Robert Key was a British soldier who died in a small French town during the Second World War on 5 September 1944. According to a report of his death, he had been playing with a live grenade in front of a crowd of young children, when it exploded and killed him. For years, Robert's family in England thought he had wasted his life and put the lives of the children at risk. They were ashamed.

Years later, an invitation from the mayor of the French town arrived. The town wanted Robert's family to attend a special ceremony in which he would be honoured. It was only then, that his family finally discovered the true story of his death. A child had found the grenade, taken the pin out, and thrown it up into the air. Robert had caught it and run off with it into the fields, where it exploded and killed him. What the family had thought was an act of shame was, in fact, an act of utter selflessness and sacrifice.⁴

So it is with the cross of Jesus. The apostle Paul says: ″None of the rulers of this age understood it″ (1 Corinthians 2:8). They looked at the cross and concluded that it was a waste of a life, an act of shame. What they did not see was that Jesus' death was an act of selflessness, of love. This is God's hidden wisdom, which He planned before time for our glory (v. 7)! Is that how you see the man on the cross-precious and priceless?

Many don't. As Paul notes in verses 10 to 14, something has gone so wrong with the human race that the only way we will ever understand the cross of Jesus is if God does a miracle and opens our eyes. And He does so by giving us the Holy Spirit: ″The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit″ (v. 14).

That's why some treat the gospel like water off a duck's back. And we would dismiss the cross in exactly the same way, if it wasn't for God's Spirit. That should humble us.

Heavenly Father, thank You for opening my eyes to see the wisdom of the cross and the beauty of Jesus dying for me. Please also open the eyes of my friends and family, that they may see and understand what You did for them.