Strange Measures

“We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles,

But to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles,

Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

1 Corinthians 1:23-24

“So how long is a meter?”  “A little more than a yard!”  “How many miles in a kilometer?”  “Well there are about .6 miles to every kilometer.”  It gets harder for me from there.  “How many centimeters in an inch?”  “How many centimeters equal a foot?”  “How many liters equal a gallon?”  “How many grams in a pound?”  “How many pounds in a kilogram?”  The one I love best is how you convert Fahrenheit to Celsius.  You multiply the Celsius temperature by 1.8 and add 32… or something like that. People ask me, “What have you had a hard time adjusting to?”  Well I don’t know if it’s the most important adjustment to living outside of America, but it’s one I struggle with.  I know that most of the world uses the metric system, but for me these are strange measures.   I am used to feet and miles, inches and pounds, pints and gallons.   Oh 115 kg of weight sounded pretty good till I converted it to pounds.  This summer predictions of 40 degrees Celsius sounded almost cold till I found out that this equals temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with no air conditioning.  

St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 is saying the same thing about the Gospel.  “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles…”    This idea that God would measure us by the life that His Son lived and by the death He died… that He would apply a measure to us that we could never deserve or earn… that on that basis He would adopt and accept us as His children.  That seems so foolish. It’s a strange measure.  You and I are much more comfortable with the law.  We have grown up, as Paul told the Romans with “the work of the Law written on” our hearts.  (Romans 2:14). We by nature resonate with a measure that gives us something we can do for our salvation… even a measure that if we listen to it honestly brings home the idea that we could never do what is required.  Like the rich young man, we like looking at the letter of the law rather than its heart.  That way we can lie to ourselves as he did and says, “I have kept all these.”  We take the law and use it to make measured comparisons.  We decide, “Well I am not as bad a sinner as him so I guess I am okay.”  Such measures are not strange to us.  They come natural.

But the Gospel, well that’s like me trying to understand the metric system.  The Gospel is a foreign language to us, a strange measurement.  Think about it, God loves us even though we don’t deserve it.  He measures us not by the life we live, or rather have failed to live.  Instead He measures us according to the perfect life Jesus has lived in our place.  He doesn’t punish us as our sins deserves.  Instead He punishes His Son Jesus as our sins deserves. As far as you and I are concerned it’s “as far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our sins from us.” (Psalm 103) Jesus “redeems us from the curse of the law by Himself being cursed for us.”  (Gal. 3:13)  God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)  Then He raises Jesus to life that He might also raise us with Christ.  And He does this all even though we don’t deserve it.  He does this all for no other reason than that He loves us.  Even the trust in that Gospel which He asks of us is a gift He gives to us!   He places the gift of salvation into our hands of faith and by His Spirit lifts up those hands to receive His gift.  In the cross, God gives us a new measure that says that God loves and forgives without us doing a thing to earn it.  That is a strange measure.

That’s why I thought of the metric system.  The metric system is still so strange to me that people have to explain it to me over and over again.  The same is true with the Gospel.  This is why you and I need to hear it again and again.  This is why He gives us Pastors and teachers and Christian friends.  This is why he invites us to come to worship, to come to His holy Supper.  This is why He invites us to confess our sins corporately, privately in prayers and, whenever we need it, in confidence to each other.  He does this because more than anything else our God wants to apply this strange measure of the Gospel to you and me.  Over and over again… through all these means He desires to says to us, “Yes it’s true.  I gave my Son for you.  I love you.  Your sins are forgiven now and forever… for free.  “That,” He says, “is how I measure you in Christ!”