What kind of God is this? Gods were meant to be feared. They threw thunderbolts from Mount Olympus. They imprisoned you under mountains if you displeased them.
This God was a wimp. He allowed Himself to be spitted upon, hit, slapped, and punched. He allowed Himself to be stripped and executed. He allowed Himself to be killed. [Matthew 27:27-50]
There He was hanging on a cross, naked, dead. People walked by, shaking their heads, laughing, mocking. Jesus, God? More likely, a court jester, a fool.
He was by no means the first fool though. The first fools were found in Eden. Having tasted the goodness of their Creator, having known firsthand the trustworthiness of their God, they turned their backs on Him first chance they get. Instead of trusting the One who loved them, they sold their souls to the first snake selling snake oil that they meet. Fools! [Genesis 3]
Still, I guess it’s true. Love makes fools of us all. Instead of leaving the fools from Eden to suffer the consequences of their foolishness, God becomes a cosmic jester. Though He is Wisdom, He comes to play the fool. To save the fools from their foolishness. To save me.
In his book SPEAK WHAT YOU FEEL, Frederick Buechner has this to say about writers:
Vein-opening writers [i.e. life changing writers] are putting not just themselves into their books, but themselves at their nakedest and most vulnerable. They are putting their pain and their passion into their books??
Not all writers do it all the time — even the blood bank recognizes we have only so much blood to give — and many good writers never do it at all because either for one reason or another they don’t choose to or they don’t quite know how to; it takes a certain kind of unguardedness, for one thing, a willingness to run risks, including the risk of making a fool of yourself.? (ix,x)
It seems that this is precisely what God has done. In seeking to rewrite the script of a humanity done in by their own foolishness, He has run risks. He has become unguarded. He has made a fool of Himself.
The cleverness of man was no match for the snake. The cleverness of man led to death. But the foolishness of God leads to life.
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” [1 Corinthians 1:18 TNIV]
So Paul, by no means an intellectual slouch, had no problems being a fool for Christ. [1 Corinthians 4:10] He knew that any cleverness apart from God was deadly folly.
These then are the choices I guess. We either continue our Eden chosen trajectory out of Eden, in our foolish quest to be like gods, or we embrace the life giving foolishness of God and choose to be fools for Him.
This is a hard lesson anywhere. Maybe a little harder in Asia where the one thing we mustn’t lose is face. Repentance begins with the recognition that, not only have we lost face, through sin, we have lost it all.
Unless we embrace the fact of our foolishness, we will not be in a position to understand the Cross. We will not be able to understand that Jesus, through the Cross, gives His all, that we may get it all back.
This Good Friday I look afresh at Jesus on the Cross — the fool, the fool. Why? Why? How could you love so much??? My Lord and my God! My Lord and my God!
In silence, I vow afresh that my life will be a thank you for your foolish love. I choose afresh to be God’s fool.
Amazing love! How can it be That Thou my God shouldst die for me? Amazing love! How can it be That Thou my God shouldst die for me! (Charles Wesley)
Your brother, Soo-Inn Tan