Foolishness of the Cross

"Put your sword back in your scabbard."

They killed Jesus. That killing was their last resort against him, just as it remains the means of those who are willing to use weapons against others. That same willingness is the taproot of violence in our society today.

It sounds like a terrible indictment, but our intent, or at least our consent, to use nuclear weapons or even to wage war against others makes the violence in our streets and parks, trains and buses, comprehensible and defensible.
If you have children and buy a gun, even to defend yourself, your children will think that violence is the way to live.

Standing before Pilate, Jesus told him that he could have used violence, that he could have resorted to legions and legions of angels, to the whole of the heavenly host and their precision armaments, but that he chose not to do so. He continued choosing life, even in that ultimate moment of distress.

The cycle of violence can only be broken the way he did it, by simply refusing to enter it.
The sun darkened. The curtains in the temple ripped apart. The earth shook in vehemence when it received his body. When they left him hanging on the cross, allowing some of his friends to take him off and bury him, his opponents must have thought they had made a fool of him. When he rose from the death they had inflicted upon him, he proved them wrong. He was killed, but the cycle of violence was broken. Foolishness? Foolishness in the eyes of the wise of this world, the foolishness of the cross