QUARANTINE BLOG # 349

March 14, 2021

The Absurdity of Grace

The devotional readings for the third week of Lent closed with a word about the message of the cross. 

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God . . . It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.  For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;  but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21-25 NKJV).

Paul used an incredible word: “foolishness.”  In addition to foolishness, it means silliness, or even stronger, absurdity – like flip flops and a bikini worn at the North Pole.  Or in Greek mythology Sisyphus, punished for his trickery and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, and repeating this action for eternity.

Now, this fourth Sunday in Lent begins with Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

“But God’s mercy is great, and he loved us very much.  Though we were spiritually dead because of the things we did against God, he gave us new life with Christ.  You have been saved by God’s grace . . . I mean that you have been saved by grace through believing.  You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.  It was not the result of your own efforts, so you cannot brag about it” (Ephesians 2:4-5, 8-9 NCV).

To the cultured Greek and to the pious Jew the story that Christianity had to tell sounded like the sheerest folly, but Paul said the preaching of Christ crucified is the power and the wisdom of God.  And in that power and wisdom God gave us a gift which cost us nothing, our salvation.  To be sure, it was the most costly gift that God could give – to watch his sinless Son die for sinful humanity, for the sinless Son to suffer our punishment, our hell.  Because of that gift, we cannot brag.

Sin creates estrangement between us and God.  Jesus takes that sense of estrangement away.  He came to tell us that no matter what we are like, the door is open to the presence of God.  

Paul said it is God’s plan, “in the ages to come that he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7 NKJV).

Charles Spurgeon preached, “God has as much grace as you want, and he has a great deal more than that.  The Lord has as much grace as a whole universe will require, but he has vastly more.  He overflows: all the demands that can ever be made on the grace of God will never impoverish him, or even diminish his store of mercy; there will remain an incalculably precious mine of mercy as full as when he first began to bless the sons of men.”

Talk about foolishness.  Talk about silliness.  Talk about absurdity.  They are all rolled up in God’s priceless gift of salvation through faith in his son, the gift of grace that leaves us without the power to boast, but forces us to our knees to praise.

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