What is the Cross?

Here this reflection on the meaning of the foolishness of the cross, as Paul says, and its counterpart in the Sermon on the Mount

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Transcript

Sermons from 

Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

February 1, 2026

“What is the Cross”

1st Corinthians  1: 18, 25-30a – Common English Bible

18 The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are being destroyed. But it is the power of God for those of us who are being saved. 

25 This is because the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 26 Look at your situation when you were called, brothers and sisters! By ordinary human standards not many were wise, not many were powerful, not many were from the upper class. 27 But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise. God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong. 28 And God chose what the world considers low-class and low-life—what is considered to be nothing—to reduce what is considered to be something to nothing. 29 So no human being can brag in God’s presence. 30 It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus who became wisdom from God for us.

Paul writes, “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.” So what exactly is the message of the cross?

One of my favorite hymns growing up was The Old Rugged Cross. Not because of its theology, which at the time I did not understand, but because it was a little more energetic than many of the other hymns played on the organ in our small country church on the North Dakota prairie. It was sung with real gusto among our otherwise mostly sober singing.

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
 till my trophies at last I lay down.
 I will cling to the old rugged cross,
 and exchange it someday for a crown.

This hymn has been beloved for more than a century, not just for its simple melody, but because people have found real comfort in it.  There are countless stories of people who were grieving, or struggling with addiction, or carrying deep wounds, who found that this song gave meaning to their pain. 

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
 a wondrous beauty I see,
 for 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
 to pardon and sanctify me.

It offers assurance to people burdened by guilt and shame and for many, has taken their trauma and told them their suffering has not been wasted.  That is such a powerful message.  It has helped many people get through their day. But is that the message of the cross?

It is a message. But is it the only message?  More importantly, is that how the disciples understood it?  Or the early church?

Because without intending to, this theology has often taught that suffering is good for us, that pain can be spiritually productive, and that violence, if it claims the right purpose, can be justified.

Over generations, Christians have often been taught to see suffering as holy rather than tragic. Endurance was spiritualized when what was needed was protection. People were told to look for God in pain, which too often meant telling victims to be quiet and faithful instead of telling the powerful to stop.

In a world where violence still claims moral cover, that matters.  It matters when abuse is baptized with religious language and people are told to endure what God never asked them to carry.

For I love that old cross where the dearest and best
 for a world of lost sinners was slain.

Did God require Jesus to suffer to save us?  Is that the message of the old rugged cross?

Remember that the cross was a weapon of the state, not a religious symbol.  Crucifixion was Rome’s way of saying: Watch out.  This is what happens when you disrupt order. This is what we’ll do to you if you threaten power. When you won’t stay in your place.

Black History Month reminds us that the logic of crucifixion did not end with Rome.  It was practiced again on American soil.
 This time on trees used for lynching.

Theologian James Cone said you can understand the cross by looking at the lynching tree because lynching was not just cruelty. It was public theater. Meant to be seen.  Bodies were left hanging so entire communities would receive the message without a single word being spoken.

That’s why Rome did not hide crucifixions. They lifted them high.  Lift high the cross.  Not to save anyone. But to scare everyone. Violence done in public to keep order. Terror in broad daylight to send a message.

Is that why ICE carries out its violence in broad daylight, in front of people?  To send the same message? 

When fear is enforced as public policy, families are torn apart in public on purpose.  People are disappeared on purpose. Because terror works best when it is visible enough to warn, and hidden enough to deny.

But the cross stands there, foolish and unarmed, and says, this is not of God.  Not because God is weak but because God refuses to rule the world through fear.

Many of us grew up singing about the cross with love in our hearts.  Clinging to it. Finding comfort there.  But maybe we never stopped to ask what kind of God that shaped in us.  Did we begin to trust that violence can be redeemed, as long as it claims a holy reason?

What we believe about God eventually shows up in how we respond when violence comes close.  The response of the citizens of Minneapolis has been what this foolishness looks like in real time.  Not in grand gestures or speeches.  But in people showing up for one another.

When state violence moved into neighborhoods, the response was not weapons.  It was whistles.  A sharp sound day and night to warn neighbors.  A signal that says, we see what’s happening and you’re not alone. People organized group chats and Signal threads.  Who needs help. Where are agents moving. Who needs someone to walk with them.

The creativity has been astounding.  Some of you have seen the churches full of people singing.  Not members on Sundays but people gathering in the evenings, after a long day, to sing out loud together.  Not because song stops violence.  But because praise is a way of refusing fear.  A way of saying, we will not let terror rule our lives.

This was not merely protest. This was – still is – a whole city gathered to protect.  With churches and clergy right in the middle.  Ordinary people choosing to stand between their neighbors and harm. People willing to make themselves visible while terror often hides behind a mask. 

The cross does not teach the quiet endurance of violence.  It teaches us that Jesus has been there.  It teaches us to show up. To watch and warn and sing. To stand close enough to say, you are not alone. That is what courage looks like when it refuses to become violent.  And that is the wisdom Paul says the world finds foolish. 

Jesus began his ministry by showing up. Before there was a cross, there was a crowd.  Masses of bodies came, worn down by sickness, fear, and neglect. But healing unsettled the order of things. Love disrupted the peace that power prefers. The cross was the response. Not something God demanded, but the result of an empire threatened by healing and truth, responding to disruptive love with violence. 

When Jesus was crucified, the disciples didn’t think, “Oh, this is just how God saves the world.”  They thought, “We’re in danger and we need to get out of Jerusalem.”  There’s no evidence they thought the cross was necessary for forgiveness in the way later theology would frame it. In the earliest church, forgiveness was proclaimed through repentance and baptism.

No, it was when empire was confronted by Jesus’ love, when they saw how his truth responded to their violent systems.  The first Christian proclamation was not, “Jesus died for your sins.”  It was, “He is risen!”  Resurrection was God’s defiant answer to terror. You can wound. You can kill. But Rome does not win. 

The powerful will call that foolishness. And it is.  It is the same foolishness Jesus taught:

Blessed are the poor. 

Blessed are the grieving. 

Blessed are those who hunger for justice.

None of that will make sense if power is the goal.  It only makes sense if love is.  

Blessed are the meek does not mean being passive.  It is a powerful refusal to become what it resists.

Blessed are the peacemakers does not mean being silent.  It blesses those who interrupt harm, even when it costs them.  Which, in a world that says protect yourself at all costs, Jesus says without irony, blessed are those who protect others.

 That is the foolishness of the cross.  It is that Christ’s love does not turn away from suffering. It moves toward it and stands close. It rushes to the side of those who are threatened.

As Paul said, “this is because the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

God’s wisdom is grounded in the certain knowledge that love is stronger than fear.  That love will always prevail over violence and intimidation and terror dressed up as order.  Because love is stronger than any system that tries to save itself by disappearing others.

And that has always been, and always will be, the thing that most confounds the powerful.  When they see the wondrous beauty of the people coming together. It is the love of God, not fear, force, or coercion.  Only love will save us.  

And blest are they who love.