Good Friday and Beyond: The Word of the Cross

"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" -1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV).

In his book, The Cross and Christian Ministry, D.A. Carson writes the following regarding the cross:

"What would you think if a woman came to work wearing earrings stamped with an image of the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima? What would you think of a church building adorned with a fresco of the massed graves of Auschwitz? Both visions are grotesque. They are not only intrisically abhorrant, but are shocking because of the powerful cultural associations. The same sort of shocked horror was associated with the cross and crucifixion in the first century...Yet, today crosses adorn our buildings and letterheads, grace our biships, shine from lapels, and dangle from our ears--and no one is scandalized. It is this cultural distance from first century that makes is so hard for us to feel the compelling irony of 1
Corinthians 1:18."

Although the message of the cross is foolishness, it is the message that we must proclaim. We can trust God's wisdom because He has, in the words of N.T. Wright: "reversed the world's values. He has done the impossible. He has turned shame to glory and glory to shame. His is the folly that outsmarts the wise, the weakness that overpowers the strong."

The cross (and Jesus) may seem to be foolishness to those who are pershishing in sin, but it is the power of God to those of us who are being saved. Pray that the Lord will give you opportunity to proclaim the gospel to others this week. Pray that the cross, Jesus and the resurrection will no longer appear as foolishness to them. Pray that they will be given eyes to see the wisdom of God.