Lest the Cross Be Emptied

1 Corinthians 1:17 - "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

In 2012, in the small town of Borja in northeastern Spain, an elderly woman named Cecilia Giménez asked her parish priest for permission to do something kind. The Santuario de Misericordia, the local sanctuary church, had a fresco on its wall that she had loved for decades. It was called Ecce Homo, the Latin for "Behold the Man," Pilate's words about Christ. Painted directly onto the plaster in 1930 by a local artist named Elías García Martínez, the image showed Jesus crowned with thorns, eyes lifted toward heaven.

By 2012 the fresco was failing. Moisture had bled through the wall for decades. The paint was flaking. The face of Christ was disappearing into the plaster. Cecilia Giménez, then 82 years old, a retired amateur painter who had done modest pictorial retouches at the church before, decided she would help. She brought her paints. She brought her best intentions. She got to work.

But the face she repainted was nothing like the face that had been there. The features blurred and softened in ways she had not meant. By the time she stepped back, the image looked nothing like the Jesus she had loved. She was taken aback when the world saw it and mocked her. She didn’t know how to fix what she had done. The image is still there on the wall.

Cecilia Giménez recently died at 94 years old. She had spent her whole life loving the Jesus in that fresco. She had every right to want the image of His face preserved for the next generation. She did what countless others have done in countless churches: she tried to help, and she covered what she meant to clarify.

This is, I think, why Paul writes 1 Corinthians 1:17 the way he does.

"Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

Most of us read that verse and assume Paul is worried about bad preachers. False teachers. Eloquent men preaching empty content. He’s worried about that, of course, but the verse goes deeper. He’s also worried about good intentions. He’s worried about the very things a church reaches for to commend the cross quietly displacing the cross.

Paul locates the threat to the cross's power where most of us wouldn’t think to look for it. Inside the church. Inside our own competence. Eloquent wisdom. Impressive presentation. Persuasive method. The very gifts a church uses to commend the gospel can quietly become a layer of paint over the face of Christ.

The cross is never emptied by its enemies. It’s obscured by its friends.

Every church has its strengths. Beautiful music. Sharp teaching. Polished services. Cultural relevance. Strong programs. A compelling vision. None of these things is bad. Every one of them, with the best of intentions, can quietly start covering the face the wall was meant to display. A congregation can be enthusiastic, growing, well-loved by its city, and still be a sanctuary whose central image of Christ has gradually disappeared.

The same is true at the level of an individual life. We crowd Christ with the noise we’ve called helpful. The podcast we can’t stop listening to. The author whose framework has organized our spiritual life. The political identity we’ve welded to our discipleship. None of those things is necessarily bad. But every one of them can become a layer of paint we didn’t mean to apply.

But here’s what’s glorious. The cross is not, finally, dependent on us to preserve. Christ's death and resurrection aren’t a deteriorating fresco that requires careful human stewardship to survive. The power of the cross is intrinsic; it belongs to Christ Himself. What we can do is obscure it in our own seeing and hide the face from our own neighbors. What we cannot do is empty what Christ Himself has filled.

There’s mercy in Paul's warning. Our additions don’t destroy the gospel, but they can make it harder for us, and for the people watching us, to see it clearly.

Today: Do something tangible. Pick one thing this weekend that’s been quietly crowding your view of Christ, and set it aside for 24 hours. The phone you can’t stop checking. The feed you can’t stop scrolling. The podcast or book that filled the space prayer used to fill. The screen that’s been louder than the Word in your house.

Don’t just intend to set it aside. Actually set it aside. Put the phone in a drawer. Sign out of the app. Skip the next episode. And in the space that opens, look at the face that has been on the wall the whole time.

Prayer: "Father, forgive me for the ways I obscure Jesus. Teach me this weekend to step back, to set aside the things that have grown loud, and to look at Christ where He’s been all along. In His name, Amen."

-PK