Part2:  When We Are Weak

You may ask why we are talking about the cross and what that has to do with church being a safe place for imperfect people (sinners) to gather in humility and worship God. Church is meant to be a place where we can come just as we are without having to pretend we are something that we aren’t and experience acceptance when we feel tired and confused. It is the place where God’s people come and are reminded of God’s grace and mercy. It is the understanding of the cross and its work in our lives that allows this to happen in the church.

The cross represents weakness and death. We have a natural aversion to weakness and all that death represents. I mean who boasts in one’s weakness? In fact, we elevate those who shamelessly promote themselves. We are looking for power and strength! Consequently, we don’t hear a lot of preaching about the cross and its way. We would much rather hear about ways to improve ourselves and something that makes us feel uplifted. But there is no avoiding the cross in one’s walk with Jesus. Let’s read what Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

2Cor. 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I never hear anyone boast in their weaknesses. When was the last time you heard someone glory in his or her weaknesses? It is all about strength, success, and achieving.

I never hear anyone boast in their weaknesses. Generally, we are moaning and complaining about our weaknesses.

I never hear anyone boast in their weaknesses. Instead it is about denying their weaknesses, avoiding the acknowledgement of their weaknesses, pretending that they don’t have weaknesses, anything but to face them and embrace them.

We work hard trying to be strong, powerful, and successful or at least giving the impression that we are. But Paul writes: it is in my weakness that I am strong. Somehow, we don’t really believe that! The church doesn’t really believe that. As we gaze upon the cross and allow it to do its work in our lives, we become more gracious around others, our private kingdoms and agendas grow strangely dim, and we find we are more focused on what is truly important to God and His kingdom instead of trying to convince God of our purposes.

And when a congregation captures this, it is a safer place to be, a kinder and more accepting place to be. So let us not run from the cross in our lives, but turn and allow the cross to do its work in our lives.

Part 1: Our Aversion to the Cross

Our premise has been that church is meant to be a safe place where we discover the mercy and grace of God through His Son Jesus Christ. However, for many this has not been the case. Instead, too often church has become a place where we must put our best face on and pretend it is all going well. Church can become a place, where instead of being included and feeling understood, we feel excluded and misunderstood. I believe one of the reasons for this comes down to something that is suspiciously missing in much of the church: the preaching of the cross. The following is part 1 in a series entitled The Road Less Traveled.

The mere mention of the cross can make us somewhat uneasy because we want a gospel that makes us feel powerful, that makes us feel stronger, that underscores our personal strength and ambition, and that enables us to exert our will and shape life the way we see fit. We want a gospel that lifts us up and makes us feel better about ourselves. We want a gospel that exchanges our weakness for power, our hardships for comfort and our suffering for prosperity. We want a gospel that erases our limitations. We want the resurrection without the cross. We want Sunday without Friday. What we want is a religion. But the cross is not only non-religious, it is irreligious. The cross is scandalous.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth: 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. … For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. 1 Corinthians 1:18, 22, 23 ESV

The word in 1 Corinthians 1:23 for stumbling block in the Greek is scandalon; it is the word we get scandal/scandalous from and it can also be translated as offense as in Galatians 5:11. The cross is at the heart of the Christian faith, but to both Jew and Greek it was scandalous, it was offensive, yet for different reasons. For the Jew, death by hanging was the outward sign in Israel of being cursed by God. (Deuteronomy 21:23) It meant that the person hung had broken the Mosaic Law, and this law-breaking brought both curse and punishment. For the Gentile, the stumbling block, the offense of the cross was that the whole notion of the cross was foolishness. That God would ever allow himself to be pushed out of the world and suffer the humiliation of crucifixion was completely absurd. The cross was reserved for political insurrectionists, criminals and slaves. Why would God ever allow himself to be crucified as a common criminal or slave?

It is really no different today. Religious people are offended by the cross because it represents weakness and powerlessness and is the exact opposite of what they expect from God. For the religious man it is all about if he does it right enough then he will not suffer, will not face hardship, will not experience weakness or disappointment. And of course the secular mind is looking for proofs and data and arguments. Interestingly enough neither one wants anything to do with the cross, but here is the rub, even though we want to avoid the cross in our lives, “It is in the crucifixion that the nature of God is truly revealed,”[1] and without the cross there is no grace. I’ll put a comma right here and continue my musings next week. Thanks for taking the time to read them. Until then….

[1] Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2015), 44

Last week I wrote that most people fail to grasp that the church is made up of sinners. I am focusing here on people who attend church because they are looking for a safe haven, a place of comfort in difficult times, a place to worship from the heart – they are looking for Jesus. However, they are often taken aback to discover people who are rude and controlling, bitter and unforgiving in the church. They are surprised when people are dealing with abandonment issues, are fearful, or struggle to trust. People think that church is filled with people who have it all together – who are like Christ: without sin. Now, as a pastor (though you don’t need to be a pastor to be aware of this), this notion could not be further from the truth. People in church can be petty, insecure, angry, greedy, ambitious, hungry for power, self-centered, selfish, prejudiced, judgmental and unforgiving. But, they can also be magnanimous, profoundly secure, gracious, generous, selfless, kind, loving, accepting, forgiving and merciful. Church is a mixed bag.

We expect Christians to be just like Jesus: sinless and perfect. However, walking with Christ, being transformed by his presence and work in our lives, is a process. When we put our trust in the faithfulness of Christ, the Spirit of God works in such a way as to transform us to be more like Christ – not Christ, but more like Christ than we were when we first met Him. Keep this in mind with any church you may attend. The real problem arises when we as Christians deny our sinfulness, are indifferent about allowing the Spirit to shape our lives, and are foolish enough to think no one can see our dysfunctions.

I have often wondered why Twelve Step Programs and programs such as Celebrate Recovery have such a freedom in their gatherings. I believe it is because everyone is working from the same premise – an acknowledgment of their powerlessness over an addiction, their powerlessness over sin. There is no sense in pretending or posturing as though his or her life is together – everyone already knows it’s not. Their mess is in the open; there is no hiding. The repercussions of this type of honesty can be humiliating, but it can also be liberating. When a person is finally honest about their sin, it allows them to see how deep the love of God is for them and how powerful it is to be truly accepted just as you are. Also, they find themselves being able to extend the very grace given to them by God to others who are struggling with their own issues.

Over the years, I have learned that one can only love to the depth they have experienced being loved. The same is true of grace – one can only extend grace to the depth they have experienced grace. A loveless and ungracious brand of Christianity stems from not understanding or experiencing the depth and breadth of God’s love and forgiveness. For those of us who share the word it is helpful to heed the words of the pastor Johnny Ray Youngblood who said, “God sends sinful men to preach to sinful men. I’m just another beggar, tellin’ other beggars where to find bread.” [1]

Until next time…

[1] Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2015), 22