But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness. 1 Corinthians 1:23
Paul’s statement about the difficulties people have in accepting the message of a crucified Lord is a lament, not a call to action. If the cross is problematic to understand, may it be so for the right reasons and not because we have obscured it.
The cross should seem like foolishness to anyone enamored with power, who thinks winning is always at the expense of others, whose mantra is “blessed are the violent”, or who views everything as competition. We need to stumble over the shocking reversals of our expectations and typical inhuman ways of thinking.
Paul did not try to remove the stumbling block for Jews or the foolishness for Gentiles. The beauty, goodness, and truth of the cross is profoundly portrayed within a garb that can trip us up or seem ridiculous when our perspectives have yet to be converted. Weakness never impresses.
But sometimes well-meaning Christians have made the message of Christ and his cross seem foolish and an impediment unnecessarily. When the story we tell about what is happening through the cross is not the mystery of divine love revealed, but rather asserts that perfect love delights in cruelty, demands death, and wills suffering for its own satisfaction, the cross is truly made into something absurd.
If people stumble over that presentation of the cross, find it foolish and nonsensical, it is not the fulfillment of what Paul was talking about but indicative that those stumbling are more spiritually attuned to love than Christians who believe in a God who demands a crucifixion for a debt he is owed.
Humanity, driven by evil desires, is saying “crucify him,” not God. The cross represents the limitless ends to which God goes to love and forgive us, no matter what we do to him. Only through the cross is the full love of God revealed, fulfilling Jesus’ work of showing us the Father.
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Hebrews 2:14-15
Rather than the cross being a debt paid by Jesus to his Father on our behalf, God in Jesus pays our debt to death, defeating death by death, and the one who holds us in its power, the Devil. This is only a stumbling block if the goodness of the cross is unexpected, and foolishness to those who expect power to look different than love.
To everyone who has a taste of selfless love, the cross is the confirmation that a goodness and beauty we intuitively believe exists, or hope might, does in fact permeate all things! Love triumphs over hate by remaining true to itself even in the worst circumstances.