April Fools (Friday Devotional)

 

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

- 1 Corinthians 1:20-25

Today, as you may have already learned the hard way, is April Fool’s Day. On this day, friends and coworkers prank each other with gags ranging from the innocent (a whoopee cushion in your chair) to the tasteless (“I’m pregnant!” or “You’re fired!”). Corporations announce kooky new initiatives only to reveal them as fictional by the end of the day. It’s a day for lighthearted silliness, a day when you can’t take anything someone says completely seriously.

But tomorrow, April 2, the sun will rise and we’ll go back to normal, to a world where we understand what’s real and what isn’t, what’s reasonable and what’s unreasonable, what’s possible and what’s impossible. All the shenanigans of April Fool’s Day will be set aside and we’ll go back to the serious business of life, where everybody knows the rules.

But for Christians, there must be a recognition that those worldly rules, those earthly expectations, are off kilter from what Jesus revealed about the kingdom of God. Our world tells us that your worth is found in your success—but the Bible tells us you are created in the image of God, that you are endowed from birth with dignity and value. Our world tells you that you are made righteous by your good deeds—but Scripture tells us that you are a sinner in need of salvation, that salvation that can only come by the grace of God. Our world tells you that it’s every man for himself, that only the strong survive—but the Word of God tells a different story indeed.

In the gospel we see a God who reveals His power by becoming vulnerable, a Lord who saves by suffering, a Christ who conquers by dying. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God puts to shame so many of the stories our world tells us and proves that He is the God of the impossible.

To believe His story over the world’s, to believe in resurrection in a world of death, is to be deemed a fool. But God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. With Easter only 2 weeks away, may we all be April Fools.