First Presbyterian Church
Marianna, Florida
February 25, 2007
Sermon by Huw Christopher, Pastor

Scripture Readings:	I Corinthians 1:18-25
Sermon Title:	“The Cross of Jesus: The Unexpected Choice”
Sermon Text:	1 Corinthians. 1:18: 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.
 
	If you had the opportunity to show the whole world how much you love 
them how would you want to do it?  If you were given a choice of how you could 
show all the people of the world how much you love them what would you choose 
to do?
	Your immediate reaction to those questions may be to think and even to say, 
“I am not sure that I really do love all the people of the world.”  Certainly as we 
read our newspapers or listen to the news reports on television or view them on the 
internet there is much about the actions of other people that are so hurtful to their 
fellow human beings that make it difficult for us to say that we really are ready to 
love all the people of the world.  The violent, destructive, abusive, self-centered 
and selfish actions of so many people, that we witness not just in some remote part 
of the world but even in our own community do not make it easy for us to say that 
we really want to show all people that we love them.
	A cousin of mine in England sent me an e-mail recently of a postcard that a 
child had sent to God.  On this postcard the child had said, “Dear God:  I bet it is 
hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world.  There are only four 
people in our family and I can never do it. Love, Nan.”  I feel sure that such 
feelings are not confined to people in Britain, but would be shared by many in this 
country as well.  I also feel pretty sure that such feelings are not ones that people 
easily outgrow as they become teenagers or even adults, but that often the wider 
circle of people of whom we are aware the more difficult it becomes to say that we 
really love everyone.  It is like Charlie Brown would often say, “I love humanity, it 
is people I cannot stand.”
	As we gather here and think about how we might react to the question of 
how we might want to show our love for the whole world we cannot, of course, 
avoid those most familiar words of our faith that we have heard again this morning 
in our assurance of pardon, “that God so loved the world that he gave his only 
Son.”  God’s very sending of Jesus into this world reminds us that there is a 
tremendous difference between loving all the people of the world and liking all the 
people of the world, and being pleased with all that they are doing in. When we 
think about it indeed would God have even needed to send Jesus into the world if 
he had liked all that human beings were doing?  It is out of love, compassion and 
concern for human beings that they might know a new and better way of living and 
relating to him and to one to another that God sends Jesus into this world.
	Even if we acknowledge that there is indeed a difference between loving all 
the people of the world and liking all the people of the world how would you 
choose to show your love for all of the people of the world if you possibly could do 
so? As you think about such a question and how you would choose to show your 
love for the whole world I wonder how many of us can claim we would choose to 
show our love for the world in the same way that God did.  Paul in our call to 
confession highlighted the rather exceptional way in which God chose to show his 
love for the world when he said, “God proves his love for us in that while we were 
still sinners, while we were doing those things that were not pleasing to God, that 
Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Earlier in writing to the Christians in Rome he 
had highlighted the exceptional nature of this love when he had said, “For while 
we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  Indeed, rarely 
will anyone die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person someone 
might actually dare to die. (Romans 5:6-7)  As we hear Paul’s words again we 
have to wonder was Peter really so strange when he reacted as he did when Jesus 
said he would have to suffer and be killed?  Would anyone of us have reacted in 
any different way?  Is the choice of suffering the cruel death of a cross the way in 
which anyone of us would choose to show our love for this world?  Indeed, is this 
the way in which we would even think that the Lord God, the Almighty, the Maker 
of heaven and earth, would choose to show how much he loves everyone?  
	We place a cross before us, even though it may be the symbol of torture, 
pain, cruel suffering and death because for us as Christian men and women the 
whole meaning that this symbol may have has been transformed forever because of 
the way in which God choose to use the death of Jesus on the cross to be the way 
in which he would show to the world how much he loves everyone.  Paul as he 
wrote to the Christians in Corinth reminded them that the central message that he 
had proclaimed to them and to all people was of Christ crucified for them. He 
proclaimed this message because he recognized that only as people come to see in 
the cross the ultimate sign of God’s love for them and for the whole world that 
they can come to know the power of God by which they might be saved, and know 
a right relationship with their Creator.  Paul recognized that even as he proclaimed 
such a message and invited people to come and to stand or to kneel before the 
cross there were still Jews who, like Peter, could not understand how God would 
choose to show his love for the whole world in this way so that the very mention of 
the death of Jesus on the cross for them had become a stumbling block to their 
coming to know and to experience God’s love for themselves.  He also recognized 
that for many Gentiles and Greeks, who sought for wisdom, the whole message 
that he proclaimed of God’s love for the world being seen most fully by Christ’s 
death on the cross sounded like utter foolishness, and like a tale told by an idiot.  
	It is almost two thousand years since Paul wrote those words.  But is his 
message one that people today would find anymore acceptable and expected?  At 
our Session meeting on Tuesday evening the words of one of the prayers that we 
used said, “From your heart, O Lord, comes a love which we can never fully 
fathom.”  Is there anyone here who would feel that he or she does not need to pray 
that prayer because you have come to understand completely and fully the God’s 
amazing love, love so divine, all loves excelling seen in the death of Jesus on the 
cross for us?
I will be interested to see what choices are made by this congregation in 
terms of favorite hymns concerning the cross and death of Jesus.  A few years ago 
a survey was done of all the favorite hymns in Britain and not just ones related to 
the cross or the death of Jesus.  In that survey the number one choice was one 
which I think would probably rank very high with many people in this country as 
well, and probably with many in this congregation.  That hymn was the hymn we 
will sing later in the service, “How Great Thou Art.”  The interesting thing, of 
course, about this hymn is the way in which in the first two stanzas it helps us to 
think about the greatness of God as we see it day by day in the world of nature.  
This is a greatness of God which many people may be willing to celebrate even if 
they are not Christians because they enjoy the beauty and bounty of this world with 
us. In the third stanza, though our attention is focused on the central theme of our 
faith as Christian men and women when it says, “And when I think that God his 
Son not sparing sent him to die, I scarce can take it in, that on the cross, my burden 
gladly bearing he bled and died to take away my sin.”  This hymn was written 
originally in Swedish in 1885.  The familiar English translation comes from a 
Russian version.  The hymn did become well known in the English speaking world 
until the late 1950s, and then largely because of its use in the Billy Graham 
crusades.  Despite the fact that many here may feel that they have sung this hymn 
all of their lives, our present hymnbook is the first Presbyterian Hymnal in this 
country to contain this hymn. Yet even 50 or more years later than the first English 
translation of these words can anyone say that these words are now outdated, and 
that it comes as no surprise to us, and that we can easily take it in and accept, 
indeed that we would expect that the great God would express his love for the 
whole world in this way?  Billy Graham is said to have encouraged his choir 
leader, Cliff Barrows, to use this hymn as often as possible, “because” he said, “it 
was such a God-honouring song.” (quoted in The Nation’s Favorite Hymns, A 
Lion Book, 2002, page 64)
	The response of Jesus to Peter reminds us that when we set our minds on 
human things we would never expect a cross to be the way in which God, or 
anyone, would choose to show his love for the world.  Indeed it is only as we come 
to appreciate not how we look at the world or even how we might choose to show 
our love for the world, but how God looks at the world and how God chooses to 
show his love for this world that we would want to lift high a cross and whereby to 
proclaim the love of God for the whole world as seen in Jesus Christ.  Let 
remember and affirm again how God has chosen to show his love for us and for the 
whole world even through a cross using the familiar words of the Apostles’ Creed.  
Let us stand and affirm our faith together….	 
 
 
 
 


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