Read: 1 Corinthians 2:1-12
“I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
The letters of Paul are the oldest texts in the New Testament. While stories contained in the Gospels must have been circulating orally during Paul’s time, his letters were probably penned at least a decade before the Gospels as we know them were authored. Strangely, despite writing closer to Christ’s life, Paul’s letters don’t have most of the Gospel stories which we most associate with Jesus. Aside from the institution of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11), the saying “love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal 5), and of course the crucifixion and resurrection, Paul says very little about Jesus’ life. Since he is writing to Christians, he may have expected his audience to know the stories. However, as he indicates here, this choice may also have theological meaning as well as historical significance.
Christian faith centers around the cross, it begins and ends and loops around to Jesus dying as a criminal and being raised from the dead. Our faith invests us in a God that offers an unspeakable, incomprehensible gift and that shows remarkable care for the suffering that people experience in our world. The cross keeps us tied to God’s care for each of us even among the darkest moments. At the cross, God is God even in these moments. Ernst Kasemann puts it this way: “[We are] called to discipleship of the Crucified, of the One who was the most despised and unworthy, who wished to help the lost, and who served scribes and Pharisees, harlots and tax collectors alike. Whoever does does not bear the image of the loving, gracious God who binds himself to the hopeless, poor, and outcasts–that person does not live the Gospel.”
Without the cross, the Christmas story would just be about a virgin birth, with the cross it is a remarkable testament to God’s closeness to humanity.
Without the cross, Jesus would just seem to be another ancient exorcist or healer, with it those exorcised demons are a small microcosm of the liberation of all of humanity.
Without the cross, Jesus would be just a moral teacher, but with it we find that knowledge is nothing without practice. Righteousness is as much as lived as it is learned. Indeed, lessons are nothing without God’s help to learn them and live them.
And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
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