“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” (1Cor 1:23-24)
Preaching the message of our salvation in Christ has never been an easy task. St. Paul’s words make it eminently clear that this was true in the first century, and it continues so to this very day.
The Greek word for stumbling block is skandalon, from which we derive our English word scandal.
St. Paul explains that the Jews asked for signs because that is what the prophets gave them. But still they didn’t believe. Giving them a message of death by crucifixion to the One Who comes as their Savior is that scandal, for it was a shameful, unthinkable death for any human being, but pushing further to understand death for the One Who comes as God? Totally unthinkable! Their Messiah was (in their minds) to be exalted, not humiliated. While we believe this as well, as Christians we understand the gulf of time between the effecting of our salvation on the Cross and the anticipated Second and Glorious Coming!
You say, “Preach to the Moslems?” They recognize Jesus as a prophet, but their view is that the sovereignty of God would never permit His servant to suffer a shameful death, but would deliver him from any enemies.
And what of the Greeks? St. Paul says they consider the message of the Cross to be foolishness. Why? Because given human logic, any god worth being called by the name has to be vastly superior to the inferior material world. Any god who would become a mere mortal would make no sense. Why would a god choose to take a body that must be exposed to death? Unthinkable! The Greek concept of eternity was via amassing knowledge sufficient to free them from the physical world, enabling them to share in a spiritual realm.
That was then. This is now. And what has changed? Perhaps the “names” have—the general category of “intellectuals” would argue along the aforementioned thinking of the Greeks. Those bounded by some form of faith that is non-Christian, Buddhist, Hindus, contemporary Jews, Baha’i, Hindus, and a long list of others have myriads of reasons to reject a god who breathes and comes to die. And this ignores the religions that are not religions, the Deists, the Atheists, the Gnostics and others.
Only to Christians in general, and only to the Orthodox in particular, does the Cross mean life, not death. Only to us is it an emblem of salvation, not a curse. St. Paul expresses the division beautifully in Phil 2:5-11. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. St. Cyril of Alexandria will end our discussion with the succinct explanation, He became like us that we might become like him. The work of the Spirit seeks to transform us by grace into a perfect copy of his humbling.
May we as faithful Orthodox Christians always look to the Cross of our Lord as the eternal symbol of His victory over death for all of creation, for all time, for all who will receive It in faith and love, embracing through It the salvation that He worked upon It!
It’s a glorious Feast!
