KING JESUS: WORD OF THE CROSS

EASTER SUNRISE SERVICE

1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV

18 For 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.

Cicero refers to crucifixion as crudelissimum taeterrimumque supplicium, the “most cruel and terrifying penalty” (In Verrem 2.5.165). Josephus speaks of a Jewish protest against the “most pitiable of deaths,” thanatōn ton oiktiston (Jewish War 7.202f.). Origen refers to it as mors turpissima crucis, the “most shameful form of death, namely, the cross” (Commentary on Matthew 27.22).[i]

Cicero’s statement that everything to do with crucifixion, including the word crux itself, should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things, or the endurance of them, but liability to them, the expectation, indeed the very mention of them, that is unworthy of a Roman citizen and a free man. (In Verrem 16)[ii]

part of the point of crucifixion itself, as opposed to impaling or hanging, was that the victim was often able to see, to speak, to cry out in pain or protest for hours or even days.[iii]

Seneca describes it as a long-drawn-out affair, in which the victim would be “wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, letting out his life drop by drop . . . fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumors on chest and shoulders, and drawing the breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony” (Epistle 101.12–14).[iv]

The real-life Spartacus, who led a major slave revolt, met his end about a hundred years before Jesus. Many died in the final battle, but six thousand of his followers were crucified all along the 130 or so miles of the Appian Way from Rome to Capua (inland from Naples), making it roughly one cross every forty yards (Appian, Civil Wars 1.120).[v]

from the church, down the parkway, down cotton lane, up the 303 to the 17, the 17 up to 179 into sedona. every 40 yards.

First, it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that Jesus of Nazareth grew up under the shadow of the cross… Immediately after the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC there was a serious attempt at revolt in Galilee led by Judas ben Hezekiah. Josephus describes this as the most serious incident of its kind between Pompey’s conquest of Palestine in 63 BC and the fall of the Temple in AD 70 (Josephus Apion 1.34; Antiquities 17.271f.; War 2.56). Varus, the Roman general in charge in the province of Syria at the time, did what the Romans did best: he crushed the rebellion brutally and crucified around two thousand of the rebels. The Galilee of Jesus’s boyhood, then, knew all about Roman crosses (Antiquities 17.286–98; War 2.66–79).[vi]

The second point of special interest for us is the way in which the Romans sometimes used crucifixion as a way of mocking a victim with social or political pretensions. “You want to be high and lifted up?” they said in effect. “All right, we’ll give you ‘high and lifted up.’” Crucifixion thus meant not only killing by slow torture, not only shaming, not only issuing a warning, but also parodying the ambitions of the uppity rebels.[vii]

It already had a social meaning: “We are superior, and you are vastly inferior.” It had a political meaning: “We’re in charge here, and you and your nation count for nothing.” It therefore had a theological or religious meaning: the goddess Roma and Caesar, the son of a god, were superior to any and all local gods.[viii]

1 Corinthians 1:18–31 ESV

18 For 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. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

[i] Wright, N. T.. The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion . HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. [ii] Ibid. [iii] Ibid. [iv] Ibid. [v]Ibid. [vi]Ibid. [vii]Ibid. [viii]Ibid.