God’s Foolishness

Summary

I love history.  To me it is a never ending string of fascinating stories, filled with interesting characters, odd circumstances, choices for good and ill, and the effects of the natural world upon humanity.  Since the world is filled with so much history, you cannot obviously know it all, and so, there is always something to learn, there is always another story to discover.

So, with all of that said, I have to admit, I do not know much about France’s history, and only the barest facts of the French Revolution, and the period that followed, which is known as, The Reign of Terror.  With that said, there is one thing that I do know a little about, and recently learned more of, a thing that symbolizes that time period in France.

Of what am I speaking?  Yes, the guillotine.

Now, I am not going to get into specific details here, but for those who do not know what the guillotine was, I need to briefly explain.  It was a basic machine of execution.  It caused death by swift decapitation, and it became infamous by its use during the French revolution in 1789 and the years following.  It’s two most famous victims were King Louis the 16th of France, and his Austrian wife, the Queen Marie Antionette.  Marie Antionette’s popularity dropped when upon being told the common people had no bread, famously, and naively uttered, “Let them eat cake.”

I want to give you a bit of background about why the guillotine was created and so widely used during this period.

Doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin, spelled without the last ‘e’ of the famous machine, was a member of Paris’s council at that time and was working towards eventually ending the execution of prisoners.  The first step he believed was to make it more swift, and thus humane, and causing less trauma to the person being put to death, and the family, or public watching (which they did back then, prior to Netflix).  By the way he also argued for private executions, so the public could not attend at all, though no one at the time agreed with him.

Anyway, because of Doctor Guillotin’s advocacy of this new technological advancement in the execution business, the people came to call the machine, the Guillotine, with an ‘e’ at the end.  Then as it became the symbol of France’s Reign of Terror, through its frequent use, the doctor’s name itself, became tarnished.

In fact Doctor Guillotin’s family formally requested that France choose another name for the machine, but it was too late, the name had stuck.  So, the family in the end, changed their own name to remove themselves from association with the infamous symbol of the Reign of Terror, the ‘guillotine’.

By this point in what seems more like a history lesson than a sermon you must be asking yourselves, where is Pastor Joel heading with this?

Well, let me ask you a question, not a rhetorical one, but a question that I actually want you to answer.  How many crosses can you see from where you are sitting?

Seriously, take a moment and look around.  Who ever sees the most can have a treat downstairs following the service.  How many do you see?

Anyone?

[pause for answers]

Okay, now let me ask you another question, this one is rhetorical.  So, kids that means you can answer this one in your mind, but not aloud like the last question.

What do you think of, when you see a cross?  What does the cross symbolize for you? How does the cross make you feel?  Think about these questions for a moment.

To me, it differs a bit depending upon where it is, what it looks like, etc.  If I see a cross on a rooftop I think, ‘church.’  If I see a cross on a necklace around someone’s neck, I think, ‘Christian.’  If I see a cross on a flag I think, ‘historical church-state’.  If I see a cross within a sanctuary I think, ‘worship’.  If I look on my desk and see my hand-cross, I think, ‘prayer’.  If I see a crucifix, a cross with the figure of Jesus hanging upon it, I think, ‘Jesus died for me’.

A cross can symbolize many things, for each person, and even more when you take in the reactions of many.  Yet, for anyone living within the bounds of the Roman Empire during Jesus’ time, the cross really only symbolized one thing, execution.  Death upon a cross was a long and excruciating experience too.

Like the beholder’s axe or sword, the rope on the gallows, the stake, or bonfire, or later on  like the guillotine in France, or the electric chair in America, the Roman cross, was the means of public execution by the authorities.  It was an infamous symbol that had nothing good about it, for the Roman terror, lasted much longer, and was much wider spread than that of the French Revolution.

So, when Paul writes in Corinthians, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” he is pointing out the difference between logic and faith.

It is very true that the people of Paul’s day who were non-believers scoffed at the idea that life, eternal life, could come by means of the cross, for the cross simply meant death to them.  Yet to one whom believed in Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the cross did mean death, but also the defeat of the power of death through Jesus’ resurrection to new life.  So, for those first believers, and believers on down the years right up ’til today, the meaning of the cross was changed because of God’s power evidenced in Jesus upon that cross, ‘cause Jesus didn’t stay dead!

People scoff at the idea that God came to die for us, when God could simply have changed things as God wanted them to be through God’s omnipotent power.  And yeah, God could have, and thus made puppets of us all.  For to have simply changed the world in that way, would have destroyed human will.  We would have lost the possibility of choice, and thus of joy, and love.

So, God decided to come into the midst of humanity in a way that would allow us to find even greater joy, and know the deepest love, by meeting us in the human experience, which we call life.  God in his wisdom knew how to best meet us in a way in which we could truly understand him…as a human, a man.  Yet he did not come in strength as a conqueror, nor with cunning as a politician, nor in wealth, as a powerful patron, but rather he came as an everyman, a carpenter-rabbi.  He came in earthly weakness, with the foolish plan to ultimately be executed for our sake, so as to save us from our sins.

“For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

Jesus came to live amongst the people, and to die upon the cross so that we might understand what true, and deep love is, and thus know real life.  For to live without love, is to not truly live at all.  As Jesus said in John 10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Believe in Jesus, live your life in faith that in his death upon the cross, he has destroyed the eternal power of sin, and so, Jesus gives you life.  Accept his gift, for there is nothing you can do to earn it.  You can never be good enough, righteous enough, or holy enough, but you are beloved enough by God, to receive the good gift Jesus gives…life, and life abundantly.

Open your heart in faith, and live!

Amen.

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