The Foolish, All-Powerful Cross – 7 March, 2021

The cross dominates the Lenten journey. It stands at the end of the road, coming into plain view only as Jesus sets his face solidly towards Jerusalem. . . . Trusting that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength, we commit our lives to taking that same cruciform shape. –– Amy P. McCollough

John 2:13-25

Jesus appears again and again at various Jewish festivals, being the embodiment of all that those celebrations commemorate. Passover is the first and last festival John uses to tell the story.

. . . It is not immediately clear what provoked Jesus to clear this particular precinct of the Jerusalem Temple. Pilgrims coming from great distances needed to exchange foreign coins and buy animals for sacrifices. There is no mention here of price gouging or unfair monetary rates.

Commentators sometimes rely on the reports of the other three Gospels to support that even in John the reader would understand the prophetic criticism of temple abuses. The statement of Jesus protesting the “marketplace” in verse 16 can be linked to Zechariah 14:21. . . . John uses the double meaning of “consume” as he will use double meanings elsewhere to indicate that there is more to this event than first meets the eye.

The other important connection made in this passage is that the resurrected body of Jesus is the temple. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Paul announces that God has spoken anew, this time through the word of the cross. It becomes clear in a few verses that this is not a symbolic word (saying something like “self-sacrifice for the good of others has a positive effect on the world”). Rather this word is the act of salvation accomplished in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. With this new word, there comes division in response and a confounding of categories.

Paul quotes from the Septuagint version of Isaiah 29:14. God acted in former days to disqualify all the tradition that had grown around God’s word and God was doing that again in order to speak now through the death of Jesus. In the prevalent ways of thinking, crucifixion would be a humiliation and repudiation of all that Jesus said and did.

Paul makes a bold move to link the “power of God” to this obvious sign of weakness. Nevertheless, he asserts this not as some rhetorical device on his part. Instead, it is the very determination and will of God. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

Exodus 20:1-17

The covenant theme continues this week with the Decalogue. All of the covenants begin with God’s initiative to be in relationship with God’s people. What God announced will be accomplished in speaking to Moses out of the burning bush, and what God has given as the Name upon which people can call, are both proclaimed again.

. . . The emphasis in God’s words on this day is not so much conditional as it is all-embracing. There is no part of the relationship between God and people, between neighbor and neighbor, that stands outside the saving act of the LORD. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

Amy P. McCullough, the lead pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Baltimore, MD, published Her Preaching Body: Conversations in Identity, Agency, and Embodiment in Contemporary Female Preachers (Wipf & Stock, 2018). She has a PhD in homiletics and liturgics from Vanderbilt University.

Stephen C. Kolderup recently served as interim pastor for South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church in Florida.

Homily Service 42, no. (2008): 35-44.