Lenten Devotion for Tuesday, March 30

Today's lessons:

Isaiah 49:1-7

Psalm 71:1-14

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

John 12:20-36

Author:

Rev. Michel D. Clark

Pastor, Grace Lutheran Church, Knoxville

Part-time Assistant to the Bishop for the West Conference

Theme verses:

I Corinthians 1.18-25 - For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom 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 the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

Meditation:

The message of the cross is foolishness, to the world anyway.

I once tried to call on a member who worked a farm with his cousin. Harold lived in the hired hand’s house next door to the “big house”.

When I saw Harold wasn’t home, I went next door to the big house to see if they could help me find the fellow. I was promptly informed that Harold was busy and had “no time for that foolishness.”

Foolishness indeed! I am reminded of Marva Dawn’s book, A Royal "Waste" of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World. Much of what we do to live out our faith seems like foolishness to many people. Think what it would be like to sleep in every Sunday and not bother with worship. No reading uncomfortable passages of scripture about how we are treating the poor, the widow and the orphan. No more giving away a tenth of our income! Guilt free boating on that 22-footer every Sunday! Who’s really foolish when one of the most widely-used sayings about boats is that they are “holes in the water, into which you throw money?!”

Proclaiming Christ crucified is a stumbling block for us because nobody wants a dead messiah. In the midst of that foolishness is the message that Christ crucified is also Christ resurrected. That seems like foolishness to some in the world, too.

In the days between Passion Sunday and Easter we are called to walk in the patch which took Jesus from triumphal entry to Golgotha. It is a painful journey and will cost us our old ways of living. It means we put human wisdom behind and embrace the foolishness of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

Prayer:

Dear Lord, as we journey with you to the cross, grant us the foolishness to embrace your wisdom. May your weakness over power our strength. Give us the voice to sing, we who once were dead, now live! Amen