by Rev. Dr. Richard A. Eyer, Director of Christian Center for Bioethics, Morality, and Culture – Concordia University Wisconsin
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:20-31
What is it like to live under the Cross? There is a common misconception that if you are a Christian, things ought to go better for you in life than if you were not. Christian evangelists on radio and television have a way of promising the world to you if you commit yourself to Christ. There are books by the thousands written by Christian motivational speakers who promise a more successful marriage, better relationships with your children, improved management of your time, and a general all-round better life if you just follow the principles Christ teaches. But what you don’t hear or read much about is the Cross of Christ, because living under the Cross doesn’t promise a glorious life on earth. The Cross promises us a life lived in its shadow, and that shadow casts on us a life of daily repentance in which the sinful self is crucified daily. Those who do not live under the Cross prefer a life of personal glory where God supplies all their wants, a life not unlike that which the world happens to promise without God. Instead of the God of the Cross, sinful human nature prefers a God who helps us get all we can in life for our comfort and ease.
So, what is it like to live in the shadow of the Cross? Is it, in contrast to a life of success and riches, a life of sadness and sorrow? At times, yes! The Cross of Jesus Christ is itself a dark shadow of God’s judgment against us. It is because of our sin that the cross of Christ exists at all. There are times when the Cross is the reminder of our sin, and our sadness and sorrow is appropriate. But there are those who do not even make room for sorrow over sin. There are churches that call themselves Christian that do not display or talk about the Cross because it is a reminder of things that people would rather not think about, a discouragement to human efforts to improve themselves or the world. As people reluctant to know the truth about themselves, they would rather think of God as promising success in achievements, happiness in families, and good health in the body by just trying a little harder.
Those who refuse to live under the Cross find all talk of the Cross to be foolishness. They think it is foolishness because it darkens self-confidence and it overshadows self-mastery and belittles their optimistic hopes for human accomplishments. We are, as a society, for example, hopeful that cloning will make us virtually immortal and God, therefore, unnecessary. Our text says God’s wisdom recognized that our own wisdom could never know God, and so God chose what the world considers foolish, namely the Cross, to save those who have faith in him. The Word of God says, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong … so that no one may boast before him.” (vs. 27)
The foolishness we preach is that God has come to save us, not in a blinding display of His glory, as we might prefer, but in making Himself human—weak and able to suffer and die for us. Who is this God who expects us to live under such an unlikely thing as the Cross? He is the God who wants us to know that it is not by what we think or do that we have reason to be confident in life, but it is by the weakness and seeming foolishness of God that we find our confidence, for as Scripture says, “Let him who boast, boast in the Lord.” (vs. 31)
But there is a light in the darkness of the Cross that outshines even the darkness. Although the Cross is the sign of judgment against us, Christ has lifted that judgment off us and placed it on Himself. Life under the Cross is not only a life lived in the shadows, it is also a new life in Christ. The Cross is the means by which God comes to us in this world to give us real life. In His suffering and death our Lord conquers death and our fear of suffering. In His victory over death our Lord promises to be with us in our suffering and in our dying to give us peace and hope even in the midst of it. And that is the message that makes Christians look foolish in the eyes of the world. When others, fearing suffering, talk about taking matters into their own hands and ending their lives through physician assisted suicide or euthanasia, Christians live with their suffering as a witness to the hope that is in them. While others grasp for personal control over their out?of?control lives, those who live under the Cross see God in the midst of the chaos bringing peace to the human heart.
As people who are pro-life, it is not life itself we proclaim as holy but the One who made us holy through his suffering and death on the Cross. It is not life itself that we worship and serve but our crucified and living Lord. We do not hope to avoid the inevitable sufferings of life, but we hope to find our Lord in the midst of them to help us live with it. We live under the Cross, and suffering and death are part of that life. We speak this truth in love, the message of the Cross, to the suffering and the dying and to their loved ones. Keeping the focus on the Cross of Christ prevents us from becoming self-righteous in our defense of the unborn, in our caring for the unwed mother, in our advocacy for the physically disabled, and in our opposition to the killing of the chronically and terminally ill. We live in the shadow of the Cross, and we are both humbled by it and rejoice in it. We enter the valley of the shadow of the Cross with those in desperate circumstances who are in need of care. And in our own helplessness we come to understand the helplessness of others. Together, as helper and as sufferer, we come together to the foot of the Cross where our crucified and risen Lord is our Help.
We have a challenge before us as the Church of Jesus Christ. Our words must be words of faith to people of faith. However, we must speak the truth of the Cross in love to those with whom we find ourselves in conflict. And they must be words of reasoned persuasion to those who do not share the faith with us. As Christians, we live both in the kingdom of God and in the kingdom of this world at the same time. But some live only in the kingdom of this world. Christ’s Cross offers forgiveness, healing, and comfort when received in faith, but it brings judgment and damnation when faith is rejected. The word of the Cross is healing medicine to those suffering in the shadow of the Cross, but the word of the Cross is foolishness to those who are spiritually dying. Isaiah the prophet spoke the truth when he said, “Truly, you are a God who hides Himself.” It is only to those who are His own that He chooses to reveal Himself. Martin Luther was so bold as to say, “God can be found only in suffering and the Cross.” It is there that we see Him with the eyes of faith. If we do not see Him there, He will not be present anywhere else to us.
God comes to those who live under the Cross. And in seeing God in His suffering, He opens our eyes to see Him in our own suffering. It is a reflection of the Cross in our lives that He comes to us when and where we least expect to see Him. It may not be that He comes to those we care for because they are spiritually blind to His presence, but He is there for us in the midst of our own share in the suffering of others. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor about to be executed by the Nazis in 1945 wrote, “… in the suffering of the righteous, God’s help is always there, because He is suffering with God. God is always present with him. The righteous person knows that God allows him to suffer in order that he may learn to love God for God’s own sake. In suffering, the righteous person finds God. That is his deliverance. Find God in your separation and you will find deliverance.” People who live at the foot of the Cross see the world differently than others do. In our suffering, we are witnesses to the suffering of Christ who gives us life! Amen.