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The scriptures referred to are 1 Corinthians 1:18-24.

I don't know if you've ever seen the gurney on which condemned prisoners undergo lethal injection. It looks like a typical hospital gurney except for two extensions that stick out on either side. Those extensions are there so that the person's arms can be strapped down away from the body and so that those performing the execution have access to the veins on the arms where the IVs are inserted that will deliver the lethal doses of drugs. Now imagine that you saw people walking around with miniature versions of those gurneys hanging around their necks. Some might be realistic but some might be rendered artistically; some might even be made of gold and some might be encrusted in diamonds. You would still think that wearing an instrument of death was really weird.

But essentially that's what the cross is. And it was more brutal than the gurney. Contrary to what you see in movies and art, the condemned man would not carry the entire cross. He would just carry the crossbar, or in Latin, patibulum. The upright would already be in place. It could even be a tree with the branches cut off. The patibulum, weighing about 70 pounds, would be laid across the shoulders of the condemned man (or woman) and tied to their outstretched arms. They would be marched through the streets of the city, with a placard that announced their crime. At the place of execution the condemned were stripped naked. They may also have had their wrists untied and then nailed to the patibulum. They would be lifted onto the upright. It would be just high enough off the ground that the condemned could not stand but would hang by his arms. The feet were then nailed by their heels to the upright. The placard with the charge was hung above the condemned person's head. And then he was left to die, from shock, dehydration and asphyxiation, because it was hard to fully expand your lungs in that position. This could take days. In Jesus' case, he was whipped beforehand by a cat-o-nine-tails with either bones or metal hooks on the ends of the leather strips, shredding his back. So in his case, blood loss would hasten his death. It was meant to be a painful and humiliating way to die to reinforce the idea that Rome was in charge and that this is what you got if you opposed the empire. After the slave revolt led by Spartacus, after the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, after the local rebellion of the Galilean town of Sepphoris when Herod the Great died, the Romans crucified thousands of men. Since Sepphoris was only 4 miles from Nazareth and was being rebuilt by Herod's son during Jesus' boyhood, if Joseph and Jesus looked for work there, they would have passed those crosses every day.

How did such a grisly instrument of torture and death become the symbol of Christianity? Well, it wasn't at first. Christians secretly identified themselves by the symbol of the fish. The Greek word for fish, ichthus, was used as an acronym for Iesus Christos Theos 'Uios Sator or Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior. But by the 2^nd century, Christian were making the sign of the cross on their foreheads. And in fact, Christians were mocked as “adorers of the gibbet.” There is a graffito from the year 200 AD of a young man worshipping a crucified donkey-headed man, with the words “Alexamenos worships his god.” This blasphemous picture, scratched into a plaster wall in Rome, is the earliest depiction of Christ on the cross, his arms stretched out on the patibulum and the placard above his head. By the 4^th century, after the first Christian emperor Constantine outlawed crucifixion, we start to see visual depictions of the empty cross.

But why did the cross come to represent Christianity? Because of its centrality to the faith. As Paul writes in our passage today from 1 Corinthians, “....we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” In his teachings, Jesus turns the values of this world upside down, declaring that the “first shall be last and the last first.” (Mark 10:31) And who is considered the last in society if not someone who was publicly executed in the most shameful and gory way possible?

For many Jews, especially the religious authorities of the time, the idea that a crucified handyman was the Messiah was something they could not accept. The Messiah they wanted was a holy warrior-king, a David 2.0, who would free them from the Romans. What good was a dead Messiah? And indeed had Jesus not risen from the dead, he would not be a useful Messiah. As his critics said mockingly at his crucifixion, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one!” (Luke 23:35) Jesus healed other people and he raised 3 people from the dead that we know of. (Luke 7:11-15; 8:49-56; John 11) If he stayed dead, what would we make of that? But in our earliest book in the New Testament, Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, in the very first chapter he mentions Jesus' resurrection. (1 Thessalonians 1:10) So why didn't the empty tomb become the symbol of Christianity?

Because first Jesus had to die. And his death was not just a fluke or merely the result of running afoul of the authorities. He died for us. (1 Thessalonians 5:10) Specifically, he died for our sins. (1 Corinthians 15:3) As it says in 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you are healed.” And he did it out of love for us. As Paul says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Essentially Jesus went on a suicide mission to save us. He gave his life so that we may live for him and with him forever.

How does that show the power of God, though? You measure a hero by what he overcomes. In fact, one of the reasons they introduced kryptonite into the Superman stories is that he is so powerful, his victories are no more impressive than one of us crushing ants. In the words of one of the comic book's editors, Dorothy Woolfolk, Superman's invulnerability is “boring.” Green kryptonite weakens and can kill Superman. It is his overcoming that in order to save others that makes him a hero.

Death is the final enemy, as Paul puts it. (1 Corinthians 15:26) Most of us would agree. Right now there are billionaires like the founders of Amazon, Google, Paypal and others are trying to figure out ways not to age and ultimately not to die. Bryan Johnson of Braintree is paying experts millions of dollars to help him live forever by creating specialized diets, taking 100 supplements a day, optimizing his sleep, using light and oxygen therapies and basically turning himself into a guinea pig for various controversial medical experiments, such as blood transfusions from his teenage son. There's a documentary about him on Netflix.

Jesus willingly went to his death and defeated death by rising again. His resurrection after being killed for the sins of the world validates his power to forgive sins, just as his healing the paralyzed man lowered through the roof did. (Mark 2:3-12) Jesus can overcome death which is the result of our sins. That's how he is the power of God. That makes him the ultimate hero.

And that's why it's become popular these days for superheroes to die and come back again. They are imitating Jesus. Too bad they aren't imitating the way he lived his life, like turning the other cheek and loving his enemies. But people love displays of physical, political and earthly power, not of the moral power of forgiveness, healing and transformation of lives we see in Jesus.

But how is the crucified Christ the wisdom of God? Earthly wisdom tends to be about how to get what you want and protect yourself from things you don't want to happen to you. In other words, it is about control. We've gotten so good at controlling so many things these days that we don't feel that we need God. We've got it all handled. Until we don't. At any time a disaster can take away our belongings, our home, our loved ones or even our health. In fact, as someone said, being a disabled person is not only something anyone can become at any time, it is something all of us will become if we live long enough. Statistically, most people will suffer a disability for the last 8 years of their life. Knowing that you are not in control of everything can be scary. But it is that fear and the knowledge that God is in control that is the beginning of wisdom.

In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds a character says, “Not believing you're going to die is what gets you killed.” She could almost be thinking of Jesus' parable of the man who has a surplus of goods and figures that from now on he can relax, eat, drink and be merry. “But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you, but who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'” (Luke 12:20) Living only for yourself and your pleasure is not wise but foolish. It is short-term thinking. Jesus teaches us to think really long-term: not just for this life but for the next. If you will cease to exist in a few decades, the kind of person you are becoming is not that important. But if you are going to live forever, whether you are becoming a more heavenly person or a more hellish creature, tormented by regrets you can't get past and grievances you won't forgive, is absolutely vital. The kingdom of heaven is within and in the midst of us. (Luke 17:21) The person you will be for eternity has its roots and beginning in the present. Now is the time to change the trajectory of our life.

Living for the God who loves us enough to die for us and serving him through serving the others for whom he died is wise in the long run. When you die, will you find any comfort in the awards you won, all the video games you played, all the time you spent drunk or drugged, all the trivial pursuits you indulged in? Will you regret all the time you spent thinking about yourself? Or will you instead find meaning in all the time you spent loving and helping others, leaving their lives better for you being there for them? And what do you think you will find more of in the next life—mindless activities and distractions and things that will make you feel worse, or will you find love and meaning and purpose and joy?

The reason Jesus is still changing lives 2000 years after he went to the cross is that people find deep wisdom in what he taught and how he lived. And people find great power in following him, even though it means renouncing themselves, taking up their crosses and following in his way of self-sacrificial love.

Usually when you read about the life of a great person, the last part, the part about their decline and death, is a bummer. Queen Elizabeth 1 was depressed and sat motionless for hours on end, refusing to lie down in bed, where she knew she would die. Having conquered the known world, Alexander the Great suddenly got sick, lost the power of speech and died at age 32. Suffering from dementia, Robin Williams, who made so many people laugh, killed himself. But as awful as Jesus' death was, it does not have that same effect on us. Instead in his last days we see nobility; we see great sacrifice; we see deep love. Jesus' death is what all the gospels, or good news, are inevitably leading up to.

Some people, not believing that Jesus was the Son of God, see his death as the end of the story. And many probably think Christians are ghoulish for wearing the instrument of his death. But as it says in 1 John, “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” And it goes on to say, “Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11) The cross is a symbol of God's love for us. As Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Paul writes, “And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised.” (2 Corinthians 5:15) Ironically Jesus transformed the cross from as symbol of death to a symbol of a life lived without fear of death.

Think of what you could do if you did not fear death. In the movie Groundhog's Day Bill Murray's character, realizing he can't die but will wake up every morning, eventually comes to see this as a great gift and changes from a selfish person to one who helps and saves others. In this life fear of pain and persecution keeps people from sticking their necks out and doing what's right. We let others suffer rather than taking action to help them because we are afraid of suffering. Jesus didn't let the fear of suffering and death stop him from breaking rules to heal others or from speaking the truth to power. If we truly trust in him, we will give up all rights to ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him, knowing he will raise us up on the last day. (John 6:39-40)