INCREDIBLE! During this month the Christian Church, throughout the world, will focus on an event that almost beggars belief – the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Is it any real wonder that so many are sceptical?
We who believe the gospel, who know we must believe it in order to be saved, need to realise that we believe facts that are, in fact, unbelievable. We must recognise that the good news of salvation through the death of God on a cross is utterly incredible.
We sometimes use the word incredible for events that have actually occurred. For example, we might see a car that has been almost completely wrecked in a collision and say it's incredible that anyone survived such an accident. But of all such events, the event that was necessary for salvation is the most incredible. When we proclaim "the message of the cross" and tell people that the very same God who created all things and controls all things died on that cross, the reaction of any thinking person is that it could never have happened.
The apostle Paul, interestingly, reminds the Corinthian believers of just how incredible their faith is. Their fellowship has been riddled by dissension, and Paul is distressed, even angry, about this. Apparently he views the marvel of the cross as the antidote to the party spirit that still shatters unity amongst believers. But he also sees that the unifying force that holds believers together is also the reality that separates them absolutely from others who consider the cross too much to believe.
And he divides those unbelievers into two groups, pointing out distinctions that still help us see just how preposterous the cross really is. One group considers the cross incredible because it contaminates God. The Jewish faith characteristically reacted to the message of the cross by referring to the Old Testament declaration that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed. Others view the death of God on a cross as incredible because it reduces to abject lowliness what, by definition, is absolute power and glory. The Greek notion of divinity could never include an idea so ridiculous.
The message of the cross, says the apostle, can only be foolishness to all except those who have been equipped to respond to it by the Holy Spirit. And so the cross must forever remain an incredible foolishness for those who insist on standing above all religious phenomena and making their sophisticated judgments. That God, whom they may call "the ground of being" or "ultimate reality" would endure the ultimate humiliation and powerlessness of the cross is too foolish for them to accept.
And so it is. We who do believe must acknowledge that as long as we view the cross of Christ with human vision, no other description but "Incredible!" applies. But, thanks be to God, the ultimate incredible event has occurred! God, in the person of his precious, one and only Son the second person of the holy Trinity was nailed to a cross of wood where he took our sin upon himself and paid the price for all of it. This is so incredible that it can be believed only when the same God who died captures us with his Holy Spirit and creates faith within us.
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