Monday, March 5, 2018

March 4 sermon on theology of the cross notes I Cor 1:18-25

I cor. 1:18.Carlson-God has not sought out humanity according to the ways humanity has sought out God. Rather, God has intentionally and decidedly destroyed the ways and means by which humanity decided get to God (1:19, quoting Isaiah 29:14). Through the four rhetorical questions in 1:20, Paul declares that God has rejected and embarrassed the best and brightest of human efforts to understand, explain, and experience God.19. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened [Rom. 1:20].22. That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.

At the heart of his argument is his notion that human beings should not speculate about who God is or how he acts God revealed himself as merciful to humanity in the Incarnation, when he manifested himself in human flesh, and the supreme moment of that revelation was on the cross at Calvary.—the point at which God appeared to be the very contradiction of all that one might reasonably have anticipated him to be.
The "theologians of glory," therefore, are those who build their theology in the light of what they expect God to be like— they make God to look something like themselves.-The theology of glory suggests a way of knowing God. It claims that we can know God through creation as well as through special revelation. But Luther warned that such theology speaks only of the power and glory of God and not of God’s suffering. He suggested that God is “hidden in suffering.” He wrote, “It does one no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty unless one recognizes him in the humility and shame of the cross.”
The theology of glory also suggests a way of life. “Because people do not know the cross and hate it, they necessarily love the opposite, namely, wisdom, glory [and] power,”-“God can be found only in suffering and the cross.”  The cross of Jesus reveals the deep love of God. The cross of Jesus tells us that God suffers...that means not only the cross of Jesus, but the cross of reality; so that the religion thus mythically bolstered becomes a primary factor in the deadening of otherwise sensitive people to the pain of God in the world. I Rightly to grasp the meaning of Christ’s resurrection is to be turned towards the cross, with understanding, not away from it (Hall)
Suddenly that which outwardly seems moronic and weak, the apparent oxymoron of Christ crucified, becomes divine revelation, divine power, and divine salvation (1:18, 21). We do not get to God, or find the key to knowing God through our efforts. Rather, God comes to us and establishes the terms of the encounter of faith in the proclamation of the cross.
John 2:13-overturning as symbolic act deal with righteous anger.They interpret Jesus’ declaration literally, that the temple of which Jesus speaks is the one Jewish temple in which they are standing. We find out, . What would Jesus seek to clear from us? This act will reverberate and will become part of his death knell. Our current mania for expressing anger and having it percolate so that it can be constantly released is one of the more unhealthy  mantras of the baby boom generation.It is not righteous anger but the petulance of a child’s frustration in not getting their way. That Is too trivial a matter for the cross, but an attitude that is properly dead and buried.

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