Photo courtesy of my friend, Mahin (taken in Penang recently)

Makkal Sakti

I wrote the below last year 2007 for FES's World Students' Day...

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“Sleeves Rolled Up”

The Cross, Power and Wisdom

First a few words about epistles, or rather letters, in the Bible.

In many ways, they appear to us as one-sided documents. In other words, we only hear half the stories when we look into say the Pauline or Johannine letters. All of them, of course including the one we are studying right now, were written in response to a specific issue, intended for a specific audience in a specific time and situation.

Without the benefits of knowing the context of the letters, we will not have the pleasure of understanding fully what Paul or John or Peter meant in their letters. Some of you are right to think that that was a call to Bible Study - Friday 8.30pm.

Back to our passage, how did Paul ended up talking about the Cross, about Power and about Wisdom?

If you would read again from v10 up to v17, you will notice that Paul was making comments about, of all thing, the terrible and dreaded church politics, within the Corinth congregation. People were showing off to one another who their "sifu" was, they were grouping into camps, I follow this "tai loh" and you follow that "tai loh", they were quarelling, they were jealous of one another, they were "competiting spiritualness", they were comparing, they were trying to outsmart one another- I am from the Paul-gang (the 13th apostle!), someone else will said I am from the Apollos-gang (the great professor of NT theology!), and someone else came and say, away all of you, I am from the Christ-gang.

This quarrel and power play were to be the dominant concern of Paul's letter, appearing again and again, first here in chapter 1 and then again in Chap 3 and again in Chap 12.

It was within this context of quarrel and power-play that Paul began to invite the church to contemplate about Jesus on the Cross as the exemplar of real Power and Wisdom.

If I ask today, What sort of idea comes to your mind when you think about the Cross? From a different perspective I may receive a different answer:

A christian may perhaps say, The Cross is a symbol of christianity. Some place it prominently in the church as an icon, some wear it around the neck and yet some others will say that the cross is the sort of god-ordained burden we need to carry as we follow Jesus. But overall, it has a religious connotation.

A youngster, especially those from the rapping and hip-hop community, may wear a huge cross as some sort of accessory or fashion statement. It has a cultural connotation

And to a muslim, especially to those the likes of YB Syed Hood Syed Edros, UMNO MP for Parit Sulong, the cross in a former missionary school is at best the symbol of western domination, a reminder of our colonial days and at worst the symbol of a corrupted religion. Again it has a religious and perhaps socio-historical connotation.

But what does the symbol of the Cross evoke during Jesus' time in Palestine?

First of all, it was definitely not a fashion statement and definitely no one in her sane mind would wear a cross pendant around her neck. Why? Because whether to a Jew or to a Roman, and more especially so to a Jew, the Cross was a symbol of vulgarity. It was an offensive thing. In fact one historian even went to the extent to say that "you don't mention the word "stauros" in polite company" - it's not the sort of words you wanna say in front of your grandmother. It's like a curse word, a foul word in Jesus' time.

The Cross was an execution device, perhaps one of the cruelest, because the victim was nailed alive to a stake and left to a slow and painful death, sometimes for days before he actually dies - not because of the nailing but because of exhaustion and mental anguish.

But it was the pride of Caesar of Rome. To Rome, the sole and unchallenged superpower of the 1th century world, the cross is the symbol of her power. It was Rome telling to the world, We are in charge. If you don't accept our peace the Pax Romania, if you don't accept Caesar the Lord and King and curiously, the Saviour, we'll give you hell - the Cross.

Josephus recorded that about two centuries before Jesus' time, Rome staged a mass crucifixion of about 800 Pharisees, all nailed and left to die before their wives and children.

While the Jews' revered Jerusalem stood solemnly on the high grounds of ancient Palestine, the shadows of hundreds and hundreds of crucifix loomed over the great city of kings, as if taking Jerusalem and with her the Temple as hostage. Rome was saying to Jerusalem, We are in Charge. And they did it not least with the Cross, the symbol of their Power.

And then Paul said, the word of the cross, the message "Christ Crucified", is the power of god!

huh? How come the power of Rome became the power of god?

Many of us are familiar with the John Gospel where Jesus was brought before Pilate, Jesus in response to Pilate's cynicism famously anwered in our NIVs "my kingdom is not of this world". We were taught to read the passage as if Jesus was saying "I want nothing to do with this world". I think that is not only a great misunderstanding but also a great misfortune.

My kingdom is not [out] of this world (the greek word is “ek”). Jesus' kingdom is not like earthly political kingdoms and empires, built by politicians, political scientists, kings. Jesus' kingdom does not have its origin on earth, it has a divine origin, from god. But it does not at all mean Jesus' kingdom does not operate here on earth. Jesus was tremendously interested in the world, he taught us to pray "thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven". Instead of "I want nothing to do with this world", John's Jesus was more like saying "I don't play the sort of political games you play".

God's definition of power is not a corrupted and cruel display of muscles. God's definition of power is not the empty promises of peace and prosperity, our nearest examples are those politicians who are quick to make empty promises especially during election seasons. God's definition power is not the bullying sort, where we reject, condemn and oppress those who are weaker, those who are minorities, those who are different from us. God's definition of power is not the sort of idolatrous, self-serving political power play of Rome.

What was god's definition of power? Paul said it, in verses 23-24, we preach Christ crucified, Christ the power of god, the wisdom of god.

I always imagined myself what would I have done if I were Jesus. I believe all of us will sometimes ask ourselves questions like this, what it would be like if I were god or if I had my way.

1^st century Palestinian Jews believed that god had promised in the ancient prophets that he will himself come back to his temple, defeat evil and become king finally.

During Jesus time, although they have returned from the Babylonian exiles long ago, things were not like what the ancient prophets told about. Remember what i said about Jerusalem and the hundreds of crosses. Rome still had the real power - not the Jews, not the Temple, not God.

So the Jews, Jesus' disciples, they were looking for a revolution, they were expecting Jesus the Jewish Messiah to be like the great king Solomon, to ride a grand stallion into Jerusalem and lead the rebels to overcome Rome's dark and cruel domination and rebuild or at least restore the magnificent Temple. To them, god HAD to work this way to liberate his people from foreign powers. That's our sort of wisdom - god logically had to work this way. 

But what did Jesus do? Instead of a horse, Jesus rode a donkey. Instead of inciting the crowd to violent revolution, he called them to repentance and criticized them for rejecting the things that made for peace. Instead of picking up swords, he told Peter to put down his swords because he who lives by violent means will die by violent means. Instead of rebuilding the temple, Jesus said, "away with your temple system". Instead of injuring his enemies, Jesus took on himself the blows of Rome, the punches and kicks and spitting and flogging. He turned the other cheeks, that's god's wisdom. He went the extra mile, that's god's subversive wisdom. He did not repay evil for evil, that's god's wisdom. He gave himself to the bullying of his enemies, that's god's wisdom. He did not retaliate, he let his enemies do their worst on him, that's god's subversive, counter culture, counter instinctive wisdom.

Jesus took on the worst that Rome, representing the kingdom of this world, can inflict on her enemies. The symbol of Rome's bullying power, the Cross. And that was god's wisdom, St. Paul was utterly aware of it. Christ Crucified, that's our message, the power of god, the wisdom of god.

Jesus Christ single handedly, while refusing to play the sort of political games the world plays, embodied the kind of wisdom, the kind of subversive, counter culture wisdom which God intended us to follow, a sort of life which do not seek to defeat our enemies by means of violent conquest but by means of becoming lowly servants, serving with passionate love even for our enemies. It is no accident that the climax of 1 Corinthians talks about love in chapter 13. God's wisdom cannot be detached from his nature of being Love. If you are looking for the right sort of actions today, and you don't know what to do, the best and safest bet is to do it with love and in love. James told us that however great our theology is, love ought to be the undergirding principles for actions in real life. That's not too far from Paul in 1 Cor 13. He said, while we put our trust in god and await in hope for the final Summing Up, to love should be our highest priority now.

To continue, Jesus embodying god's subversive Wisdom had turned the table against Rome. The symbol of Rome's greatness, the symbol of the overwhelming power of Rome became the symbol of the power of god. In Jesus conversation with Pilate, Pilate said he has the power to release him or kill him. But Jesus knew and told Pilate that the real power was not in Pilate, it was not in Caesar. Jesus gave himself freely out of a passionate love for Israel and the world. He had the power to lay down his life and take it again. How can we be sure? Because on Easter, Jesus came back to life bodily. In his resurrection, he totally emptied the Roman power from the cross. Rome the symbol of dark and cruel power play - evil itself - lost its most powerful symbol that day on the first Easter. Jesus' suprising and powerful act of coming back to life had invested the Cross with the power of new life in god.

You have to work this out more thoroughly yourselves in your prayers and meditations.

But to help you I end with a very similar story from the gospel:

(Mark 10:35-45)

35James and John, Zebedee's sons, came up to him. "Teacher, we have something we want you to do for us."

 36"What is it? I'll see what I can do."

 37"Arrange it," they said, "so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory—one of us at your right, the other at your left."

 38Jesus said, "You have no idea what you're asking. 

Fast forward to vs 41:

 41-45When the other ten heard of this conversation, they lost their tempers with James and John.

(That’s church politics and worldly power-play – cronyism, nepotism, jealousy, quarrel, division)
Jesus got them together to settle things down. "You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around," he said, "and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage."