. “Give us a sign man give us a sign!” they say. “If you are really filled with the Spirit speak in tongues, heal somebody, prophesy, tell us the future.” Yes, the churches that promote signs and wonders are doing a good business, but unfortunately that is just what they are, a business. And more often than not, they are in the business of bilking poor suffering people out of their money, and from what one sees on television, they are pretty good at it.
And what about wisdom, if you want the wisdom of this world, all you have to do is go down to the local bookstore or the library and there are more self-help, astrology, philosophy, psychology and religious books than you can shake a stick at. But nearly all say the same thing, "Do it yourself, help yourself, improve yourself, recreate yourself, do it all by yourself." Which brings up the question, if you can do it all by yourself, what do you need God for?
What happens to those who seek and find and buy into the phony signs and the wisdom of this world? St. Paul tells us. They are all perishing because they have rejected the greatest sign, the greatest power and the greatest wisdom of all. And there it is above the altar and behind the lectern, the cross and the one who died upon it.
"We preach Christ Crucified," writes Paul, "A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles."
They are utter foolishness to those who are perishing and it is not hard to see why, because look at it, what a sign. It is one of the most awful instruments of torture and death ever devised by the depraved mind of evil men. Think if you walked in here this morning and we had an electric chair bolted to the wall or a hangman’s noose or a rack like they used to stretch people on. That is what we go to for comfort. And what of Jesus Christ hanging there like a common criminal, dead. What kind of God is that? Where is the power? Where is the glory? Where is the wisdom?
And now we have sunk to the heart of the Christian faith and St. Paul tells us what it is. You see Paul says,
God chose the foolish thing of the world to shame the wise; and He chose the weak things to shame the strong. And he chose the lowly things of this world, the despised things of this world, the things that are nothing --to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
Or as the prophet Isaiah wrote:
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.
If you try to see God with these (point to eyes)you will never see him. If you try to grasp the living God with your intellect, you’ll never find him. He is always the last place you would think of looking: On the cross, in the simple water of Holy Baptism, in simple bread and wine.
But when we hear and believe what the Scriptures have to say about Jesus Christ and what really happened on the cross, or when we see them through eyes of faith, then they become as I have said, the greatest sign and the greatest wisdom ever known. For on that beautiful tree we were all saved from sin and death and the power of the devil for all time. He made the worst crime in the history of mankind, the murder of his innocent son into the event of our salvation.
The cross that awful instrument of torture became a holy altar. Christ weakened, beaten, dying, became the perfect high priest and the perfect sacrifice for our sins, so that when he died, they died. Every single sin of every person who has ever lived was wiped away that very moment. And when
the power of sin was wiped out; the power of the devil was wiped out, as was the power of death over our lives. There on that lovely glorious cross Jesus Christ won for us eternal life with him in paradise.
So, Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
And it is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." Amen.
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05/06/2004