My pastor preached this sermon on Sunday, and I thought it was apropos.
The Third Sunday in Lent
1 Corinthians 1:23-24
Christ Crucified
... but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:2324, ESV)
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, dear saints of Christ,
I heard tell that for a message to be communicated it must be repeated at least three times and so I say to you, we preach Christ crucified, thats one. We preach Christ crucified, thats two and finally we preach Christ crucified, thats three. Did you get the message? You must because Christ crucified is the power of God taking away your sins, giving you the Holy Spirit and filling you with the hope of bodily resurrection to eternal life in Christ Jesus.
First off pay attention to what Paul does NOT say. He does not say we preach crucifixion. God forbid that we should dwell on a form of execution. To do so would be a form of voyeurism and would do you no good. It is the person being crucified that matters. It is the nature of the body that is on the cross that we preach. That body on the cross is the sinless, spotless, guileless Lamb of God. He is true God begotten of the Father from eternity and true man born of the Virgin Mary. The method of His death is secondary. His sinless body is primary.
His sinless body had to be drained of His sinless blood so that your contaminated body and blood might be made pure. A blood exchange had to take place, good blood for bad blood and that blood was drained from His sacred body by the method of crucifixion. His blood coming into you changes your DNA and now you are a saint through the blood.
By the way, just an aside, this is why I am so happy that Bethlehem has a crucifix behind the altar and not a cross. Crucifix means a body on a cross while cross is mere wood. To hold before you a piece of wood and to say that it saves you from your sins would be a lie. It is the flesh and blood body nailed to the wood that matters and why it was nailed matters.
Go over to that first reading for today, the Ten Commandments and hear again these words,
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (Exodus 20:4, ESV)
Since the entrance of sin into your body and mind it is your drift to draft for yourselves gods. Egypt had their deities, the sun, the river, animals such as bulls. I was once talked into investing in rare and ancient art and purchased a little bronze bull from one of the early Egyptian dynasties. That bull was once a household god that a family worshipped. They made that bull and kowtowed to it because they needed a bull to reproduce cattle which were important for food and for work. And so to meet that need they created a god in the image what they needed.
In Romans chapter one Paul describes your idol making drift. Paul writes,
Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:2223, ESV)
The Lord your God strictly forbids making images (remember the gold calf) because they become that in which you put your trust and having an actual image or icon prevents you from obtaining a true image and icon of the true God.
Saints the true icon of God has come and it is the flesh and blood of Jesus. Hebrews says He is the icon of the living God, the true visible impression of the one true and living God. That is the image, the icon toward which your trust must be directed.
Just as an aside it was that very commandment forbidding icons that enraged the Jews against Jesus. He claimed to be God and that meant God has an image and that image is the Lord Jesus. Jesus said, If you have seen me you have seen the Father. The Jews understood the import of those words and they stumbled over that icon and crucified their God.
But it is also a stumbling block to you because you would rather have a god that you create, that is visible to you and subject to your whims. And so the common icon that is worshipped in America is the dollarcon with its all seeing eye and with a creed In God We Trust. You bow down to for the same reason that an Egyptian family bowed down to the bull. You need money to survive.
Saints the true icon of the true God has come in the flesh and blood of Jesus and the icon that above all must hold your gaze, your affections, and your faith is the icon of Christ but not just any Christ. Last Sunday I fingered several false Christs that are present in our society and I must warn you again to be on high alert against false Christs and to say not to them. The icon of Christ you must bow before is Christ crucified. Only that Christ takes away your sins, gives the Holy Spirit and assures you of the resurrection of the body to life everlasting.
Let me say a practical word about icons. Yes Moses strictly forbade the making of icons, idols and rightly so because the true icon of God had not yet arrived but that icon, Christ crucified, has come and now you can make use of icons as an aid to faith. You are physical beings. You have eyes and what comes into your being through the eye will imprint itself on you and impact your faith. You will be imprinted either with a false Christ or the true one and so using icons such as a crucifix may useful for your faith. Note I say may be useful and I do not say NECESSARY. No one is commanded to use icons nor is anyone forbidden to use them. Each of you must decide for yourself what is needful for you. I come into the sanctuary nearly every day and sometimes several times a day and I look at the crucifix icon. I do that to imprint on my inner being the true Christ, the one in whom I put all confidence.
Then come back to this, we preach Christ crucified. Listen very sharply, preaching is a form of icon making. Thats right! I am a maker of idols, icons and use words to make them. To the Galatians Paul wrote these words,
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. (Galatians 3:1, ESV)
Paul used words to create a portrait, an icon and that icon is Christ crucified. You have freedom when it comes to using material icons. You can take away the crucifix, the stain glass windows, the paraments and have a building with four white washed walls and a pulpit if you like but in preaching I am not at liberty to abandon the icon. I must paint into your being the icon of Christ crucified for that icon is the power of God for your salvation. Amen!
Is he from Oz? No, he's American. This is pretty common in the music industry, especially among rappers and hip hop artists.
