cornerstone...

Some insight into the mind of me… I don’t like fluffy answers. I like to know the insides and out of something before I am on board. I don’t want to be a “know-it-all”, but I really wish I knew it all. These especially come into play talking about spiritual things. My mind won’t let go of something until I at least look into it a little bit to appease my curiosity. So was the case after church this week…

We were looking at the different images used in 1 Peter 2:4-10. One of the central images is that of Christ being a cornerstone. The other images in this passage I get, but this one boggled me a bit. Probably because I’m not a contractor or builder or any sort… minus one house building trip to Mexico years ago! So the last couple days I’ve been trying to figure out the significance of a “cornerstone”… here’s what I’ve found…

Nowadays a cornerstone is merely decoration, a commemorative nameplate of sorts. Back when Peter wrote this, though, a cornerstone was extremely functional. It was the piece that structurally held the whole building together. It was the first stone laid and determined the position of every stone laid after. It provided support to the whole structure- if removed, the whole building would fall apart. Worse yet, if the cornerstone wasn’t trusty enough, the whole building would be weak and topple over. The implications are so tangible! Everyone is building their lives on something, whether they realize it or not. I have this picture in my mind of people building their lives without any acknowledgement of Jesus, but when what they’ve constructed comes crashing down around them they are so quick to blame God for their ruin. The fact is, if they had placed Jesus in His rightful place as the cornerstone of their lives, then they would have the strength and support needed to endure anything. And I don’t mean in the way cornerstones are used today, as merely a decoration or simple nameplate, but rather as the core of their being.

I came across a writer who bridged the gap between this analogy of a cornerstone and the idea of the cornerstone being rejected. He wrote:

“This is a wonderful image of the Lord Jesus, when you think about it. At one level, He appears to be just another stone in the building - made of the same stuff as the rest of us stones… He is like us, and yet he is different from us because He is more central to the building, and also because He looks different, which may explain why he would be rejected! Think about it from a brick-layers point of view. You take delivery of an enormous slab of bricks at your worksite, and you’re about to set the cement-mixer to start pouring, but then you realize that one of the bricks is a different shape from all the other bricks! What do you do? If you’re an inexperienced builder, you might assume that this odd-shaped stone has just been delivered to the wrong worksite, so you’d either throw it away or send it back! Why? Because it is different!”

The “religious” of Jesus’ time rejected him because he didn’t fit their mold or their expectations. They had a set idea in their mind of what it should look like for heaven to touch earth, and Jesus was not it. We are guilty of this today too, though. We try to fit Jesus into the holes and cracks of our minds and our lives, but when he doesn’t fit we toss him aside. Reality is, instead of adding Jesus, we need to start with Jesus. Everything else will align once we have this crucial cornerstone in place.

Ok nerd alert is over! For everyone old enough… I’m picturing the cheesy PSA’s that used to be on TV with the shooting star tagline: “The more you know!” :) It’s been a good reminder, though, of the importance of keeping Jesus my first love… the foundation of all I say and do… my cornerstone…