Judging from my email, last week’s Rumblings – “Making Foolishness Real” – was better received than any since I started writing this column over 2 years ago. I’m tempted to follow that one with a sequel. Of course, that can be risky.
I remember enjoying the first Rocky with Sylvester Stallone. But then came the sequels. I may have watched Rocky II and Rocky III . . . but by the time they got to Rocky V or X – or however many they did – I mostly wanted somebody to just beat Rocky up and get it over with.
Thus, I realize the risk I run by writing part 2, but I think the risk is worth it. In fact, I may even keep on writing about the “foolishness of the Gospel” all the way to Easter, if I keep finding new things to say about it. Funny, but, at age 56, with two seminary degrees, I find that I have never intellectually or emotionally focused on the passage found in I Corinthians 1:18-25. Last Sunday was my first sermon from that text. I have just never thought much about Paul talking about the “foolishness of the Gospel,” but I have suddenly become fascinated by Paul’s concept.
This week, I want to begin by defining the “foolishness of the Gospel,” as I understand it. What Paul called “the foolishness of the Gospel” is the unconditional love, acceptance, and forgiveness offered by God and displayed most clearly and profoundly in Jesus’ death on the cross.
The cross is God crying out, through eternity, “I love you, every single one of you, this much.”
Why did Paul call the cross “foolishness”? Because it is so unlike anything else we experience in life. It is so contrary to human logic. We – especially WE Americans – are taught that we get what we deserve in life. If we are successful, we must have earned it, “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.” Poor people are poor because they deserve to be poor; rich people are rich because they earned it. Those of us who are relatively well-off look down on those who have less than we do.
We want what we believe is coming to us. We are taught and relish “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” – as long as it’s not our own eyes or teeth that are at issue. If we have been done wrong, we hold onto our anger and resentment as long as we can and even revel in it.
But then comes the scandal of the cross. It is foolishness, because it turns on its head all of the logic and “common sense” that we hold dear. The cross is God doing what we cannot do for ourselves! We cannot save ourselves; we cannot earn God’s love and forgiveness. The cross is a scandal and foolishness, because it is God giving us life eternal and a relationship with Him forever. And all we have to do is accept it. All we have to do is stop trying to earn God’s favor and simply accept the love that we could never earn. It’s a gift – utter foolishness to our way of thinking. But that’s what makes it so real.
And how do we share it? One person at a time. My great friend, David Sapp, pastor of Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, Atlanta, wrote an awesome article for the latest issue of the Logsdon Seminary journal Window. David wrote about the human part of the foolishness of the Gospel:
“The incarnation did not end with Jesus. . . . Paul also taught us that God had also promised to indwell all those who believe. God was still communicating His Word to a lost world, Paul said, by means of a letter written on the ‘fleshly table of the heart’ (KJV).
“Most of us know this is true even if we have never thought about it, because we first encountered God through another person. It may have been a pastor or a dear Christian friend. It may have been a parent; but few have ever come into the faith through any other means than a firsthand involvement with a person who is a follower of Christ.”
Remember Penny in the book Blue Like Jazz, whom I quoted in last week’s column? Penny accepted Christ after she realized that “if I met Jesus, He would like me.” But what led her to that revelation? A Christian friend, who took the time to read Matthew’s account of the Gospel with her.
You know, the foolishness is real, and how we share it really never changes. Think about it. Live it. Share it.