A Holy Tuesday Reflection

1 Corinthians 1
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.
. . .

Where is the debater of this age? He's right here. Typing.

I have never ceased to have questions about this ancient faith, even though it has come to be "what I do" as a pastor. I have tried to engage all the intellectual arguments against Christianity. I have taken seriously the valid accusations against the Church and her tendency toward power and the corruption it breeds. Even now, I could chew nails thinking about the problems of the American Church, but I can do little more than try to be a different American church at 2104 Old Buncombe Road with you.

What I have found, despite all the doubts that have nagged me, is that the cross with God himself hung upon it makes no sense at all and yet it makes the absolute best sense of everything. What I mean is, it doesn't explainanyone into faith, really. It's not the answer or the "aha" simply because, fully understood, it coherently addresses the perennial struggle humans have to put goodness, truth and beauty at the center of our common life - or even our own lives, for that matter.

But the cross does indeed continue to draw people to to divine love and healing. To trust. To a place of absolute dependence when all our arguments have run out and our debates have ended with only fragile and fleeting peace. The cross is still wiser than the wisdom we can stuff into the tiny constructs we confuse with omniscience, the confidence we get by on so long as we still believe we have real control and progress.

The cross is not a concept or an explainer, really, though its meaning is rich. The cross is the place and time in history where the love of God was irrevocably and irreversibly poured out for Jews and Gentiles. It's a flow that cannot be reversed and a fact that cannot be explained out of history. It is the "through-line" for an otherwise wobbly world. It is still saving, even if it makes no sense.

We have our doubts. The Church has her failures. The debates rage. But in spite of us, the cross will never lose its power. It will hold on to us and the whole world even when we feel our grip is loosening. That's why I still believe. That's why anyone does, really. Because of its wisdom and power, not yours or mine.