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| The Bridge during construction (DS) |
To the exiles… May grace and peace be yours in
abundance…. Come to him, a living stone,
though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight,
and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to
be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through
Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever
believes in him will not be put to shame.” To you then who believe,
he is precious; but for those who do not believe. “The stone that the builders
rejected has become the very head of the corner.” (1Peter 1: 1-2; 2: 4-7)
To urge people to build with
material that has been rejected by professional builders as flawed and
unsuitable is not only foolish, it is surely dangerous. But God does exactly
that. We too are living stones. We are also flawed, unpromising and left far
behind when judged by the preoccupations of this present age. But all the usual
measures of what makes us acceptable, impressive or useful have been reversed.
Something quite new is going on here. We should expect a church built on such a
foundation to look foolish, sound irrelevant and be easy to mock and despise.
We will never be impressive building materials – but nor was Jesus. If Jesus,
the rejected one, is the foundation stone of life, we are being shown a
completely new way of knowing ourselves and of seeing and knowing God. Beyond all probability, we are living stones
in a building no-one thought wise or possible.
(Extract from Dust &
Glory by David Runcorn)
Prayer
Lord, I offer myself, flawed
and unsure, to be part of what you are building.
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