Sermon for Saturday, March 2, 2024

Third Sunday in Lent
Saturday, March 2, 2024
“We Preach Christ Crucified”
1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. The text for our meditation is the Epistle lesson, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. 

Many years ago, I was asked to lead a Vespers Service at Westminster Village, and when I was finished leading and preaching, someone said to me, “So you are one of those sin and salvation preachers!” I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a criticism, so I simply said, “Yes, in our church we preach Christ crucified (and risen) as our Lord and Savior.” That is what  Paul was teaching and proclaiming in our text for today.

The apostle Paul had come to the Greek city of Corinth during his second missionary journey, between 49-51 AD. You can read about this in Acts, Chapter 18. He began his work among fellow Jews, using the Word of God to testify that the Christ, the promised Savior, was Jesus. Many Jews opposed him and reviled him, and he moved on to non-Jews, Greeks and Romans, and some Jews who would listen. 

The Lord told him in a vision, "Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you." He stayed in Corinth for a little over a year and a half, teaching the Word of God among them. Then there was a unified attack on Paul by Jewish people, and he had to leave Corinth - but a Christian church had been established there. 

Paul began a third missionary journey in 52 AD and spent about three years in Ephesus and other places. In about 55 AD, he heard that there were problems and divisions in the church at Corinth and wrote this letter that we have before us. 

Paul knew that both the Jews and the non-Jews of Corinth thought themselves to be elite people. The Jews had been the chosen people of God of the Old Testament, and many still expected a mighty Savior to come and overthrow their political enemies. A humble, lowly Jesus could not be the one, especially since He was cursed by being hung on a tree (the tree of the cross) as the Old Testament said (Deuteronomy 21:23). The Jews were religiously elite in their own view. 

The Greeks and Romans at Corinth thought that they were intellectually elite, with their many philosophers and powerful leaders and great human thinkers in their history. When Paul had been in Athens, Greece earlier, it was said (in Acts 17) that the philosophers and others would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. Paul was an interesting babbler, in their view, until he began to talk about the death and resurrection of Jesus. Many mocked Paul and quickly rejected him. In their human view, for most Greeks and Romans, only the spirit of a person was important. The body was useless. You could do with it whatever you wanted - and that is why sexual morality was so low in Corinth. You discarded the body at death and never wanted it back anyway. 

Both Greeks and Romans would also agree that no reputable person would ever be crucified. Hardly ever were any Romans crucified. Only the worst of the worst would die that way. 

Paul knew exactly what he was up against as he wrote this letter. He himself had been one of those religious elites, a highly respected Jewish Pharisee, who thought he knew a lot. He already was opposed to Greek and Roman gods and philosophers and morality. But he was also very active in opposing and persecuting Christians and all their talk about Jesus Christ - until the crucified and risen, resurrected Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Him, saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?"

His name had been Saul, which means "one asked for and prayed for," a kind of important person. Now his name became Paul, "a little one," who now knew his weaknesses and his true sins and his need for Jesus as his Savior and for the forgiveness earned only by Jesus' crucifixion for him and for the world. 

Paul wrote in 1 Timothy that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent of Christ Jesus, but received mercy, "as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life." If he, Saul (now Paul), could be forgiven and accepted through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, then so could any of us, no matter what we have been, by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus. 

Paul knew he could no longer be talking about human wisdom and human efforts to be acceptable to God and pleasing in His sight. That would never save people, trying to get them to be good enough. 

Six times in this Epistle lesson Paul says that what he preaches will sound like foolishness to many - but it is God's power for salvation through faith in Jesus. Listen again to what Paul says, over and over: "The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." Paul quotes Old Testament Scripture to show that God had to destroy the wisdom of the supposedly wise and discerning leaders who often led God's people astray to false human ideas and false gods. 

Where is the one who is wise? Human kingdoms and leaders have risen and fallen and where are they now? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world again and again? And the world did not know and follow the true God through what human wisdom taught anyway. 

It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe in Christ. For Jews keep on demanding signs, proof that Jesus is who He claims to be, and all the words and deeds of Jesus and the Scriptures are never enough for many of them. And Greeks and many other humanly wise people want more human wisdom and rational explanations that fit their own minds and thinking but are never enough. So, Paul says, this Gospel of Christ is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentles, but those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, and believers all over the world, Christ Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 

Paul also says, look at your church. Not many of you are wise according to human, worldly standards. Not many are powerful. Not many are of noble birth. But God often chooses what is foolish in the world's eyes to shame the supposedly wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose even what is low and despised, nobodies in the world, which we may sometimes feel that we are on bad days, and He brings to nothing those apart from Christ, even though they seem so important and successful in this world right now. 

And again, Paul says, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. It seems to the sophisticated world that God the Father had a crazy plan in having His only Son come into this world and live as we do, in temptation and struggle and yet do everything the right and true way for us. Christ Jesus looked so weak, suffering and dying on a cross for our sins and what we deserve. But the weakness of God is stronger than men.

And Paul lists what we now receive through faith in Christ crucified for us:

• We have the true and lasting wisdom from God through His Word and the teaching of Christ and all that the Scriptures tell us. 
• We have righteousness - not our own, but credit for the righteous life and death of Jesus. 
• We have sanctification, acceptance by God and the living Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit at work in us for grateful living.
• And we know that we are redeemed. The price for our salvation is already paid for us by Christ. And we boast only in our Lord God and in Christ crucified for us and, on Easter, in His great resurrection victory, as well. 

Let us rise for prayer. Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, keep our hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)