WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.425 --> 00:00:03.725 Grace mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord 2 00:00:03.725 --> 00:00:05.825 and Savior Jesus Christ. 3 00:00:06.125 --> 00:00:07.125 Please be seated. 4 00:00:10.325 --> 00:00:15.425 Through the years, I've given many, many presentations and workshops 5 00:00:15.425 --> 00:00:20.325 to pastoral conferences as well as teaching in my classes on the need 6 00:00:20.325 --> 00:00:26.125 to be attentive to culture and context when teaching or presenting or 7 00:00:26.125 --> 00:00:27.325 preaching the gospel. 8 00:00:28.025 --> 00:00:31.225 And when I talk about this, need to be attentive to the cultural 9 00:00:31.225 --> 00:00:36.725 context, inevitably some student or some Pastor will raise his hand 10 00:00:36.725 --> 00:00:37.625 and he will say. 11 00:00:38.125 --> 00:00:39.425 But but Dr. 12 00:00:39.425 --> 00:00:40.125 Rutt the Gospel 13 00:00:40.325 --> 00:00:42.825 is offensive isn't the gospel offensive. 14 00:00:43.325 --> 00:00:48.125 Why be so worried about being attentive to culture if the gospels 15 00:00:48.125 --> 00:00:51.425 offense, offense of any way? To which I would respond. 16 00:00:51.425 --> 00:00:51.725 Yes, 17 00:00:51.725 --> 00:00:53.125 The gospel is offensive. 18 00:00:53.125 --> 00:00:59.825 Its offensive enough on its own without you making it worse. And I 19 00:00:59.825 --> 00:01:02.825 thought about that in our lesson today because, of course, Paul does 20 00:01:02.825 --> 00:01:07.425 talk about the gospel, being an offence, but he also in a sense 21 00:01:07.425 --> 00:01:10.125 is it seems speaks about people coming 22 00:01:10.225 --> 00:01:14.125 to the gospel or considering the gospel from two different 23 00:01:14.125 --> 00:01:15.125 perspectives. 24 00:01:15.725 --> 00:01:16.525 On the one hand 25 00:01:16.525 --> 00:01:21.425 he speaks about the Jews who are looking for signs of power. 26 00:01:22.125 --> 00:01:26.025 They're looking for some kind of miraculous confirmation of the 27 00:01:26.025 --> 00:01:30.025 Messiah and his message. And on the other hand 28 00:01:30.025 --> 00:01:33.925 of course, there are the Greeks, says Paul and they're seeking after 29 00:01:33.925 --> 00:01:34.725 wisdom. 30 00:01:35.225 --> 00:01:39.225 They like to have their ears tickled with philosophical meanderings. 31 00:01:40.725 --> 00:01:44.025 In fact, I once had a PhD student who wrote his entire doctoral 32 00:01:44.025 --> 00:01:49.125 dissertation on this passage, and he advocated the idea that really 33 00:01:49.125 --> 00:01:53.325 all cultures all around the world can neatly fall into one of these 34 00:01:53.325 --> 00:01:58.725 two categories, a category of a power culture or a wisdom culture. 35 00:01:59.425 --> 00:02:02.425 It's an interesting thought, although probably a little bit 36 00:02:02.425 --> 00:02:07.025 simplistic, although he did pass his dissertation defense. 37 00:02:09.125 --> 00:02:11.025 But one thing I think that we can say, 38 00:02:12.525 --> 00:02:17.525 is that human beings naturally will find the news of the cross. 39 00:02:18.625 --> 00:02:23.525 That God sent his son to embrace the suffering of Humanity, on the 40 00:02:23.525 --> 00:02:28.125 cross, that God sent his son to suffer on the cross and to die for us 41 00:02:28.125 --> 00:02:33.325 on our behalf in our place natural human, beings will find that either 42 00:02:33.325 --> 00:02:37.125 foolishness or weakness or both. 43 00:02:38.125 --> 00:02:41.625 And there are many, many reasons that they give it some would say, how 44 00:02:41.625 --> 00:02:46.725 can an Almighty God, allow something like that, to happen to his son. 45 00:02:46.925 --> 00:02:48.425 He must not be Almighty. 46 00:02:48.825 --> 00:02:50.025 It's illogical. 47 00:02:50.725 --> 00:02:51.825 Why would he do that 48 00:02:52.025 --> 00:02:55.325 if he were almighty? Or some would say 49 00:02:55.325 --> 00:03:00.625 well, I don't want to be a part of a religion that that worships a 50 00:03:00.625 --> 00:03:06.925 cruel and a merciless tyrant that would put his own son to death, that 51 00:03:06.925 --> 00:03:07.825 that's just horrendous. 52 00:03:07.925 --> 00:03:08.225 Yes, 53 00:03:10.225 --> 00:03:13.425 there are many objections in, you've probably heard pretty much all of 54 00:03:13.425 --> 00:03:13.925 them. 55 00:03:14.925 --> 00:03:20.225 But I would say that the real reason why the Cross of Christ is such 56 00:03:20.325 --> 00:03:21.425 an offense to us. 57 00:03:21.425 --> 00:03:26.125 The real reason why human beings are so offended by the Cross of 58 00:03:26.125 --> 00:03:32.125 Christ, is because the Cross of Christ, offends human pride, which 59 00:03:32.125 --> 00:03:35.125 always seeks to justify itself. 60 00:03:36.225 --> 00:03:38.925 The cross means that you have to give up on yourself. 61 00:03:38.925 --> 00:03:40.625 It means you have to give up on your pride. 62 00:03:40.625 --> 00:03:43.125 It means you have to give up on your ego. 63 00:03:44.125 --> 00:03:48.625 The cross means that you were a poor miserable sinner dead in your 64 00:03:48.625 --> 00:03:52.425 trespasses and sin and there's nothing you can do about it. 65 00:03:53.125 --> 00:03:56.425 And that is painful for natural man to come to come to 66 00:03:56.425 --> 00:04:01.725 that realization is painful. The cross knocks all the props out from 67 00:04:01.725 --> 00:04:06.025 any religious system that tries to advocate a salvation that can be 68 00:04:06.025 --> 00:04:08.225 achieved through human merit. 69 00:04:09.425 --> 00:04:13.825 And that's why the gospel is offensive to Natural man, whether you are 70 00:04:13.825 --> 00:04:19.225 looking for powerful signs or philosophical wisdom or both its 71 00:04:19.225 --> 00:04:20.025 offensive. 72 00:04:20.425 --> 00:04:26.225 As Paul says, it's a scandalon a scandal, a stumbling block an 73 00:04:26.225 --> 00:04:26.925 offense. 74 00:04:29.425 --> 00:04:33.925 Well, today as you will have noticed in the worship folder it is 75 00:04:33.925 --> 00:04:38.225 Holy Cross day, and it's observed all around the world. 76 00:04:38.525 --> 00:04:42.725 Not always on this date, September 14th, but in many places it is. 77 00:04:42.725 --> 00:04:47.025 And for some reason in Latin America, it's observed on May 3rd, which 78 00:04:47.025 --> 00:04:48.425 I still do not know why. 79 00:04:48.425 --> 00:04:53.225 But in general, September 14th is the day for Holy Cross day. 80 00:04:54.225 --> 00:04:59.625 And some assert that it is a day to commemorate the story that Saint 81 00:04:59.625 --> 00:05:04.925 Helena, the mother of Constantine, the Great discovered, the Cross of 82 00:05:04.925 --> 00:05:05.325 Christ. 83 00:05:05.325 --> 00:05:09.625 When in 326, she made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and lo and behold, she 84 00:05:09.625 --> 00:05:11.625 discovered the Cross of Christ. 85 00:05:11.625 --> 00:05:15.025 And she also discovered the two crosses of the criminals who were 86 00:05:15.225 --> 00:05:16.525 crucified beside him. 87 00:05:17.725 --> 00:05:24.025 Well, I of course I was going to say also that then Constantine the 88 00:05:24.025 --> 00:05:28.525 Great eventually had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built on that 89 00:05:28.525 --> 00:05:29.125 spot. 90 00:05:30.325 --> 00:05:32.925 Well, there's a lot more that you can say to this story about all 91 00:05:32.925 --> 00:05:37.225 kinds of miracle that happened surrounding it. But I tend to agree 92 00:05:37.225 --> 00:05:37.825 with Dr. 93 00:05:37.825 --> 00:05:42.925 Schumacher that such stories are of somewhat dubious veracity. 94 00:05:43.525 --> 00:05:45.525 I'm not going to spend a lot more time on it. 95 00:05:46.325 --> 00:05:51.125 I'm not saying that Helena did not find some wood or maybe some 96 00:05:51.125 --> 00:05:54.825 crosses, but whether they were the it was the Cross of Christ, 97 00:05:54.825 --> 00:05:55.525 who knows. 98 00:05:57.425 --> 00:05:59.125 Yet it is certainly fitting 99 00:05:59.425 --> 00:06:04.025 I believe that we observe this day that we observe Holy Cross day 100 00:06:04.625 --> 00:06:09.125 because the holy cross marks the pivotal event really in the history 101 00:06:09.125 --> 00:06:10.225 of mankind. 102 00:06:10.925 --> 00:06:13.325 The Holy Cross is a powerful symbol 103 00:06:13.325 --> 00:06:17.925 and a reminder of the depth of God's love toward fallen humanity. 104 00:06:17.925 --> 00:06:23.825 Its the time in the place where God consummated, our salvation. 105 00:06:24.825 --> 00:06:28.425 And though it sounds like foolishness and it sounds like weakness. 106 00:06:28.925 --> 00:06:33.825 It's God's foolishness, which is wiser than man's wisdom and it is 107 00:06:33.925 --> 00:06:37.525 God's weakness, which is stronger than the strength of man. 108 00:06:39.025 --> 00:06:41.525 I kind of like the way one commentator, put it. 109 00:06:41.525 --> 00:06:48.225 He said compressed compressed in Cross the idea of the Cross whether 110 00:06:48.225 --> 00:06:53.725 that be spoken or written or looked at compressed in this idea of 111 00:06:53.725 --> 00:06:59.325 cross is a powerful message of Salvation, through Christ death. 112 00:07:01.225 --> 00:07:04.025 Like so many aspects of our theology 113 00:07:04.825 --> 00:07:06.925 it is quite a paradox, isn't it? 114 00:07:07.725 --> 00:07:08.625 In Paul's time 115 00:07:08.625 --> 00:07:10.325 it was a sharp paradox. 116 00:07:10.625 --> 00:07:13.525 Can you imagine him saying this kind of thing in that day and age 117 00:07:13.525 --> 00:07:17.625 where it was common to see, people who had been crucified in the first 118 00:07:17.625 --> 00:07:18.725 century context. 119 00:07:18.925 --> 00:07:20.925 It would have been the height of foolishness. 120 00:07:20.925 --> 00:07:24.925 The height of madness to say that you're going to boast in such a 121 00:07:24.925 --> 00:07:25.525 thing. 122 00:07:25.825 --> 00:07:30.325 The cross symbolized, a cruel and a vulgar and a shameful, 123 00:07:31.025 --> 00:07:34.525 shameful and humiliating death reserved for the worst criminals. 124 00:07:36.125 --> 00:07:40.225 But Paul says in another place that if he's going to boast, he's going 125 00:07:40.225 --> 00:07:42.725 to boast in the Cross of Christ. 126 00:07:43.925 --> 00:07:46.825 Foolishness, offensive 127 00:07:47.825 --> 00:07:52.625 but the power and the wisdom of God, that's why Luther called it a 128 00:07:52.625 --> 00:07:54.525 Theology of the Cross. 129 00:07:54.825 --> 00:08:00.125 It's the exact opposite of what natural man would expect from the 130 00:08:00.125 --> 00:08:01.925 almighty from Divinity. 131 00:08:01.925 --> 00:08:03.425 It's the exact opposite. 132 00:08:04.125 --> 00:08:06.025 When you contemplate the Cross of Christ 133 00:08:06.025 --> 00:08:08.125 there's no room for a Theology of Glory. 134 00:08:08.125 --> 00:08:11.925 There's no room certainly for any kind of prosperity theology. 135 00:08:13.725 --> 00:08:16.325 But what a measure of comfort 136 00:08:16.425 --> 00:08:21.925 it provides to us. What a measure of courage and confidence 137 00:08:21.925 --> 00:08:27.525 that it offers us. Paul says, at the end of today's reading, he says 138 00:08:27.525 --> 00:08:32.525 something like he says, because of the Cross of Christ you are in 139 00:08:32.625 --> 00:08:36.925 Christ Jesus because of the Cross of Christ, you are in Christ. 140 00:08:36.925 --> 00:08:41.025 Jesus who became to us, wisdom from God who became to us, 141 00:08:41.025 --> 00:08:42.725 righteousness, who became to us 142 00:08:43.025 --> 00:08:45.925 sanctification who became to us redemption. 143 00:08:46.625 --> 00:08:51.825 And he goes on, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast 144 00:08:51.825 --> 00:08:52.625 in the Lord. 145 00:08:53.725 --> 00:08:58.425 And Paul said another place far be it from me to boast except in the 146 00:08:58.425 --> 00:09:01.425 cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ. 147 00:09:03.525 --> 00:09:06.925 I think I have to refer to the hymn that we have just sung and 148 00:09:06.925 --> 00:09:09.225 especially the fourth verse. Where it is 149 00:09:09.225 --> 00:09:11.225 put so very poetically. 150 00:09:13.325 --> 00:09:15.025 Faithful cross true 151 00:09:15.025 --> 00:09:19.525 sign of triumph, be for all the noblest tree. 152 00:09:20.625 --> 00:09:23.025 None in foilage, none in blossom. 153 00:09:23.325 --> 00:09:25.025 None, in fruit they 154 00:09:25.025 --> 00:09:31.625 equal be. Symbol of the world's Redemption for the weight, that hung on 155 00:09:31.625 --> 00:09:35.825 thee. Beautiful words from the 6th century. 156 00:09:37.725 --> 00:09:43.925 Now I have noticed in kind of thinking about Holy Cross day that there 157 00:09:43.925 --> 00:09:49.225 are, there has been some vigorous debate on some of the Lutheran blogs 158 00:09:49.225 --> 00:09:54.425 that are out there about whether we should celebrate Holy Cross day. 159 00:09:54.425 --> 00:09:58.025 I've noticed some of the more liturgically correct 160 00:09:58.025 --> 00:10:01.625 and astute pastors will have a special service today. 161 00:10:01.625 --> 00:10:05.025 Perhaps they will have it around noon today or this evening in which 162 00:10:05.025 --> 00:10:07.625 they will invite their parishioners to come forward 163 00:10:07.825 --> 00:10:12.325 and kiss the cross in the chancel and there are others of course that 164 00:10:12.325 --> 00:10:14.725 objections say that that is not appropriate. 165 00:10:15.625 --> 00:10:17.325 I don't want to pronounce on that. 166 00:10:18.725 --> 00:10:23.225 But you know, I guess thinking about it, if there is one reason for 167 00:10:23.225 --> 00:10:25.925 not observing Holy Cross day. 168 00:10:25.925 --> 00:10:33.025 I think there is one reason and that is that the Cross of Christ is so 169 00:10:33.025 --> 00:10:36.925 significant to us and it's of such importance that it's really 170 00:10:36.925 --> 00:10:40.525 something that should not and cannot be reserved for one day. 171 00:10:41.225 --> 00:10:43.525 It needs to be observed every day. 172 00:10:43.525 --> 00:10:44.125 Does it not? 173 00:10:44.125 --> 00:10:47.925 It's a part of who we are and our faith in our source of confidence. 174 00:10:48.525 --> 00:10:50.225 Everyday should be Holy Cross day. 175 00:10:51.425 --> 00:10:54.825 In fact, I would say that it is for us every day is Holy Cross day. 176 00:10:55.325 --> 00:10:56.425 How can it not be? 177 00:10:57.125 --> 00:10:58.325 So I can see that 178 00:10:58.425 --> 00:11:00.125 for example, a couple of weeks ago 179 00:11:00.125 --> 00:11:04.725 we talked about Hannah in observed, a special day for Hannah and I can 180 00:11:04.725 --> 00:11:09.325 see a special day for other biblical people that we know about and 181 00:11:09.325 --> 00:11:13.025 some of the Saints of the past, but for something like the holy cross, 182 00:11:13.025 --> 00:11:15.925 it seems to me, it really needs to be observed 183 00:11:16.025 --> 00:11:18.425 every day, every day of our lives. 184 00:11:18.825 --> 00:11:20.025 That's the Christian Life 185 00:11:20.025 --> 00:11:20.725 is it not? 186 00:11:21.725 --> 00:11:25.625 So, if I'm going to boast, let it be in the cross of our Lord 187 00:11:25.625 --> 00:11:30.125 Jesus Christ. Foolishness, weakness 188 00:11:31.025 --> 00:11:36.725 no, it's the power of God, and the wisdom of God, whose ways are not 189 00:11:36.725 --> 00:11:37.425 our ways. 190 00:11:37.925 --> 00:11:40.625 Thanks be to God in Jesus name. 191 00:11:40.925 --> 00:11:41.525 Amen. 192 00:11:42.625 --> 00:11:45.525 And now May the peace of God, which passes all understanding. 193 00:11:45.525 --> 00:11:47.925 Keep our hearts and minds in the true faith 194 00:11:48.725 --> 00:11:53.225 in the Christ, who went the way of the cross for us, and for our 195 00:11:53.225 --> 00:11:54.025 Salvation. 196 00:11:54.725 --> 00:11:57.025 Amen.