A Word of Foolishness :: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

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Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord /
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored /

You know it, and you love it, don’t you? Especially on a day like today! 

Oh, how we love to glory in our glory! 

Being a Marine Corps veteran myself, on a Fourth of July Sunday no less, I couldn’t help but spend far too much time this week learning about the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Thankfully, you won’t find this song in the Lutheran Service Book. I thought I might find it in The Lutheran Hymnal (you know, the red book), or maybe even Lutheran Worship (the blue one), but I was pleased to discover it was in neither. 

The problem with the Battle Hymn is, when you start reading it, you discover Julia Ward Howe’s Civil War song is actually rife with a theology of glory. 

We Lutherans, on the other hand, preach Christ crucified, to Jews a scandal and to Gentiles foolishness. We proclaim the theology of the cross. 

TO THOSE OF US BEING SAVED, THIS WORD OF THE CROSS IS THE POWER OF GOD, FOR HIS GLORY, NOT OURS; FOR OUR GOOD, NOT HIS

1.

The theology of OUR glory, though, is far more appealing to us because it always makes us feel better about ourselves. We LOVE our theology of glory. We love to feel good about ourselves, don’t we? ... to keep track of our contributions to the world. We relish our triumphs over suffering and oppression, and pain and anxiety. We love telling ourselves that our triumphs are signs from God that he is on our side. This is the theology of glory. 

When people say things like, God made me this way ... so I should be proud of what I am ... they’re embracing a theology of glory. When people say ... Look at what we can do: make a decision for Christ. ... Look at who I can be: How I have dedicated my life to Christ ... or that now “we can make men free” as Ward wrote in the Battle Hymn (LBW, 332, st. 3) ... we are embracing a theology of our glory. 

Instead, we preach Christ crucified. We preach the theology of the cross.

Theologians of glory are moralists, rationalists, and mysticists, or some combination thereof. They think they can become good enough to satisfy God’s righteous law. They believe that you can find God through your reason and senses, and that once you find him you will be right with him. They convince themselves that those tingles up your spine mean the holy spirit is with you. We love our thoughts, reasons, and feelings ... our theology of glory.

Yes, it’s natural for us to embrace these wisdoms of the world ... because, naturally ... we are theologians of glory. We hate to admit that we need to humble ourselves, that we’re helpless and have a problem with sin. We hate to speak of sin. We are frightened to confess even one sin out of fear that we will lose our glory. We then ignore sin and overlook it in our lives, silencing it and paying lip service to it. We turn our attention to everyone else’s sin, saying, Glory, glory, hallelujah! Thank God, I’m not like the other guy.

We then begin defining God with our own terms, and creating God in our own glory, reducing God to our own concept of what we think he should be, how he should interact with us. We start reinterpreting what he has said, molding and shaping it to fit our theology of glory. We then start thinking that this is “OUR” service to God and not the Divine Service ... that is, God’s service to us and that he freely delivers to us the forgiveness of sins in both word and sacrament. 

We do this ... because at our root ... we are theologians of ... 

GLORY, GLORY, HALLELUJAH! “Our” truth goes marching on.

2.

So brothers and sisters in Christ, hear the words of Saint Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth ... and repent everyone of you in the name of Jesus.

For the word ... the one of the cross .... is foolishness to those who are being destroyed, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God (v.18).

3. 

This theology of glory that we perpetuate is in the background of Paul’s thought as he writes his first epistle to the Corinthians. Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth is rich in the theology of the cross. It is addressed to a church that is divided. But it has an application for all of us. 

Paul exhorts the Corinthian Christians, who considered themselves to be quite religious, to unite in one faith, one hope, one love around God’s Word and Sacraments, which work together in the Theology of the Cross. Word and Sacraments are united ... each leading to the others.

He starts with the proclamation of the word, which quite naturally leads us to the administration of the sacraments, most notably baptism and the Lord’s Supper ... both of which appear weak and foolish to the world around us. 

These means of grace are the power of God for our good and his glory. The baptism God pours out upon you does, in fact, save you. It’s for your good; it gives you saving faith. And the Lord’s Supper does, in fact, deliver to you the forgiveness of sins while nourishing that faith that God gave you to begin with in preparation of his glory on the cross. Our Lord Jesus says take and eat. Take and drink. Do this as often as you can! It will bring the congregation together and it will proclaim Christ crucified until he comes.

4.

The theology of Christ crucified for you became a stumbling block to the Jews because they longed for an earthly Messiah who would free them from the oppression of their neighbors. They longed for a theology of glory that executes temporal justice on their behalf. 

Sadly, they failed to see how in Christ’s humiliation that their sin was being nailed to his cross, and that in his all-atoning sacrifice of body and blood is still being given for the forgiveness of their sins. Instead they saw only a threat to their way of life, to their customs, to their practices, to their man-made theology of glory that you can receive forgiveness too often. 

The Jews could certainly chant with the best of them ... just like we spoke in the Introit ... Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! But all the theologians of glory looked past the cross that answered their prayers. They refused to believe the sign they had finally received ... that our Lord Jesus literally embodied the scriptures ... that he is the Word made flesh ... that he died on the cross to appease the full wrath of God for the sins of the entire world, and just as importantly, that he rose from the dead to deliver to you and me the promise of everlasting life to all who keep faith in Jesus. 

This theology of the cross is just foolishness to the theologians of glory who relish their wisdom and zeal for all kinds of learning, saying to themselves: If I just mine the scriptures, I can grow in wisdom and knowledge of the man God wants me to be. Then in our selective reading, we get to decide how we can receive the forgiveness of sins. 

5.

Having consigned all man’s attempts to weakness and foolishness, God allows himself be grasped only by the faith he imparts through his word so that no man may boast. As Paul writes: For whereas, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was well pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who have faith. Faith comes through hearing this theology of the cross; and faith then receives the sacraments for the forgiveness of sins. 

Beyond faith there is nothing else, no other way to discover God. God instead reveals himself to us in word and sacrament through the true Divine Service, where we receive the fullness of the theology of the cross ... God’s service of word and sacrament to you.

The world thinks our crucified Lord giving us his body and blood to eat and to drink is utter foolishness. You know people just like this. They say how can Christ who ascended into heaven give us the body he sacrificed on the cross and the blood he shed to eat and drink at this altar? 

To the world, the word of Christ in the upper room is just an artifact. But to those of us who are being saved, we hear and believe the present reality of Christ’s living and active word for us. The good news of the theology of the cross proclaims that ... here ... at the foot of this chancel ... God comes to us and delivers his Gospel to us ... that in this meal that he has prepared for you ... you receive the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Here in this sacrament, we literally see the theology of the cross in action. For as often as we eat this drink and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor 11:26).


Brothers and sisters in Christ: This is Pure Gospel. This theology of the cross is the sum of all the scriptures. It has everything we need. Through the cross, Jesus has shown us the way to life eternal. Through the cross, he has exercised his righteousness to atone for our unrighteousness. Through the cross, he reveals the wisdom and signs and wonders of God. Through the cross, we return to baptism and go to the Lord’s Supper. Through the cross, God builds our faith in Christ as we pass from death to eternal life. 

Embrace the word of cross. It isn’t foolish. It is for your good and God’s glory. 

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