Eastertide
April 21, 2015
Scripture Reading: Acts 4:5-12
This Jesus is
“the stone that was rejected by you, the builders;
it has become the cornerstone.”
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’ –Acts 4:11-12
Peter and John have been brought before the high priests because these Apostles were proclaiming the resurrection of the dead. They had healed a crippled man and as a result the crowd began to pay more attention to them. The high priests questioned them about in what power they were healing and teaching. The answer was clear and direct they acted by and through the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. They then quote Psalm 118:22. I somehow suspect that it did not please the high priests to have their own scripture quoted to them by a couple of uneducated fishermen.
Of course they were not uneducated, they had spent perhaps three years being taught by an excellent educator. I have always thought that the quality of a truly learned persons is his or her ability to explain the most complex ideas to anyone willing to listen. Jesus was a storyteller and he possessed the ability to increase the understanding of anyone who would listen.
A cornerstone is the event, fact, or thing that forms the principal foundation or support upon which an achievement is based or from which a development makes its beginning.* Peter and John are proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the new beginning as the means of salvation. Most of us don’t like to start over even when we are mired in mud. It means we will probably have to change our ways of being. We just keep trudging forward even as we sink deeper into it, even when there is one who is standing at hand with outstretched arms ready and willing to pull us out and set us on a better path. These high priests were not ready to change. I guess the question we must each ask ourselves is: Has our faith journey lapsed into a routine of being and doing something less than Jesus is calling us to be and do?
Prayer: Lord, we know that faith work is not all mountaintop experiences. We know that food needs to be cooked and served, bulletins need to be folded, and the trash needs to be taken out. Help us understand that every step we take and every task we perform needs to relate back to you our cornerstone and that if it does not relate to you, direct us in changing what we are doing until it does. Amen.
*http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/cornerstone
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.