a constant stream of consciousness

I’ve been studying Galatians off and on lately. I love the letters of Paul because he is beautifully honest and relentlessly loving and graceful. I’ve read this particular letter many times. Chapter 6 is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. But as I was on my way there this morning, I got tripped up by 5:11.

Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.

That word offense stopped me. The cross is offensive? I know that historically the cross was a symbol of death, Roman power and punishment. But long ago the church adopted it as a symbol of hope, grace and victory. How is it that Paul is calling it an offense. And then if you look at the Greek word it gets more confusing. The word is skandalon. This is where we get our word scandal. In other places this same word is translated stumbling block. Literally this was the bit of wood or stick that held open the trap used to catch wild animals. In those places it is translated as stumbling block, it is used in the negative connotation. It is something that we are called not to be, something to avoid. And yet, here Paul is calling the cross a stumbling block. What gives?

Well, I think its because it is for many people. Which one you might be asking, a scandal or a stumbling block? Both. It was certainly a scandal. If there had been Us Weekly or People magazine back then, Jesus would have been on the cover more often than Kate Gosselin and Tiger Woods put together. For a respected Jewish rabbi to walk this path, to end this way, to preach what he did was more than scandalous for the Pharisees. It was blasphemous.

And today, Jesus and the cross continue to be a stumbling block to many. Think about it. Pretty much everyone but the most militant atheist is ok talking about God or at least the idea of a higher power, something that is bigger than us. But the minute you introduce Jesus into the discussion, the minute you suggest that God came and lived among us, the minute you suggest that the Word became flesh, that love has a name, you are putting out a stumbling block. Just this statement creates a dividing line.

But I think that Paul is pointing out that it is supposed to be that way. He is suggesting that removing the offense of the cross, removing the stumbling block, undoing the scandal is a bad thing. The problem is not that the cross is offensive or that it creates a stumbling block for people. The problem is that not enough people who claim to love Jesus, to be in a relationship with him, to be walking behind him carrying our own cross are willing to come along side of the offended, the stumbling and help them get over the obstacle. Not enough of us are willing to, as Paul goes on to say, “serve one another in love.” We serve the seekers. We serve other Christians. We sometimes serve the poor and hurting. But how many of us, myself included, serve the openly hostile, the person who makes it clear that they think this Jesus guy was full of garbage? The reason people view the cross as a stumbling block, the reason they see it as a symbol of oppression instead of freedom, as punishment and not victory is because of us. It’s because we don’t demonstrate with our lives that the cross, that Jesus set us free, that he came that we might have life to the full.