20080914 - Holy Cross Day
Sunday 14 September 2008: 18:30 @ Holy Ascension
Holy Cross Day
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Aim: To give people an understanding of the power of the cross today.
Today is Holy Cross Day.
The feast of the Holy Cross commemorates the finding of the True Cross in 326 by Saint Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine I during a pilgrimage she made to Jerusalem. Constantine being the first Christian Emperor. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was then built at the site of the discovery, by order of Helena and Constantine. The church was dedicated nine years later, with a portion of the cross placed inside it.
The date used for the feast marks the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335. This was a two-day festival: although the actual consecration of the church was on September 13, the cross itself was brought outside the church on September 14 so that the clergy and faithful could pray before the True Cross, and all could come forward to venerate it.
It has become a day for recognizing the Cross in an atmosphere or mood that would be inappropriate on Good Friday. So, today we recognise the cross as a symbol of triumph, as a sign of Christ's victory over death, and a reminder of His promise, "And when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." (John 12:32)
The cross was seen as a scandal and still is seen as a scandal – and in some cases as a cause of offence.
· BA woman who was refused the right to wear a cross
· A family in Lincolnshire, in a town called Mapplethorpe who were instructed to remove the simple cross they had put over their daughter’s grave. They were told “Crosses are discouraged, as excessive use of the supreme Christian symbol is undesirable.”
Q: In what ways have you noticed the cross to be offensive in our culture? (p201)
· People respond to the cross in different ways:
o Some ridicule it
o Others ignore it
o Christians have techniques for reducing it’s shame (My scarf)
§ Long familiarity with it has lessened its absurdity and repugnance and led us to turn it into an object of beauty
§ We are more used to the cross as a highly polished item in the sanctuary, or an object of art over our buildings – than as an instrument of death – a device for executing someone in the most excruciating manner possible.
§ Our problem is simply that we are too used to the Christian story; it is difficult for us to grasp the absurdity – indeed the sheer madness – of the gospel of a crucified saviour.
So in some way our attitude to the cross has been anesthesiatised or dulled. We are so tolerant; we don’t want to offend others and cause offence.
The stupidness of the cross
Paul recognises how stupid the message would appear to the citizens of Corinth
Vs 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness…
Q what was so foolish about the cross in Paul’s day? Why would people have responded so negatively to the cross?
Vs 22 – read
§ A scandal to the Jews: Deuteronomy 21:23 has declared that “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” Although originally that statement almost certainly would have referred to displaying a previously executed corpse on a tree, the thinking was easily transferred to those who died by crucifixion. God’s messiah cannot be cursed, so this becomes a stumbling block to the Jews
§ Although the Romans are not directly mentioned in this passage, they would have been embarrassed by a person being crucified. This form of execution was reserved for the lowest of the social strata. Reserved for slaves. To claim as Christians did and do, that one who died like a slave was now not only saviour but the Lord of the whole creation, was patent nonsense.
§ The Greeks would have found the death on a cross as absurd. The Greeks loved debating and using their wisdom in these debates. They were skilled orators. Over and above the disgrace of crucifixion, how could anyone accept as Lord and deliverer, a man who had insufficient wit to save himself from so ghastly a death.
So, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.”
The reality of the cross
No human being would have dreamed up God’s scheme of redemption – through a crucified Messiah. It was too preposterous, too humiliating.
The cross spoke of weakness, not power; defeat not victory; humiliation not conquest.
But, vs 22 “but to those whom God had called, both Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
How did Paul, a Pharisee, work that one out?
Q Why are people – then, in Paul’s day and now – so wrong in their assessment of the significance of the cross?
The clue is the resurrection.
If Jesus had been cursed, as the Jews supposed, and if he had been extremely foolish as the Greek’s supposed, then he would not have been raised from the dead on the 3rd day.
But the resurrection means that while Christ did bear the curse of God on the cross, he did not do so on his own account, or death would have condemned him.
Rather he bore the curse for us.
The resurrection declared that God accepted his sacrifice as a sufficient answer to the curse.
The resurrection also declares that no power can hold him – Satan has done his worst.
The impact of the cross:
So what is the impact of the cross, even today?
The cross creates division:
Vs 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
So while there are a number of divisions mentioned in the Bible, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, this is the most significant division of all. The dividing line between the two is drawn by the cross, which not only splits humanity into two, but cuts history in two as well.
The most well known passage of the Bible is John 3:16 which says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” but the paragraph continues and in vs 18 says “whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe [that is those who find this message about the cross foolish and absurd, so those who do not believe] stand condemned already because they did not believe in the name of God’s one and only son.”
Perhaps we must be prepared to accept that the cross will be offensive to some folk.
The impact of the cross is that it also unmasks foolishness.
Vs 20, 21 read
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? And if I may add, where are the scientists conducting their colider experiment.
Paul exposes the fact that they are totally spiritually bankrupt. They claim to know God through their law, their rituals, philosophy and reasoning – but Paul says…
Vs 21 “…The world through its wisdom did not know him.”
God can be known only through the cross.
So today, because the cross shows Christ denying himself the choice of walking away, but rather dying to create a new humanity, the cross unmasks our secular individualism. Because it demonstrates Christ’s acceptance of our guilt and his taking on himself the judgement of God for the moral laws we have broken.
Vs 18 “…but to us being saved, [the message of the cross] is the power of God
Amen
The Collect of the day is said
Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessed Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace:
grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ
that we may gladly suffer for his sake;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
AllAmen.