The Wisdom of God

1 Corinthians 1: 8-31

Third Sunday in Lent

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen.  The sermon text for the third Sunday in Lent is the epistle reading 1 Corinthians 1.  I read a story about a mother of a nine-year-old that got a call from her son’s teacher.  That is normally not a good thing.  Preparing herself for the worst, the mom listened as the teacher said, “Today I saw something unusual and I wanted to tell you about it.”  The mother was nervous.  She was hoping that her son did not get into any trouble.  The teacher continued, “Early today, during our creative writing class, I gave the children an assignment.  I began by telling the old fable about the ant and the grasshopper. The ant works very hard all summer and the grasshopper fiddles away the time.  When winter arrives, the ant had enough to eat and the grasshopper did not. The grasshopper had to ask for a handout.  I asked the children to finish the story.  Most of the class wrote that the ant shared his food and that both lived happily ever after.  A few had the ant saying, “Sorry, Mr. Grasshopper; I only have enough for myself. If I share we will both starve”. But your son ended the story in a unique way.  His story ended like this.  “The ant gave all his food to the grasshopper and the grasshopper lived happily ever after, but the ant died.”  At the bottom of his assignment, your son drew a cross.  Quite an end to the story, isn’t it?

Human wisdom would tell us that the ant should not have given up his life to save the grasshopper. The grasshopper was not worthy of the sacrifice that the ant made.  Remember the grasshopper fiddled away his time all summer.  It would have been foolish for the ant to give up his life so that the grasshopper could live.  But that is what Christ has done for us. We are like the grasshopper. Because of our sin we are not worthy of anyone’s sacrifice.  Let us give thanks that the Wisdom of God is different then the wisdom of the world. This is what Paul said in our epistle reading for today.  “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”.  Paul is speaking about the cross of Jesus Christ.   Christ did everything right.  He lived the perfect life and yet He gave up His life to save us.  He gave up his life on the cross in order to atone for all our sins.

In our Old Testament reading for today the Ten Commandments are listed.  It was God that gave the commandments to His people.  The Ten Commandments certainly guide us in the life that the Lord wants us to lead.  But they also serve another important function.  The Ten Commandments act as a mirror.  When we compare are own life to the commandments we are able to clearly see our own sin.  When we take a closer look at the commandments, we can see that we have broken all of them. We place money and success over God. We swear and curse.  We skip church.  We gossip about other people.  We experience jealousy and envy.  We are short-tempered and self-centered.  We hold grudges.  We are lazy. We are fearful.    We never seem to be content.  When we carefully look at the Ten Commandments, we see very clearly that we have indeed sinned against God, and we have sinned against each other.  We see that we are far from perfect.   

A very important function of the Ten Commandments is to act as a mirror.  When we compare our lives to each commandment, we see our sins. We see that we have fallen short of the glory of God.  Because of our sin we like the grasshopper in my story are doomed to die.  Is there any way that we can escape? 

The Wisdom of the world would give us all sorts of wrong answers.  The world tells us that there is no God, and thus we are not accountable to Him.  But to deny the existence of God is pure foolishness.  Our modern world will question the Word of God and try and downplay the seriousness of sin and evil.  The world will tell us to live with our sins, deny our sins, or forget about them.  We will be tempted to justify our hurtful actions. We will be tempted to deny our sinful thoughts and words.  But that is no help.  The wisdom of the world can try and tell us to deny sin but all we need to do is look around and see the effects of sin.  All we need to look into our own heart to see the darkness that resides in it.  It will do no good to ignore sin.  All we need to do is look at the ultimate consequence of sin, which is death, itself. 

Is there any way that we can escape?  The other religions of the world tell us to follow a certain set of rules in order to gain salvation.  They tell people that if they follow a certain set of rules that they might be saved. Sadly, they can’t tell you if you have done enough to earn God’s favor.  Of course all we have to do is look at the Ten Commandments and see that we never do enough.  The wisdom of the word is nothing but foolishness when it comes to explaining the ways of God.  In the end God will have the final word.    Remember what was said in our reading.  “As it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.  Where is the one who is wise?  Where is the scribe?  Where is the debater of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”   “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe”. 

Paul is speaking about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The truth that God sent His sinless Son to die in our place so that we could live in the Kingdom of Heaven sounds foolish to human ears.  But God’s gift of grace given to you doesn’t come from human wisdom.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God.  Jesus said the same thing in our Gospel reading.  After Jesus ran the moneychangers out of the temple the authorities asked Him to do a sign to show them His authority.  Our Lord responded by saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”.  Jesus was explaining to His disciples that He is the temple.  He was explaining to us that the power of God’s grace and love is demonstrated at the cross and the empty tomb. 

Only the Gospel says that Son of God came down from heaven to live a perfect life in our place.  Only the Gospel speaks of a Savoir who endured hunger so we would be filled, went without an earthly home so that we might have a heavenly home, suffered so that we could be saved, and died that we might live. Only the Gospel speaks about the forgiveness of sins.  Only in the Gospel do we receive the promise that in Christ we can live with a sure and certain hope.  It is only in the Gospel that we are guaranteed a happy ending. 

As we look to the wisdom of God what we will see is love, compassion, forgiveness, life, and salvation. When we look to the Lord what we will see is our creator and redeemer and the giver of all that is good.  As we go about our week living a life of repentance and forgiveness let us remember the final words of our text.  “Therefore as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord”.  Amen.