Victory In Defeat

I Corinthians 1:26-31

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

I Corinthians 1:27-29:  But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord…I have to wonder whether any of you were thinking about something else when you saw the sermon title for today; I have to wonder if you were thinking about whether it pertained to the political nightmare that took place in our nation’s capital on Wednesday and the certification of presidential electors in what was, in the mind of many in this country, the most corrupt election in the history of this republic called The United States Of America.  “Is Pastor going to talk about how some can call this mess a victory?  Is he going to wax eloquent and give a pep talk?”

While I certainly have my own opinions about what has taken place politically and what may yet come of it all, those opinions have absolutely no place within the context of the Divine Service, and they most certainly have no place in the preaching of God’s Word.  I will leave that folly to other pastors who have a lesser regard for the sacred time and space we call the Divine Service.  This time is about nothing else than Christ for you.

So, moving on…   When we read St. Paul’s words to the Corinthian congregation in today’s epistle, we are struck with the truth that God works with a heavenly wisdom, and that heavenly wisdom is made perfect in weakness and foolishness according to worldly standards.

In Christianity the cross forever means victory; to the unbelievers and to the ways of the world in which we live it means defeat.  For the believer, Christ obtains victory through what the world considers a cord of three strands: foolish things, weak things, and lowly things.

It’s a sad fact that down through the ages people have seen the incarnation – that God came in the flesh – as utterly foolish.  It is as the cartoon B.C. once stated: “It seems to me that since the ‘fall’ – without even thinking it odd – that man has had no trouble at all believing he can be God.  How he could do this I cannot conceive, tho, he certainly thinks that he can – and yet, he cannot bring himself to believe that God can become a man.” (B.C. by Johnny Hart)

These thoughts are not hard to grasp.  In the world in which we live there are countless people who live and believe as if God does not exist; or worse yet, as if they know better than God even if He does exist.  Self-made and self-absorbed people like Bill Gates of Microsoft fame, Ted Turner of CNN, Jeff Bezos of Amazon – these people are most certainly their own gods.  And Like the B.C. comic, it is no problem for them to believe that man can be God, but not the other way around.

But folks in our world today see it as even more foolish, as a weak and lowly thing, that God in the flesh should die.  In all other religions besides Christianity, their gods have died and stayed dead, but our God is abundantly alive.  But still, people have had all kinds of problems with the fact that God in the flesh should be nailed to a cross in order to obtain forgiveness.

To the people in Jesus’ day it seemed inexplicable that Jesus, the one who came in triumph, pomp, and circumstance on Palm Sunday would, just a few days later, be hung up on a cross like a common criminal instead of reign supreme like a king.  The people were mad, they were frustrated, and they were outraged; they wanted Jesus to be king on their terms and no one else’s.  And when He did not perform the way they wanted, in their wrath they chose not to believe in the only Savior of all mankind.

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Far too many people pay far too much money and spend far too much time listening to and buying into the “wisdom of this age.”  Feel-good seminars, TV preachers, people claiming miraculous healing powers, those who claim to contact your dead relatives, psychic friends network – all this garbage fills our heads and our eyes with so much drivel that we hardly have the presence of mind or the physical strength to come to the place where the real wisdom is spoken and the real goods are delivered: here in church.

Talk about foolishness!  What foolishness for a God to sacrifice His own Son – His own perfect and sinless Son – to death on a cross, and all for a bunch of dirty, rotten, dead-in-their-sins people like us!  It makes absolutely no sense at all in this world.

What foolishness that a little water applied and a few words spoken can actually SAVE someone from their sins and connect them back 2,000 years to the death and resurrection of Christ!  It is only an outward sign of an inward faith, some say.  So, in the eyes of the world in which we live and in all too many churches, Baptism does not save; it only gets you wet.

What foolishness that a person should actually say out loud in private confession what sins he or she has committed!  Why, nobody today should do that.  That’s not a helpful thing because it will bring down a person’s self esteem and self worth!  And you’ve got to be crazy, I suppose, to believe that a man – a pastor – can actually speak the words of the Absolution to confessed sins and have that Absolution actually forgive those sins!  Why, you’ve got to be a few bricks short of a load to believe that (says the wisdom of this world).

And what foolishness to believe that a little wafer of unleavened bread and a swallow of grape wine should do anything more than give you alcohol breath.  For it is more than enough for all too many people and all too many churches to say that this meal we call the Sacrament of the Altar is only a remembrance of Christ.  It is more than enough for all too many churches to say that this little ceremony is for anyone who wants it.

And so it is absolute foolishness – not to mention a lot of other derogatory names – to believe, teach, confess, and practice that this meal of which we are about to partake is the real and true body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and the wine, and that it actually delivers the same forgiveness Christ won for us on the cross.  It is absolute foolishness to believe, teach, confess, and DARE to practice that only those of the same outward confession should commune together in obedience to God’s holy, inspired, and inerrant Word!  Why, we must be crazy (says the unbelieving world out there as well as others within Christendom).

Well, SO WHAT if it is called foolishness!  SO WHAT if others look down on us for our beliefs and practices.  You and I know that the best place to be is behind the Word of God which teaches clearly the things we have laid out here.  Let the unbelieving world call what we teach and what we say and what we practice foolishness.  It will all be found out at the last day.  And then those who accuse the church of foolishness will themselves be found to be fools.

Jesus said it well in Matthew’s Gospel: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled…  Blessed are those who are persecuted because of their righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3-10)

So, dear fellow redeemed, fellow “fools for Christ,” today and every day we rejoice in our foolishness, for Jesus calls us blessed.  Today especially we celebrate Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River in order to fulfill all righteousness and make our baptisms the powerful forgiveness that they are.  And by God-given faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, we rejoice not only in the foolishness of Baptism, but also that of Absolution, preaching, and the Lord’s Supper.  We rejoice in these demonstrations and deliveries of victory amidst seemingly worldly defeat.  We rejoice that these gifts of God are divine and heavenly wisdom and forgiveness.

By regular and generous use of these “foolish” things, our afflictions, weaknesses, illness, and even death become our strength.  For these things cause us to look away from ourselves and toward Christ in whose weakness we take part.  In such despised things we now boast because of Christ’s victory for us.

In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.