1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." ²⁰ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

A few years ago a Christian church in North Carolina had placed crosses on the front lawn of their little congregation. The white crosses were memorializing the millions of babies that had been aborted over the years in America. It wasn’t long before the pastor received a visit from the members of the city council. He was told, "Look pastor, we’ve been receiving complaints about those crosses in your front yard. Crosses belong on the inside of the church where others can’t see them. But out front, where everybody can see them, those crosses are offensive. The retired people don’t like them – they find them depressing. The tourists probably don’t like them, either. It’ll be bad for business. People come down here to get happy, not depressed. Remove the crosses."

Our world does not like the message of the cross. The cross separates. Christ divides. Sides are taken. If you’ve paid any attention to the news this week, you heard about the group SoulForce, who picketed Wisconsin Lutheran College in order to get their message across that Christians should be accepting of lgbt’s – lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. Their website proclaims that there should be room in God’s mercy for homosexuals.

Our WELS area Lutheran high school in California is being sued by two former students who were expelled for breaking the schools Christian code of conduct by professing their openly gay lifestyle.

Last year I had a Christian military chaplain tell me that when he prayed with his soldiers, he didn’t use the name of Jesus. He said that Jesus divides. So many people are offended by Jesus. So he keeps Jesus out of the prayer. (My reaction was that if you aren’t going to pray to Jesus then why bother praying at all. Why be a Christian chaplain?)

A lot of people in our modern society accept this thinking. Keep the cross inside the church. Take down the Ten Commandments from the courtrooms. Can’t say a prayer in public. Shouldn’t follow biblical truths on a private Christian campus. Jesus should be more tolerant of other lifestyles; more accepting of other theologies; less offensive by calling lifestyle choices sins.

The cross of Christ forces us to choose sides. There is a knee-jerk reaction in our society when Jesus or his cross are presented. They will automatically reject God’s grace in Christ.

But as bad as we think it is now, it was exactly the same almost two thousand years ago. The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in the city of Corinth: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Paul said that the Jews saw Christ’s cross as foolishness because "Jews demand miraculous signs." The Jews were familiar with miracles in their history: the crossing of the Red Sea, the destruction of the walls of Jericho, a single angel wiping out Sennecherib’s Assyrian army. So the Jews demanded of Jesus, "Show us a sign, then we’ll believe you are the promised Messiah." Jesus gave them signs. He healed the sick, he opened the eyes of the blind, he raised the dead, he preached the gospel to the poor. But they wanted a different kind of sign, because they wanted him to be a different kind of Messiah, the liberator of their nation from the hated Romans, rather than a Savior from sin.

The Greeks were different. "The Greeks look for wisdom." They wanted a religion that would challenge their intelligence. They wanted a philosophy, not a story about a crucified Jew who made great claims about saving the world.

Paul said: "But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." The gospel of Christ was "a stumbling block to Jews." They were scandalized by a religion that declared that a man executed as a criminal was their God. They were insulted when they were told that they, God’s chosen people, were guilty of crucifying the Son of God.

Christ was also "foolishness to Gentiles" (non-Jews, like the Greeks). The Greeks laughed at the idea that God took on human flesh and entered our world as a baby. They ridiculed the thought that someone who claimed to be the world’s Savior would be executed like a criminal on a Roman cross. They considered the claim that belief in Jesus’ cross could make people better.

Our world is no different. Today people look for a social Savior. Politicians despise the name of Jesus … until it is election time and then they do their campaigning inside a church. People look for Christ to end wars, to eliminate poverty, to banish suffering, to assure civil rights. They want a watered down version of Christ – one who accepts all lifestyles, addictions and perversions. If our culture has to endure Jesus, then they want the Hollywood version of our Lord. Hollywood has emphasized his fairness and taken away his fire; shown his seriousness and skipped his smile; promoted his poverty while denying his power; shown his suffering without understanding his sacrifice; kept him in a Christmas cradle and neglected Calvary’s cross; they have shown his sacrifice without understanding the salvation he died to win.

We should expect all this. The apostle Paul told us it was this way. "We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." In God’s kingdom, everything is topsy-turvy. The cross of Christ is foolishness to humanity, yet it proves God’s wisdom. What humanity considers weak, God proves is strength. The Jews saw the cross as proof of weakness, but God made the cross the world’s most powerful instrument for good. The Greeks saw the gospel as proof of absurdity, yet God made that gospel the greatest truth the mind of man can receive.

Susie was a young girl who loved going to Sunday School. Every week she memorized her Bible passages and said them to her teacher. One Sunday, as a reward for her memory work, Susie’s teacher gave her a simple wooden cross necklace, worth no more than a dollar. Yet Susie loved that simple cross. One weekend Susie and her family went to visit her uncle Jack. Uncle Jack was one of those crabby kinds of guys who was an atheist and loved to challenge people about Jesus, even challenge little nieces. Jack saw the cross around Susie’s neck and said, "Young lady, I imagine you think that Jesus died on a cross for you. If he did, and I’m not saying he did, I don’t think that cross was pretty like the one you’re wearing. It was an ugly wooden thing. I don’t think you should wear it as jewelry. It was a form of execution. That would be like wearing a hangman’s noose or an electric chair around your neck." Uncle Jack was pretty proud of himself. Yet Susie replied, "You know, Uncle Jack, I know Jesus died on that cross. I know the cross of Jesus wasn’t beautiful. But I also know that Jesus changes things. Because of him, now the cross is beautiful. Because of him, now I’m beautiful."

Like Paul, we preach Christ crucified. Christ’s old, rugged cross has changed things. Now we proudly lift high the cross. We wear it as jewelry, decorate our homes with it, make it visible in our churches. We proclaim the cross and preach the cross. Once a hated and despised form of execution, a torturous form of death, it is now a symbol of hope and happiness. People who were once caught up in their sins of sexual immorality, perversions, addictions, and deliberate sins have been changed by Christ’s cross. They have given up their sinful lifestyles and are now active members of Christ’s kingdom and this congregation. Christians who are hurting, ailing, depressed, lonely, suffering, find in Christ’s cross a friend who will never leave them; a Savior who suffered for them; a God who replaces sin with salvation, who replaces sadness with joy; depression with jubilation. It is God’s amazing grace shown through the cross of Christ that saved even sinful wretches like us. The cross changes everything.

The cross divides the world, but it unites us in faith. We may be picketed, sued, and lambasted in the media, yet we march forward as soldiers of the cross. Liberal university professors may mock and ridicule our Savior, but we cling to the old rugged cross. Politicians and the ACLU may be offended and try to remove every reminder of God from human society but whether it is engraved in our money or not, in God we will always trust. Politicians, college students in public universities, and even Christian chaplains may be afraid to mention the name of Jesus in public, yet we proudly proclaim from our pulpits, our classrooms, our homes and our hearts that Jesus lived for sinners; he suffered for sinners; he died for sinners; he rose for sinners; he sends his Holy Spirit to rescue sinners; he washes sinners clean in Baptism; he feeds sinners’ souls in Holy Communion; he has prepared a home in heaven for former sinners. Believe in, proclaim, and promote this God that comes to you on Christ’s cross.

Yet go back in time to that first Good Friday. Surely the immensity of Jesus’ execution made it impossible for the average citizen to ignore. There were probably men arguing on the street corner, laying odds for or against the Nazarene. There were surely women in the marketplace giving their opinion on the self-proclaimed Messiah. All those pilgrims who had entered Jerusalem for the Passover would go home to either promote the sad story of a dead teacher or proclaim the spellbinding story of a "teacher who was raised from the dead."

Everybody has an opinion. Everyone is choosing a side. You can’t be neutral on an issue like this one. Apathy? Not this time. It’s one side or the other. Everyone must decide.

And people did choose sides. For every cunning Caiaphas there was a daring Nicodemus. For every cynical Herod there was a questioning Pilate. For every potty-mouthed thief there was a truth-seeking one. For every turncoat Judas there was a faithful John.

There was something about the crucifixion that made every witness either step toward it or away from it. It simultaneously compelled and rebelled.

There is something about the cross of Christ, even two thousand years later, that either unites or divides. It is the great watershed moment in history. It is the Continental Divide. It is Normandy. You are either on one side or the other. A choice is demanded.

You can’t have fellowship with the light while walking in darkness. You can’t praise God with the same lips that you use to curse other drivers on the way home. You can’t have Jesus living in your heart and allow Satan to control your mind. You can’t enjoy the treasures of God’s kingdom while holding on to the pleasures of Satan’s kingdom. You can’t be wallowing with the pigs if you are planning on running back into the open arms of your heavenly Father. You cannot cuddle up to the serpent. You have to stomp on him. The cross forces you to take sides.

We can do what we want with the cross. We can examine its history. We can study its theology. We can reflect upon its prophecies. We can debate its foolishness or wisdom. Yet the one thing we can’t do is walk away neutral. No fence sitting is permitted. The cross, in its absurd splendor, does not allow that.

We preach Christ crucified. We lift high the cross. The cross forces us to take sides. Christ has sided with us. And now we have sided with Christ. Amen.