The Controversy of the Cross Part 1

I Corinthians 1:18-25

The controversy about the cross is an ongoing battle between the world and the church, between the secular and the sacred, between the unbelieving and the believing. What is wise? What is foolish?

Mel Gibson produced The Passion of the Christ, a graphic motion picture portrayal of the last 12 hours in the life of Christ.  Believing Christians from a variety of faith traditions defend the motion picture for its Biblical and historical accuracy.  But Mel Gibson had to fund the $25 million movie out of his own pocket, because Hollywood studios feared controversy surrounding it.  They wouldn’t even nominate it for significant Academy Awards. The cross was foolish to many critics.

In God’s eyes, being beaten beyond recognition by a Roman legionnaire, tried and found guilty by an illegal, fixed court, brutally dragged the streets of the nation’s capital, and shamefully crucified on a cruel cross, is really wise.  In God’s eyes, becoming the sin sacrifice for the world, a crucified Savior, and being raised from death to life on the third day, is wisdom.

For two thousand years the cross has been controversial, and it continues to be.  Believers embrace the cross.  Doubters deny it, or even worse, replace it with a pretend cross that cost Christ nothing, and demands nothing of us in return.  A. W. Tozer wrote, “The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.”

“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (I Corinthians 1:18).

Jesus prophesied that the cross would be controversial.

“But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” ((Luke 12:50-53 NKJV)  

The cross was an ancient method of torture and capital punishment.  It was originally developed by the Persians, and later borrowed by the Romans.  The Romans perfected the art of death by crucifixion and used it throughout their empire.  Crucifixion was used to eliminate the dregs of society: thieves and insurrectionists. 

Yet the cross remains controversial!  Consider the varied audiences to the cross. Everyone from the Jews, the Greeks, Jesus, and we ourselves, has an opinion about the cross.

What was the Jews’ response to the message of the cross?  Sensation!

“Show me a Miracle!”

“Heal me!” Cast out my son’s demon!

“Raise my dead child to life!”

“Throw Rome out of Israel and reign over us as a political Messiah!”

“Amuse me!”

And at the end: “The Messiah wouldn’t die as a weakling!”  And when He died, many of the Jews construed His life and even His death as foolishness.

“If you are the Messiah of God, come down from the cross. Throw the Roman bums out. Make a kingdom of Israel once again.”

To the Jews, the cross was foolishness and a stumbling block.