Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

When the Apostle Paul says, “Jews demand signs,” we can surmise that statement sets the tone and is the precedent for the visions of national renewal by means of military upheaval which today are destroying Central America and the Middle East, Ukraine and other countries. We have a tendency to believe God is with us when we win with military might.

However, when you analyze it in that perspective, Jesus didn’t win. Any death is a defeat of a kind, but crucifixion was even worse than that. The Romans were military and they didn’t crucify petty thieves or murderers. It was the penalty for rebels, for murderers. From their perspective, Jesus’ death was the dramatic defeat of a movement leader.

That fact is still a stumbling block today. How can we believe in God if He is not our helper? How can Jesus be Lord if He is defeated?

One true answer to that kind of question is to say that Christian love is not so ineffective as all that. There are things that love alone can get done. There are kinds of nonviolent process which are quite effective in achieving valuable goals.

A social science called conflict resolution demonstrates that there are better and worse ways, which can be analyzed and learned, to defend valid interests. It can be shown as a fact of social science that massing destructive threat against destructive threat postpones the solution of problems, even if the war never happens, to say nothing of destroying most of what both parties wanted to save, if it does come.

Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., demonstrated the power of truth made effective through active noncooperation with evil. It is costly, though hardly more costly than war. To recognize the sacredness of the adversary’s life and dignity, to refuse to meet him on his own terms, is at once a moral victory and the beginning of a tactical advantage, but you will only do it if you truly believe.

But the best answer to those questions, according to our text, would be to say that the question is wrong. It is wrong to be scandalized by the cross as weakness, because it is wrong to demand strength. It is wrong to assume that the measure of right decision or the validation of correct behavior is its power to make events come out right. To claim that it is our right, or that it is even our duty, or that it is within our capability to take charge of events to assure the results we consider desirable, is by no means so simply true as we always assume. That principle stands today as it did even in Jesus’ day.

Yet only if one does assume such a right, such a duty, and such a capability, does the notion that the cross is weakness have to follow. This assumption explains that dissatisfaction with the cross as powerless which lies at the heart of the “scandalized” reaction of those who ask for “a sign.”

The cross of Jesus, the crucifixion as it happened in history, was not the result of any decision to be weak or of any sacrifice of the will. It was the product of the firmness with which Jesus held to the path to which He had been called. Crucifixion was the normal result of who He was and how He acted, in the face of the powers of this world whose rule over mankind He challenged. One who acts and speaks as He did will be treated as He was treated. It takes strength and hope to act that way, not weakness.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
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