Why the message of the cross seems like foolishness

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Is 9:1-4
Second Reading: 1 Cor 1:10-13, 17-18
Gospel Reading: Mt 4:12-23

“There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish,” Isaiah prophesies in this Sunday’s First Reading. In the past, God had “brought into contempt” the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, but now, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

According to the Gospel Reading, this prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus withdrew to Capernaum, “in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.” Isaiah’s “light” was the light of Christ.

There should be no divisions among those who have been enlightened by Christ, St. Paul says. He was sent to “proclaim the Gospel,” but “not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.”

Reliance on human wisdom brings disagreement and empties Christ’s cross of its power. “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.”

Now, 2,000 years after Christ, where do we look for his light? What do we substitute for human wisdom?

Ever since Adam and Eve’s original fall, humans have walked in darkness, blindfolded to spiritual truths. We find it difficult to perceive Christ’s light. Consequently, Christ left us something we can see: namely the Church.

Many people cannot believe that the Church is the great spiritual reality on which we can rely to bring us the light of Christ. It is made of ordinary humans, they argue; how can it be infallible?

On the other hand, how could Christ make spiritual realities visible to us except through human beings and material things we can see?

We believe that the Church is sacramental.

The sacraments are “the signs and instruments by which the Holy Spirit spreads the grace of Christ the Head throughout the Church which is his Body,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Latin sacramentum “emphasizes the visible sign of the hidden reality of salvation.”

“Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify,” it says, acting “ex opere operato (literally: ‘by the very fact of the action’s being performed’).”

For example, the water poured over someone’s forehead during Baptism is not only a sign of spiritual cleansing, but also God’s instrument of cleansing: by God’s power, the water, which we can see, cleanses the soul, which we cannot see, and endows it with divine life.

Similarly, the bread and wine at Mass are not only signs of nourishment, but also, by the power of God, through the words of the priest, Christ’s very Body and Blood, given to us as nourishment for the divine life God has given us in baptism.

“The Church, in Christ, is like a sacrament (that is, a sign and instrument) of communion with God and of unity among all men,” the Catechism says.

Historically, we see what happens when we rely on human wisdom. First, we disagree with each other: there are now tens of thousands of different Christian denominations. Second, we disagree with God: our human wisdom now justifies adultery, abortion, homosexual behaviour, euthanasia, etc.

Even theologians, who study spiritual realities, can go wrong when they rely on human wisdom alone.

To be enlightened by Christ, we must submit to the Church. “He who hears you, hears me. He who rejects you, rejects me,” Christ told his apostles. “I am with you always, until the end of the world.”

We can expect that the Church will not always agree with our human wisdom, for she preaches “the message about the cross,” which is “foolishness to those who are perishing.”

“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” St. Paul says, “that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

Not human wisdom, but only submission to the divine wisdom mediated to us by Christ through the Church, can bring about such unity.