Crucifixion in the Greek Mind
March 2, 2008
Views of the Cross: Greek
What an idiot. We all do stupid things. How many times have you done something in your life that makes the people around you say: what an idiot? I want you to think of something stupid that you have done.
As far as stupid ideas go, this was one of my better moments. I stayed after church one Tuesday night with a number of other kids in the youth group. We were just hanging out and talking for a bit. We were a pretty wild youth group to begin with, but if you know anything about young teenagers you know that the more of them you put in the same place unsupervised the stupider the get. Intelligence actually drops, that is a medically proven fact. This time was no exception. We had been hanging out talking but eventually we got bored and wanted to do something. Now we had a really open church parking lot. One of the guys there had a video camera…which also seriously decreases the intelligence of the group. We proceeded to stack up a few bails of hay and started out by having someone sit in a shopping cart and we pushed them as fast as we could into the curb which would launch them out of the cart into the pile of hay. This was great fun. Then the cart broke…but we would not be deterred. We figured if a shopping cart was fun…a car would work even better. That little voice that tells you not to do things, had gone on vacation for me. So I volunteered to get on the hood of the car and get ramped into the hay. The car went to the back of the parking lot I hopped on the hood and off we went. We got up to about 25 miles and hour before the driver slammed on the brakes and I was tossed from the car to the pile of hay. It worked out perfectly. So we decided to do it again. This time with two of us. I got on one side and my friend Zach got on the other. Same deal, car sped up, this time to about 30 miles and hour and then slammed on the brakes….one problem. This time he slammed on the brakes a little earlier. I left the car first. I was thrown and rather than hitting the hay flat as I had the first time I hit it head first. Zach who stayed on the car a split second longer than I did flew to the pile of hay and landed with his entire body on my head. The stray from the hay pierced the skin all over one side of my face even going though the skin of my lip into my mouth. I went to school the next day as two-face…but it wasn’t Halloween.
What an idiot. That is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I turned my body into an automotive propelled missile…and I am lucky to be alive. If I had been tossed a few inches higher I would have missed the top hay bail and crashed into a tree head first.
What an idiot! Now did any of you have any good stories that you don’t mind sharing? (JORDAN’s STORY) What an idiot…I mean…that is just a stupid thing to do.
If you want to open you Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1:18: While there are not a lot of people in our culture that take great pride in stupidity, we are not as ashamed of it as some cultures. The Greeks were a people who prided themselves in wisdom. Wisdom was the greatest pursuit of the culture and the prize of their people. Above all else wisdom was the one thing the Greeks really sought after. There are many people in our generation that think of themselves as philosophers. For the most part it is their hobby. In ancient Greece philosophy was a profession. It’s no wonder that so much of the Greek culture was based around philosophy for philosophy is the love of wisdom. The ancient Greeks spent much of their time debating over different philosophical topics. They loved using reason, logic, and different forms of rhetoric in order to try and find the truth of how things worked. The Greek people were always searching for wisdom for understanding for knowledge of how the world works and of God. Many Greeks would devote their lives to philosophy… If wisdom is the greatest honor…then the greatest shame would be its antagonist foolishness. Understanding this may shed some new light on 1 Corinthians 1:18:
1Co 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. 1Co 1:19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 1Co 1:20 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? 1Co 1:21 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. 1Co 1:22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 1Co 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
The Jews were looking for signs to identify messiah. To them it was the signs that would answer their questions about God by leading them to His promised Messiah. The Greeks however, did not look for signs but for wisdom. The Greeks look to rationality, logic, and understanding as their way of finding God. Thus that which cannot be proven cannot be true. If something cannot be understood then it is not true. This is widely apparent by looking at the Greek gods. The powers that controlled the universe were not transcendent great beings, they were just like super powered people. No one god controlled everything but their were many gods with specific functions: the goddess of wisdom, the god of war, the sun god, the god of the harvest. The Greeks had many gods and if you read the mythologies of their religion you see that their gods are anthropomorphic. They are just like people. They have all of our emotions and act and think just like we do.
So Christianity comes along and says that the Greek gods are false. Christianity is not polytheistic but monotheistic…there is only one all powerful God who is greater than all the Greek gods put together. This alone would be difficult for a Greek to accept. Even if there were a few who could accept that much would certainly be turned away by the story of Jesus life. The idea in and of itself was idiotic. Try to hear this as a Greek from a logical perspective: So what you are telling me is that there is only One God. This true God is all powerful and so incredibly vast that we cannot fully understand Him. Ok…but what you are saying is that this God loves us and wants to have a relationship with us, but cannot because of the thing we have done…and so He sends His Son…who is in fact Himself to come to earth and live as a mortal man. You are saying the one true God left His power and His immortality behind to come to earth for us. Wait…and when He came He came not as a king but as an average everyday person. He came not to a great city like Athens or Rome but some middle of no-where’s-ville Podunk town called Bethlehem…and this almighty God came to a small town to an obscure minority of people with large noses. You expect me to believe that God would come to such a region as Judea? Even if that were so…do you really expect me to believe that the almighty creator of everything came to earth and died as a criminal on a cross? How stupid do you think I am? You really expect me to believe that mortal people could kill the almighty God?
Do you see how stupid that would sound to them? The Greeks believed in many gods and they believed their mythologies to be true. The things we look at as interesting stories, they accepted and believed. Here is the point: There is no story in Greek mythology quite like that of Hercules. In this story: Zeus, the King of the gods was an unfaithful husband. He had a weakness for worldly pleasures. One day he slept with a woman named Alcmene and she later gave birth to Hercules. This angered Hera, Zeus’s wife…as you can imagine, for some reasons wives are not found of their husband committing adultery. Hera tried to kill Hercules by sending two snakes to kill him in his cradle.
When Hercules reached adulthood he became a famous warrior. He also fell in love with and got married. He and his wife had a few children and they were a happy family. Hera made it her mission to torment Hercules. She tricked Hercules into a wild rage and in his rage Hercules killed his family.
When Hercules returned to his normal state of mind he realized what he had done and was devastated. He went to Apollo the sun god to find out how he could purify himself. Hercules was sent to king Eurystheus and was expected to serve him as laborer for twelve years of his life. The king gave Hercules twelve assignments, called his labors to carry out. After completing these Hercules got himself into more trouble. Hera continually opposed him. Zeus however was so proud of Hercules’s accomplishments that he made Hercules immortal. This story is unique because this is the only story in Greek mythology where a person is changed their mortality status from mortal to immortal. To the Greeks there was a clear distinction between the immortal gods and mortal man. That which is moral almost never becomes immortal…but for that which is immortal to become mortal…that’s impossible. By their very nature, but their definition a god was immortal, and an immortal being cannot die. It’s not that it is difficult to kill a god…it’s that a god cannot die. In the very nature of immortality is that it has no end. So for a Greek this idea of the cross is total foolishness. The way they viewed life God could not die even if He wanted to. God is infinite…and death is the end…There is no reason, no logically way in which a being that has no end could die. And yet that is what we preach. When the Greeks here the message of the cross they are thinking: what an idiot.
If the greatest pursuit of the Greek culture is wisdom then the worst thing something could be is foolish. The whole idea of God dying on a cross is absurd. It is idiotic…how can these people who love wisdom and knowledge ever be expected to accept something as foolish and stupid as the notion that God is died on a cross?
1Co 1:27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
The wisdom of man does not lead him to God so what good is it? If God were could be completely logically understood and fathomed what place would there be for faith? God did not want us to love Him as robots with no choice, why then would He make it impossible to believe in Him by making Himself understandable by the human mind? The purpose of the Greek gods was to try and explain how things worked that they could not understand. The Greek gods were nothing special. They were just men with a little extra power. The acted and behaved just like we do. The Greek gods were great because the Greeks could understand them…because their gods were of their own making. Their gods were smaller than they were. But that is not the case with the one True God. He cannot be completely understood because He is bigger than we are. He is not like the Greek gods, and He doesn’t try to be.
The uniqueness of Christianity is not in that it is the only monotheistic religion. The uniqueness of Christianity is not that it is the only religion that claims to give answers to the unsolvable questions of life. The uniqueness of Christianity is its existence that runs counter to culture. There are many religions that promote living a good lifestyle. There are many religions that promote service, and taking care of others and personal sacrifice. But there is only one religion that runs contrary to everything that the world holds on to. There is only one religion that was founded by a cross. Only one religion where God gave His life to bring life to men.
Do you see it? Can you see the cross? Standing there in all of its foolishness and all of its shame. The point is…if Christianity was a religion developed by man, it would never have centered around something as shameful, foolish, and cursed as a cross. The very nature of the origin of Christianity sets it apart from all of the other religions that get it wrong. God does not care for the great know-it-all attitudes of man. In fact God uses foolishness to shame the wise of this world. He does not desire for us to accept Him because when you crunch the numbers that is the obvious answer…He desires a relationship that takes the things you know, the experiences you have had, and brings them together with faith. We cannot fully understand God because He is greater than us.
The foolishness of the cross did not end in ancient Greece. This world still finds it foolish and absurd. The world does not understand the cross. They do not understand the transformation that comes through it. The world does not understand why you won’t go out to parties all the time and get drunk. The world does not understand why you don’t sleep with every person you are attracted to. The world does not understand why you would sacrifice career, finances, and the all important time to serve in a church or a community. The world does not understand putting others first, it does not understand self denial. The world thinks we are idiots.
The message of the cross is still foolish to those who are perishing. Sometimes it can seem hard to be a Christian. Some of you are feeling that right now. Sometimes it might feel like you are holding on to straws trying desperately not to fall. Life just seems to keep pouring it on and every day it becomes harder and harder for you to keep a proper focus and attitude. The world pushes you because it wants you to push back…people mock you, insult you, and treat you unfairly and you just do not know how much more you can take.
Some of you are wrestling not with the world but with your own personal life. There are past sins, old habits, and temptations knocking on your door and you find it hard to resist them. It feels like everything inside you is yearning for these things and you are fighting so hard to keep them away…but you don’t always see the point in resistance. You cannot imagine this yearning ever going away.
Others of you are not wrestling…you have been giving in. The pattern of your life has been to make a mistake, feel regret, turn around try to do better, and not too long later go back and make the same mistake again. Each time you wonder if you are losing yourself in all of this. You wonder why you can’t overcome these things in your life.
The cross can seem like foolishness…but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. The power of the Cross is still working today. It is still changing lives. Those of you who are trying to grab hold of something feel like your falling because you are not grabbing hold of the right thing. It is time to grab hold of the cross and just hold on for dear life. Those of you wrestling with temptation will find that when you fall at the feet of the cross…temptation flees from you. Those who are giving in to that temptation might be doing so…because you have not truly taken that temptation to the cross. You have not fully given it up and you are still holding onto it…instead of the Cross.
Do you see? The cross is the power of God. It is moving in your life. It is changing you. God is still at work. He is still in the business of saving. The Cross…while seen as foolish by the world…is actually our tool to overcoming the world. The cross gives us strength. The cross gives us power. The cross of Christ gives us life but not just life…the strength to live it. So no matter where you are…if you are weak, come to the cross. If you are strong come to the cross. If you are tired and weary come to the cross. If you are wrestling or giving in fighting with temptation…come to the cross. Allow that which has changed this world…to change your life.
