But we preach Christ crucified

1 Corinthians 1.22-24; 2.1-2

²² Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

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¹ When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. ² For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

The gospel is Christ crucified.  This is the gospel that brought me salvation, and adoption as child of God.

What does the gospel tell me?

… that my sin is serious.  There’s nothing casual about blood.  Nothing cavalier about death.  Jesus dying brutally, tortured and killed. Why?  For me—for the sins I’ve done, and the sinner that I am.

… that God is holy and just.  That God is love, and mercy.  He will not compromise with sin; he will not give up on sinners.

… that I have been forgiven and accepted. That this mercy and forgiveness claims me, and calls me to know nothing but Christ crucified.

These truths of the gospel reach out to touch every aspect of life.  It seems the more I reflect on the gospel, the more I preach it, the more I live under its powerful spell, the more I see how deeply true it is, how richly true it is, how true it is in multiple ways.  It tells me everything essential that I need to know about myself, about God, about others, about how to love, relate, decide, what to prioritize, about the texture and shape of life. At times, it seems to me to be the very center of the world, the brilliant sun through which everything else about life gets illuminated.  The light of the knowledge of the glory of God is, indeed, in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4.6).