Sermon manuscript:
The message of the cross is that Jesus, who knew no sin,
became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Jesus
brought about a change by his death on the cross.
We have a couple special, theological terms for what
happened at the cross: redemption and atonement. With the cross God redeemed us
from the devil to whom all human beings belong because of the fall into sin.
The sinless Jesus was handed in, thereby all human beings were set free. The
devil lost his right to own any human being. This is what is meant by
redemption.
The other word for the message of the cross is atonement. To
understand this word you can break it apart: at-one-ment. Atonement brings
together and makes those who were separated one. The ones who are brought
together by Christ’s cross are the righteous, holy, almighty God on the one
hand and poor, miserable sinners on the other. The way that these two are
brought together is by Jesus paying the penalty for our sin. He who knew no sin
became sin. As sin he was punished with all of God’s wrath, all of God’s
righteous punishment, for the sins that all human beings have committed.
Through faith in Christ we receive the forgiveness that he has worked for the
whole world. Although we are otherwise sinful and unclean, we are forgiven and
righteous through faith in Jesus.
Christ the crucified is the alpha and the omega of the
universe. The world was created through the Word who became flesh in the womb of
the virgin Mary. A time is coming and now is when this world will be brought to
an end. All things will be brought into subjection under Christ’s feet. The
last enemy to be destroyed and placed into subjection is death. This will
happen with the great resurrection from the dead. Then all things will be
handed over to the Father so that God will be all in all. At the heart and
center of this is the crucifixion. Through Christ’s sacrificial death we are
reconciled to God, even though we should be his enemies because of our sins.
Christ the crucified is also the alpha and the omega of our
lives as Christians. When we are baptized we renounce the devil, and all his
works, and all his ways. We are united with Christ by being baptized into his
death. We die to sin and are raised to newness of life. Jesus says: “Whoever
believes and is baptized shall be saved. Whoever does not believe will be
condemned.” This is the beginning of our life as Christians.
The end of our earthly lives as Christians is the same. A
blessed, Christian death is where we confess that we are poor, miserable
sinners, who have deserved God’s punishment now and eternally in hell because
of our sinful thoughts, words and actions. But we pray that God would be
merciful to us for the sake of Jesus’s holy, precious blood and his innocent
suffering and death. Whoever dies this way, whoever dies with this faith in
Christ, will find that the grave is but the door to everlasting life. This is because
Jesus was crucified and resurrected.
Christ the crucified is the beginning and the end of our
lives as Christian. He is also everything in between. There is no better way to
start your day and live your life than to remember that you have been baptized
into Christ’s death. You have died to sin and been raised to newness of life.
There is no other way to be forgiven and acceptable in God’s sight. Jesus’s
cross alone accomplishes this. We live in this daily. It is what makes us
Christians.
The word of the cross is the beginning and the end. It
claims supremacy over everything. However, it is not the only word. There are a
lot of other words. When we get up in the morning we probably think about a lot
of other things besides our baptism into Jesus’s death. The other things we
think, the other words that we meditate upon, hold out promises that we will be
happy if we are obedient to them. To put it into religious language, we believe
that we will be blessed by these other words besides Christ and him crucified.
These thoughts might be high or low, respectable or disgusting.
Serious people might believe in the power of hard work, thriftiness, and
ingenuity. Frivolous people might believe in having a good time, distracting
themselves with stimulants and recreation. Idealistic people might believe in
the power of the scientific method, democratic government, or economic
theories. Everybody believes in their own way of living. They believe that
everyone should think and live just like them. The only thing holding us back
from happiness, that is, blessedness, is that we have not yet come together,
believing in those same things that you believe in.
We all believe in the wisdom and strength of our own
thoughts, theories, and plans. If we didn’t believe that our thoughts,
theories, and plans were the best, then we wouldn’t hold to them or promote
them. We’d believe in something else. Since we believe in the wisdom and
strength of our own thoughts we regard the thoughts of others as foolish,
impractical, or even downright evil.
Is it really surprising, then, that we hate each other?
There’s no way that we are going to come together. This is nothing new. What
might be new is that the divisions among us have been deepening. Strife has
increased. But everyone’s belief in their own supremacy has caused division
from the beginning, from the fall into sin.
This does not mean, however, that there is no right answer.
This does not mean that unity is impossible. The word of the cross has brought
believers together from the very beginning. Adam and Eve believed in Christ.
Among their children, Abel believed in Christ; Cain did not. Cain’s children
and grandchildren did not believe in Christ. Seth and his descendants did. They
called on the name of the Lord. Thus it has been, is now, and forever will be.
Believers in Christ are united in believing that their forgiveness,
righteousness, and sanctification is in Christ alone. This sets them apart from
everyone who believes in other things.
In our epistle reading Paul is teaching about how people
believe in all kinds of different things, but we, as Christians, believe in the
message of Christ and him crucified. He says, “For the word of the cross is
foolishness to those who are being destroyed, but to us who are being saved, it
is the power of God. In fact, it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will bring to nothing.’” Sometimes
people wonder why others do not believe in Christ’s cross. The answer is
simple. They believe that it is foolish and weak. We, on the other hand,
believe that it is the power of God—assuming, of course, that we actually
believe that.
We can’t always assume that everyone who identifies as a
Christian actually believes in the word of the cross. Consider even the
occasion of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. He is not writing to a bunch of
worldlings who are open enemies of the power of Christ’s cross. He is writing
to people who identify as Christians. They are part of the congregation in the
town of Corinth. Being part of a congregation is no guarantee that a person
believes in Christ’s cross. The Christian’s flesh is just as prone to believe
in the power of other things as any unbeliever’s flesh. The devil dresses
himself up as an angel of light to deceive Christians into believing in other
things—high, spiritual, and important things.
This is what was taking place in Corinth. This congregation
was young, energetic, and bold. God gave the members of this congregation many
gifts. But the reason why Paul was writing to them is that they were vying and
competing with one another over who had the greatest gifts. Factions developed
among them. Some followed one guy. Others followed another. The members of the
various factions believed that they were the wisest and the strongest. The
portion of Paul’s letter that we heard today is where he is bringing them back
to what is fundamental: God’s salvation is in Christ’s cross alone.
No one is saved by speaking in tongues. This was an issue in
Corinth because God gave this extraordinary gift to some of them and not to
others. Those who had it were prone to pride. Those who lacked it were prone to
envy. No one is saved by the ability to speak well. This was another gift God
had given some of them. Paul indicates that even he was not given this gift to
the extent that it was given to others. No one is saved by the gift of
generously and sacrificially giving. No one is saved by the gift of good works.
No one is saved by anything in one’s self. Whoever will be saved will be saved
by one thing that is outside of all of us—by the saving works of Jesus that
culminated in his death and resurrection. Although the gifts God gives to
Christians are many and various, Christians are united in their confession of
Jesus’s death as their sole source of forgiveness and salvation.
This also means that we are equal. We are all from that same
class of people called sinners. This is especially important to remember for
those Christians who have gained some experience and been given some gifts by
God. Our flesh can’t help itself. In our flesh’s desire to believe in anything
besides Christ’s cross we can be led astray into believing in spiritual gifts
as our assurance of God’s love and acceptance instead of the word of the cross
spoken to us, instead of the redemption and atonement that Jesus worked.
It is more pleasant for us to think of ourselves as good
Christians who are on our way up—“Oh, the places we might go”—rather than to
think of ourselves as foul beggars who are in need of constant, daily
forgiveness. It is more pleasant for us to believe that we are wise and that we
are strong, than it is to believe that Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom
of God. It feels better to believe in ourselves than to believe in Jesus.
But believing in ourselves is to believe in all manner of
deceit and falsehoods. The only way that we can be pleased with ourselves is if
we tell lies about ourselves. We have to smear on the cosmetics with a spatula
to cover over the blemishes. We have to accentuate what we deem to be positive
with trumpets and flashing lights. Unfortunately we can get so good at this
salesmanship of ourselves to ourselves that we might actually come to believe
it. But if we are honest with ourselves, there is no other conclusion we can
draw than that we are poor miserable sinners.
There is another option, though. We don’t have to believe in
ourselves. Whereas believing in ourselves involves belief in lies, believing in
Christ is believing in the truth. The truth is that God loved the world in
this way, that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him
will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not sent his Son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved though him.
God is pure. His motives are pure. He really means it when he says that sinners
have been reconciled to himself by the holy precious blood and the innocent
suffering and death of his beloved Son.
Believing in lies never turns out. Eventually the lies have
to be exposed. Believing in the truth will not disappoint. Even when it appears
that the truth won’t win, that it is foolish or weak, the truth will win out.
You will not be disappointed if you believe in the word of the cross. When
Christ comes in power and great glory you will know that Jesus is the alpha and
the omega, the beginning and the end, the center of the universe. Blessed are
you if you believe in him.
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