1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The cross: You know the cross has become very popular now a days. People have discovered the cross and more and more people are wearing crosses. It is fashionable for both men and women to have a necklace with a cross on it. The story goes that a man walked into a fancy jewelry store and asked to see the crosses. The sales clerk brought out a velvet tray with an assortment of gold and silver and jeweled crosses. Then the clerk eagerly asked "Now would you like a plain cross or one with a little man on it?"

Crosses may be popular but most people don't even know what they are. To the world the cross is a pretty piece of jewelry. It is an item crafted out of precious medals and stones which carries some kind of spiritual significance but they know not what. To some it is a powerful talisman and its possession gives one power and prowess. After all Buffy the Vampire Slayer carries one with her all the time to vanquish the undead.

But the cross is not a pretty piece of jewelry with anonymous and amorphous meaning. It is not a powerful talisman or charm that gives special powers to its possessors. I'm sorry to say that just carrying a cross will not ward off evil. The cross was an instrument of torture and death. Would you wear a replica of an electric chair or a gas chamber around your neck? It was the means of execution used by the Roman government.

We in the church may be disturbed by what the world does with the cross; the way they trivialize it, but what we do must seem like madness to them. Every year around March the church enters into a kind of madness from the world's perspective. This March Madness has nothing to do with the NCAA, the Cameron Crazies, or the sixth man. It is more than the madness of fanatic fans. This March Madness is the lifting up of that old rugged cross. It is the March Madness of Lent when we Christians place special emphasis on the Cross of Christ.

It is like the story of Joshua B. Little. Joshua B. Little worked for a major corporation. His office was in a cubicle farm somewhere in a large building. He was an accountant. While doing his job he noticed some things that were out of the ordinary. Large amounts of money were being transferred to banks in strange places. Joshua also discovered that the company was intentionally cutting corners on safety measures thus endangering not only the workers but also the consumers.

Joshua felt he had to do something. The corporation was making money at the expense of people's lives. He gathered together the information he needed to go public and blow the whistle. But the corporation got wind of his plans and tried to stop him.

It was a classic David and Goliath scenario. The giant corporation that was killing people to make a buck against a lone honest caring man. In the end the corporation manufactured a scandal. They discredited Joshua B. Little. His wife left him and he was convicted of embezzling a million and a half dollars. Joshua B. Little was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in the state penitentiary and the Corporation is still producing products that it knows are unsafe.

"What a minuet! What kind of story is that?" It is a parable on the meaning of the cross. That is what the cross is all about. The cross is about one good and honest man, a carpenter, going up against a corrupt religious and political corporation that was knowingly selling people a substandard product. The result of which was that people were dying spiritually. When that one man stood up against the religious and political giants he was crucified on trumped up charges of blasphemy and sedition. He was in a grave and the Roman empire went on for another 400 years or so before it was replaced by yet another corrupt set of government corporations.

That's what the cross is. It is madness and lunacy. It is rejoicing that your team was knocked out of the NCAA because of a game full of unfair calls. It is about the Roman Empire killing the only begotten Son of God.

Paul said it better than I could. He said the cross is a stumbling block to those who seek signs and foolishness to those who seek wisdom. To accept the cross you have to give up looking for signs or proof and simply believe: believe that a carpenter from Galilee who was executed in 30 AD was actually the only begotten Son of the Almighty God. It means believing without proof that one truly righteous man could die for not only the world's sins but yours. To accept the cross requires believing, against all logic, that those who love life will lose it and those who lose their lives for the Gospel will gain eternal life.

What is the cross? It is more than a few pieces of wood used to kill people. It is the symbol of our salvation. By the means of a corrupt and oppressive government God brought the opportunity for true righteousness and freedom. Embracing the cross doesn't mean that you are given a special power to silence the powers of evil. It means that we can face apparent defeat by evil because we know that good will finally triumph despite the current situation.

The cross is truly madness to the world. It is a stumbling block to unbelievers and foolishness to the wise of this age. So let's engage in a little Holy March Madness. Let us remember and celebrate how our Lord was unjustly killed on a cross. Not that we celebrate the apparent triumph of evil over good, but celebrate that we know the truth.

The truth that through the death of one righteous man we all were made righteous. The truth that by the breaking of his body and the shedding of his blood we are saved. This is the March Madness of the Kingdom of God!

John 2:13-22

Whose house is this? (It's God's house.) We call the church "God's House." In Jesus' day that is what people called the temple in Jerusalem. They said is was the house of God and they meant it! It was the place where God chose to dwell among his people. The Bible tells us that in the middle of the Jerusalem Temple was a room called the Holy of Hollies. In that room was the ark of the covenant. And above the ark was God's Spirit.

The temple in Jerusalem was called "holy." In Hebrew the word for holy is "qadosh." It literally means set apart or separated. The opposite of holy is "profane" or "common." The temple was a holy place because it had been set aside as the dwelling place of God and nothing else.

Because the temple was holy, worshippers of God took the time and expense to make a pilgrimage to the temple for holy days, or as we would say holidays. Jesus and the disciples were no different. When the Feast of Passover approached they made their way to the Temple, the house of the living God. They went because that was holy place set apart for praising and worshipping God.

But, when they entered God's house, Jesus didn't find what he expected. He expected to hear Psalms being chanted or sung. He expected to see rabbis teaching the Scriptures. He expected to see people kneeling or bowing in prayer. He expected to smell incense and burnt offerings to God. He expected the dwelling place of God to be full of people worshipping God.

But that is not what Jesus found. Instead of Psalms and Prayers, he heard the clanging of cow bells and the bleating of sheep and the clanking of coins. Instead of teachers and people kneeling in prayer, he saw buying and selling, making deals and bartering. Instead of the pleasant smells of incense and burnt offerings, Jesus found the foul smells of sweaty animal herders and of sheep and ox excrement. Instead of worshippers, he found people cheating and stealing. The sights, sounds and smells that Jesus encountered were those of the marketplace not of the temple. The marketplace had taken over the temple and the affairs of the world were conducted within its walls. If it was no longer separated from the world; it was no longer holy.

This was more than Jesus could take. So Jesus decided to clean it up and make it holy. He drove out the people selling and their animals. He turned over the tables of the money changers. And he said, "Don't make my Father's house a house of trade."

What Jesus did was very significant, even revolutionary. People believed the temple was holy and Jesus said that it wasn't. They wondered, "Who is he to do that? What authority did he have to make that kind of a statement? Only God can decide that the temple was no longer holy."

They asked him, "Show us a sign so that we will know if God has given you authority to do this thing." And Jesus said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." This amazed those who were listening. It had taken 46 years at that time to build the temple, and it wasn't finished yet. How could he rebuild it in three days? Of course they misunderstood him.

The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed just as Jesus predicted. The Romans destroyed it, and it has not been rebuilt to this day. But as we all know Jesus' prediction did come true. The temple he was speaking of was his body. God dwelt in him. They destroyed his body just as he said they would, and three days later he was raised up. But Christ's death and resurrection changed everything. Followers of God no longer need to go to a temple and make sacrifices to atone for their sins. Christ's death was and is the only sacrifice ever needed for the sins of the world. Through his death and resurrection Christ replaced the temple with himself. No longer would God dwell primarily in the Holy of Hollies. Now Jesus became the presence of God in our midst, not the temple. And he lives in every believer's heart making each of us a Holy of Hollies; a walking temple.

The Bible says that we are God's holy people.(I Peter 2:9) It also says that each of us are living stones built into the temple of God.(I Peter 2:5) Christ dwells in the hearts of each believer just as God dwelt in the temple in the Old Testament. God has set us apart to be a holy people just as the temple was a holy place.

But are we really holy? Are we set apart and different? You might say, "I have accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior therefore I am holy and saved." And that is right in part. Because you have accepted Christ, his blood covers your sins and you are saved from them. Your faith is counted to you as righteousness. You will go to heaven because of Jesus' death. But are you living a holy life? I hope and pray that all of you can truthfully say that you were saved by Jesus, but are you living for him as well. As Christians we are saved by Jesus. But we are then called to live holy lives for him.

You heard the ten commandments read this morning. Jesus said if you so much as think about doing these things you have done them. I wonder how many of us are guilty of having broken all the commandments. Jimmy Carter was not the first born again Christian to lust after a member of the opposite sex and he won't be the last. I would say our hearts are profane. They have been filled with every kind of desire and want that the market place can provide. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Let Jesus come in and cleanse our hearts like he did the temple. As Easter approaches ask Jesus to cleans your hearts. Allow him to come in and overturn the moneychanger's tables. And drive out the sellers of sheep and oxen. Then we can dwell in Christ and he in us and we will be walking talking breathing temples of the living God. And the holy of hollies where the spirit of the living God dwells will be in our hearts.

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

"Don't cross your eyes. They might get stuck like that." "Don't stand up in that chair. You'll fall. And you'll split your head open and we will have to take you to the hospital."

You know the routine. Especially you parents. You tell your child not to do something for its own good. And to convince them to follow our advice we describe the worst that could happen. I have never seen a child get their eyes stuck when they crossed them, but I suppose that their eye muscles could have a spasm, and as a result their eyes would be stuck for a moment. But it is highly unlikely. And we are all aware that in most cases the child does not fall out of the chair.

So why do we parents, and grandparents, paint these worst case scenarios? Do we intend to mislead or scare our children about the dangers of the world around them? No, we do it because we love them. We do it because we want to avoid injury or the trauma of having your eyes stuck in a crossed position. We do it to convince our children of the necessity of following our rules because we know that we can't be there every moment to protect them from every danger. We do it in the interest of their safety.

That is what God was doing with Israel at Mount Sinai. God is a parent warning his children about things that might harm them. God said, "Worship me only. Don't make any idols. Don't use my name wrongly. Keep the Sabbath. Honor your parents. Don't murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet." Then God caused thunder and lightning and rumbling and magnificent noises to issue forth from the holy mountain. And the people were afraid. They wondered, "Is God going to destroy us because we have broken most of those commandments already."

Now, why did God scare them? Does God get some kind of perverse pleasure from scaring little helpless creatures like humans? Of course not! Moses said to the Israelites, "Don't be scared. God just wants you to respect his wishes. That way you will keep his commandments."

God was being a loving father. God was being a caring parent who says don't do this or else. God gave Israel the Ten Commandments as a gift of love.

But most people don't see it this way. They think God gave the ten commandments to make our lives miserable and difficult. They think God just doesn't want us to have any fun. But isn't that exactly how many children react to their parents' restrictions. They think their parents lay down rules just to make life hard on them. The reality is that the parents want to make life more pleasant and free of unnecessary pain.

That's God's intention behind the Ten Commandments. You see, God made us and God knows our needs and our limits. Our Heavenly Father knows what kind of behavior will hurt our bodies, souls, and spirits. And so God has told us what to do and what not to do. It is like operation specifications for a piece of equipment. They say don't do this or you will damage it. Well, God's saying don't do this or you will damage yourself and cause yourself physical, mental or spiritual anguish.

But some people say, "Oh, but that was over 3,000 years ago. Times change. Things are different now. The same rules don't apply." It is true that times change, but human beings don't. Oh, any anthropologist will tell you that people are taller, larger, and healthier than they were 3,000 years ago, but the basic model hasn't changed. The same things that exceeded design specifications then, still exceed design specifications today.

Basically we were created to love God and our neighbor. We were not designed to hate or be self-centered. So when we do hateful things we damage ourselves just like a tool used for the wrong purpose.

So keep the Ten Commandments - with God's help. If you have trouble remembering them, just remember what Jesus said. He said that the whole of the law was summed up in two commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. If you do these two things you will be doing all that God has commanded in the Bible.

Keep the commandments because God has commanded it. Keeping the commandments will not save you. Only Christ can save you. But if Christ is your Lord then do what he and his Father have told you to do.

But just in case that isn't enough. If the fact that God has commanded these things is not enough for you, then keep them out of your own self-interest. Keep them to save yourself from the pain and heartache that will result when you break them. God didn't give these commandments to make your life difficult or to take your fun away. These commandments were given because your Daddy in heaven loves you.