“For The Message of the Cross Is Foolishness . . . ”

In few weeks the Armenian Church will be commemorating several feasts of the cross including the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, one of the five major annual feasts of our Church. These festivities, through their various hymns, processions and special services, remind us all of the centrality of the concept of the cross in our faith: the ultimate expression of God’s love for us and the symbol of torture and death, that miraculously through Christ’s sacrifice, turned into a symbol of hope and life. Through the various feasts of the cross we reconfirm our inheritance of Christ’s victory over sin and death. We express our trust in the Crucified Savior. The cross, following our Lord’s death and resurrection, thus, becomes the ultimate symbol of our faith. It reminds us of our Lord, and as such, of everything He did and stood for: the gospel, hope of eternity, love, forgiveness and salvation.

Yet, in today’s culture, it seems that these same values for which the Cross stands as the ultimate symbol, go diametrically against the popular culture and values. Let’s examine some of these concepts that the Cross represents. Complete trust in God, for example, is being challenged in the courts of our nation. Some people want to remove the reference to God from our pledge of allegiance in order not to offend our pagan or atheist fellow citizens. In its first constitution, the European Union, representing a league of countries that for centuries were the cradles of theology and centers of Christianity, refuses to incorporate God or Christianity. In a society of “fast-food” style marriage and divorce and of “filing a suit” against a restaurant for serving hot coffee, teaching forgiveness becomes a ridiculous concept, if not foolish. In a confused society, where marriage lost its biblical meaning, and love is equated with instant fleshly satisfaction, “loving your enemy” can be spoken of only as a joke or unrealistic ideal of the past. Finally, in a self-centered way of life, sharing 10% of our income with those who are less fortunate or poor, is definitely a disastrous way of investing your money!

Having quickly gone through some of the main concepts of our lifestyle and priorities, I can fully understand why the apostle Paul admits that “the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (I Cor 1:18-24). In other words, for those whose understanding of life is several decades of living on this earth which ends with death, the teachings of our Lord, i.e forgiving your enemy, helping the poor, preparing for eternal life, is nothing but complete foolishness. The apostle, however, adds, “But for us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” As Christians, we see in the teachings of Christ the only hope of being reconciled with God and through His grace receiving salvation and becoming worthy of eternal life. Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is the ultimate expression of God’s power: His love for His creation, which destroyed the shackles of death and of captivity to sin, and which he bestows upon us as His saving grace.

As we prepare for the upcoming beautiful feasts of the cross, let us ask ourselves what the cross of Christ means to us. Do I really understand why He had to die on the cross? What were the main issues in His teachings that caused His enemies to execute Him in such a brutal way? Finally, deep in our heart and soul have we accepted these teachings as our and our family’s rule of life?

Through our baptisms, our parents and God-parents have set our path to embrace the cross of the Lord. Let us reconfirm that by setting our priorities in a way that reflects first and foremost the message of the Cross. Let us join the apostle Paul saying, “we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (I Cor 1:22).

In the Lord's service,
Fr. Vahan Hovhanessian
September, 2004

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