The Jesus follower is a cultural outsider—a misfit who doesn’t conform to the world’s expectations. They stand out, swimming against the current, marching to the beat of a different drum, While we might polish our beliefs with philosophical garb. adopt the language of the culture, or even rise to places of influence, beneath the surface—beyond our rhetoric and social finesse—we remain, in the world’s eyes, “fools” unless we abandon what makes us distinct, becoming a ‘Christianity without Christ.”
At its heart, the gospel is a scandal that resists domestication—a public proclamation, a true myth, a meta-narrative of mercy. It tells the story of a crucified God who bears the sins of the world, a slaughtered lamb who, risen and ascended, rules & reigns with self-giving, sacrificial love.
This message disrupts and confronts the comfortable narratives of the world. By “world,” we mean the forces that thrive on domination and oppression, embodied in unrestrained capitalism, consumerism, the hoarding of wealth, militarism, toxic power, and “dog-eat-dog” ethics; the kingdom of Jesus is not of this world.
The crucified Christ is not just an object of reverence but a radical invitation to solidarity with suffering, rejection, and the “other” in society. Through this crucified God—who fully enters our pain and brokenness—we find profound grace. This “foolishness” calls us to a cruciform life: to love those who see themselves as unlovable, to forgive what others deem unforgivable, and to practise a revolutionary nonviolence that defies the logic of power and self-preservation.
The call to follow Christ, then, is a call to live in this upside-down kingdom, bearing witness to a hope that defies cultural norms and worldly wisdom. This is the way of the cross, the way of costly grace, the ‘strange new world’, the path of the cruciform life. It is the calling to be an alternative community, to live as “resident aliens” in a world of domination and oppression until the reconciliation of all things.
“The message of the cross is foolishness…. Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
- The Apostle Paul
- Rev’d Jon Swales, 2024
Artwork : El Greco, Christ Crucified with Toledo in the Background
1604-1614
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