Christian Worship and The Cross: Jewish Offense and Gentile Nonsense
Part 1 of a multi-part series. What did the cross mean to the earliest Christians? How did it inform their worship? And what did the onlooking Jews and Greeks think about all this?
It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
1 Corinthians 1:22-23
Undeniably, the cross occupies a dominant place in the Christian imagination. It is part of the central cluster of stories in the gospels that get to the heart of why we follow and worship Jesus. Particularly in the Protestant, and even more specifically, the evangelical tradition, the cross is central to the work of God in the world. For Christians, in the West generally and the United States in particular, we find hope and comfort in seeing images or figures of the cross. We sing songs that fill us with gratitude and joy considering the finished work of Christ on that ugly tree.
Yet as central to our faith as the cross is, we can easily get lost in our own cultural interpretation of the cross today and miss the gravity of its meaning to the original witnesses and hearers of the gospel message.
A poor man from Nazareth, executed outside of Jerusalem, is often praised as virtuous by modern Christian ears. Yet in Jesus’ own world a poor person being crucified would have been seen as run-of-the-mill: yet another embarrassing example of how much of a stranglehold the Roman Imperial Military Machine had on the Jewish people. Furthermore, for the surrounding Greek-speaking world, the horrific act of crucifixion would have put any Gentiles off from joining this fledgling movement out of sheer embarrassment.
In this series on the cross and Christian worship, I am going to explore the cross as a cultural symbol throughout Western history. In particular, I’m attempting to demonstrate how the cultural frame with which we see the cross will greatly influence how we worship God and are formed into Christian practice.1 This first post will help us understand the symbol of the cross in the first century and how that formed the early church’s worship.
Jewish Offense and Gentile Nonsense
Martin Hengel’s book, Crucifixion, provides one of the most helpful descriptions of what the cross meant in the first century Roman world, both for the Jew and the Gentile.
The Jews are offended
In Judea, one might assume that after years of oppression, the symbol of the cross became a sign by which to remember the Jewish faithful in their struggle against Rome, a way of subverting the experience of oppression. Yet Hengel points out that excessive Roman use combined with Rabbinical teaching around Deuteronomy 21:22-23 (“cursed by God is the one that is being hung,”), made it impossible for the Jews to recognize the cross as a symbol of their unified struggle.2
When the early Christians began announcing their Jewish Messiah as the one who was hung on such a tree, the offense in Judea was too much. It was impossible to conceive that Yahweh had become human in Jesus, let alone that Jesus, supposedly a devout Jew, could have died in such a despicable manner.
The Gentiles say it is nonsense
Within the Greek speaking world crucifixion was equally shameful, but for different reasons.
The “nonsense” or “foolishness” of the cross to the Gentiles is the Greek word, μωρία (moria). Hengel explains that it, “does not denote either a purely intellectual defect nor a lack of transcendental wisdom. Something more is involved.”3 He suggests the word “madness” is probably more suited to what the Gentiles thought of the Christian proclamation of Jesus and the cross. There were certainly other stories powerful gods like Zeus having sons ascend to heaven, but they would never consider that these sons of god would die, let alone be crucified!
The utter horror of the Roman authorities at the idea that a growing group of people throughout their empire were worshipping a poor Jewish man who had be hung on the ‘crucis’ is evident from the letters of Tacitus, Marcus Aerelius and even a Christian named Octavius. Indeed, crucifixion was so horrendous to the sensible mind of the Roman elite that they would not wish the cross on their worst enemies. (Exile or beheading were just fine though!)
It was so detested by Roman elites, Hengel explains, that it rarely shows up in any kind of inscription throughout the empire. It was widely practice and publicly displayed, yet at the same time in any official writings, it was understood that crucifixion was not to be discussed. As the supreme Roman penalty, it was rarely if ever used for upper class people in Roman society. This was a punishment for the poor and “sub-human” of the empire.
Crucifixion in the Roman empire found its home among political enemies, slaves and against the people of conquered lands to remind them all who was in charge. In 70 AD when the Roman’s sacked Jerusalem, it is said that 500 Jews were crucified each day for months.
Thus when the early Christians began claiming that God became human and was crucified, the only logical reaction to this news among the Gentile world was madness.
So, how did these first century cultural views of the cross inform the earliest Christian’s worship practice? To answer this, we need to briefly look to the world of culture studies.
The Cross as a Cultural Symbol
All cultures in all places are made up of three facets: symbols, narratives, and rituals.4 Very briefly, these three aspects of culture help create and shape meaning and decision-making in our lives both explicitly and implicitly. Symbols like the cross are one such element that helps us make sense of the world that we live in. Symbols can do all kinds of things in our cultural framework, but simply put, they create meaning and emotion.
A great example of this is the feeling you get when you see a car that you drove in your teenage years. Like all symbols the car is not simply a reference to something, but rather, as Gerald Arbuckle describes it, the symbol “re-presents the object.”5 Seeing the car you first drove brings back reminders of the joys of youth (or the embarrassments). In many ways the car does not simply remind you, it transports you back to another time or another place. It anchors you to a reality that shapes your behavior in the present.
Similarly, seeing the cross is not simply a reminder of something, rather it becomes the thing itself, re-presented to Christians at any point in history. This means the cross can influence Christian decision-making and form our habits from a historical distance because it has become a cultural symbol.
We will return to our own culture in Part 3. But for now, how might the cross as a cultural symbol have worked in the early church? Arbuckle turns to describe nine different types of symbols.6 Three of these are particularly interesting for our consideration of the cross:
Public Symbols
Such as a flag for a nation. It stands in for the nation in many ceremonies, representing the values of that people.
Order and Disorder Symbols
These symbols communicate what is good (orderly) for daily life and what is considered to be polluting (disorder) society and must be shut down.
Structural and Anti-Structural Symbols
Structural symbols are normative life, where order and rules keep society running smoothly.
Anti-structural symbols are those symbols that ‘level the playing field’ so to speak, where everyone is equal and there is no hierarchy.
If we were to turn these types of symbols into a lens through which to understand Hengel’s explanation of the cross in the first century, we might get something like this:
The Cross as Public Symbol
The cross was a visible reminder of the dominance and brutality of the Roman Empire. It “re-presented” Imperial rule wherever rebellion took place. High value on Roman cultural superiority with a low value on other people, especially the poor and enslaved.
God in Jesus, becomes associated with embarrassment, weakness, oppression, low value, enslavement, and a criminal background.
The Cross as Order and Disorder Symbol
The cross is again a sign of Roman order, removing by brute force anyone who would attempt to challenge Rome or break the established order.
In the early church, the cross is again subverted, becoming the comfort of martyrs who willingly give up their lives like Jesus to establish the new order of God’s kingdom across socio-economic and cultural lines.
The Cross as Structural and Anti-Structural Symbol
Similar to a public symbol, for most people within the Roman Empire, the cross represented what happened when one did not obey the rules of society or attempted to usurp Roman rule. Reserved for “subhumans,” the cross was a social stigma separating the “haves” from the “have nots.”
The meaning of the cross within the broader culture meant for the early church that the cross could serve as an anti-structural symbol because God had become associated with the lowest of humans. The saying, “the ground is level at the foot of the cross” stems from this understanding of the cross but this anti-structural understanding only works when understood in relationship to the cross as a structural symbol.
The Shape of Worship in the Early Church
This brief framework for understanding the cross as a cultural symbol in the early church’s world leads us to some important conclusions about how it shaped their worship. The way a Christian sees the cross (culturally speaking) will deeply inform their ideas about the kind of God they see on that cross and by extension, the kind of God they are worshipping.
Therefore, in the early church, God as revealed in Jesus is One who welcomes the weakest and poorest of society. One who makes a home among powerless nobodies. One who is willing to be considered irrelevant. God does not seek to take power coercively but humbly. God is not a harsh taskmaster but the gentle servant of all. Because of Jesus’ radical obedience even to the point of a shameful death, the Father has vindicated him and his actions by raising him up and seating Jesus at the Father’s right hand (1 Peter 3:22).
If the symbol of this new kingdom culture is something utterly shameful and foolish in the world's estimation, yet gently subverted into a redemptive reality, how might this have shaped the first Christian’s worship practice?
Here are three ways in which the cross shaped their worship:
1. Public Symbol: The songs they sang
Philippians 2:6-11, the famous kenosis passage, provides us with a picture of first century songs or chants that were likely part of the worship of early Christian communities.7 The words of this liturgical song includes phrases such as, “emptied himself,” “the form of a slave,” “humbled himself,” and “obedient to the point of death…on a cross.”
This intense focus on the cross as a public symbol of lowliness, humility, and finding ones place not with the Godhead, but with that of the lowest socio-economic status, shaped the worship environment within which the first century Christians flourished.
They did not see their worship songs as posturing themselves “over” anything, but actually a means to make themselves like Christ, lowly, not thinking of ways to exalt themselves, but to identify themselves with the weakest in society. They need not concern themselves with appearing successful and victorious, but rather allow the Father to exalt them as Jesus experienced.
2. Order and Disorder: The meal they practiced
Communion as a central practice of the church was not a dry cracker and plastic cup of juice as we evangelicals heartily enjoy once a month! (I jest…a little). Instead, it was a weekly meal that featured heavily as part of the worship liturgy of the early church. Why? There are certainly many reasons, but one that might be useful to see for our purposes here is that Jesus is offering his body and blood on the cross as provision for the world.
This offering on the cross for our sins did not have only intangible, spiritual consequences but rather, these “love feasts” were tangible displays and experiences through which any and all could enjoy the new life of Jesus.
These feasts were similar to first century parties that would be put on by wealthy patrons, but instead of drunken orgies, backstabbing and power struggles, this gathering around a “cross shaped” meal took on the ethics of Jesus’ cross: humility toward each other, forgiveness, and care for the “other”.
Thus, worship gatherings in the early were not places of platforming and posturing but of radical humility and service.
3. Structural and Anti-Structural: The people involved
Closely related to the social gathering around the meal, we see a new social order emerging in these worship gatherings. All participated whether young or old, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile. There was no division between the socio-economic lines of their day and there was a great importance place on not violating the sacredness of this time together by starting without those who were working and were running late (see 1 Corinthians 11).
What these Christians saw in the cross and carried into their worship was a powerful symbol of Anti-Structure in which the “haves” and the “have nots” share equally in the life of suffering and the life of exultation at the hand of the Father. Disregarding the questionable associations with slaves that could lead to rumors of slave revolts, the affluent gathered willingly with the poor and called each other “brother” and “sister” because of what Christ had accomplished on the cross.
This meant that no matter ones background, space was made for all who wished to submit to Jesus in worship. This also meant that they would adjust their worship practices to accommodate the disadvantaged in society that were a part of their community in order to ensure their equal ability to worship.
Conclusions
As we arrive at the conclusion of the first installment of this series, remember our goal in all of this is to demonstrate that the cultural frame with which we see the cross will greatly influence how we worship God and are formed into Christian practice. As I have demonstrated here, because of how early Christians understood the cross and its symbolic context, it fashioned a worship practice that emphasized humility, identification with the poorest and most marginalized people, and an ethic of socio-economic equality, forgiveness and love.
But what would happen if the cultural symbol of the cross were to change? What if the cultural symbol of the cross did not connote humbling oneself even to the point of death, but rather roused one to take up weapons and fight to the death? Part 2 of this series will explore those questions.
If you’ve enjoyed this article or would like to offer your own thoughts, I would love to hear from you!
By ‘cultural frame’ I mean the way a society sees the world around them. Every society has a framework for understanding and making sense of the world. This includes the ability to take inconsistencies in values and rationalize them in a coherent way. Christians in every culture throughout history, need to examine the dominant cultural frames and examine whether or not various aspects are truly in line with the Gospel.
Hengel, Martin. Crucifixion (Facets) . Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. Chapter 11.
Hengel, Martin. Crucifixion (Facets) . Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. Chapter 1.
Arbuckle, Gerald A. Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for Pastoral Workers. 4th printing. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1995. p 27-28. Arbuckle uses the word ‘myth’ instead of narrative, but it is the same general idea.
Arbuckle, Gerald A. p 29. Emphasis in the original.
Arbuckle, Gerald A. p 31-33.
Ralph P. Martin, Philippians: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 11, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987), 114–115.