Becoming an Ancestor: The Life of a Living Stone
“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.”
The image is a fascinating contradiction that immediately draws us in: living stones.
Stones are associated with many images and ideas but rarely are they called living.
We think of them as permanent and lasting, but as dead and inanimate, void of spirit and life.
Peter, the one who was named “The Rock” by Jesus himself, asks us to rethink our assumptions about cold, dead stone.
And really he is carrying forward Jesus’ own teaching.
In the Gospel of Matthew, when Simon Peter recognized Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus did not say, “On this river I will build my church,” or “On this tree I will build my church,” or “On this metaphysical theory will I build my church.”
Jesus said, “On this rock I build my church, and even the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
Jesus built the Church of the Living God on living rock. Continue reading