Tag: cross

Spiritual Wisdom and Power (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
By Bible Art

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the testimony of God to you with superior speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were made not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. (New Revised Standard Version)

When it comes to proclaiming the gospel – the good news of Christ’s person and work – both the message and the messenger are important.

The Apostle Paul was dialed in and focused on the Cross of Jesus Christ. Although he could have used various methods of persuasion, he was determined to set aside all other means of proclamation, and declare Christ’s Cross as the message and method itself.

This means that Paul also deliberately faded himself into the background, in order to have the Cross of Christ in the foreground. He emphasized his own weakness, his fear and trembling, in order to highlight the strength and majesty of God.

Paul wanted the messenger to point to the message – which meant that all of his speaking allowed God’s Spirit and power to show itself through him, rather than in spite of him.

The Corinthians came to believe the message not because of a big showy demonstration of Paul’s strength, intellect, and wisdom. Instead, they embraced Christian belief because of spiritual power and effort.

If it is spiritual wisdom and power centered in the message of Christ’s Cross which saves us, then it is also more than good enough to sanctify us, as well, and be the core from which all of the Christian life emanates from.

The Apostle understood that he is God’s agent, God’s ambassador, but that God alone is the One who saves humanity and delivers them from sin, death, and hell.

Christ Carrying the Cross, by Martin Schongauer, c. 1480 C.E.

Paul’s argument doesn’t have anything to do with making sure that the word “cross” is said in every sermon and conversation, or that Christians have only one thing to talk about.

Instead, the Apostle wanted the Corinthian Church to distance themselves from their typical of use of worldly philosophical wisdom, in favor of a distinctly spiritual wisdom which demands a certain kind of ministry:

The cross of Jesus Christ is to be the central event in which all of Christian life and ministry revolves around. In other words, the shape of Christianity is cruciform.

And since the cruciform nature of Christianity is our reality, our wisdom is to be received and flow from the Cross of Christ. To do less is to rely upon a different power other than the distinctive spiritual power of Christ’s death.

It isn’t any one of us which breaks through to another’s spirit; the power of God compels a person to listen, receive the message, and be given faith to believe, grow, and spiritually mature.

When the good news of Christ’s person and work takes root and develops within us, then what comes out of us is spiritual power, and not our own homespun worldly human wisdom.

“Wisdom” is the ability to take a body of knowledge and apply it to concrete situations in life.

So, when it comes to spiritual wisdom, Christians mature in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus; then, they learn to take this important body of knowledge and apply it to all of the various circumstances and situations they are faced with every day.

This isn’t to say that worldly wisdom has no merit or significance, or that it is misguided. Rather, it means that this sort of wisdom doesn’t have the ability, the strength, or the power to move and change us, or others, toward deliverance and new life. We need the wisdom of the Spirit for that. And Paul insisted that this wisdom comes from the Cross of Christ.

The crucifixion of Christ is the wise guide for all of the Apostle Paul’s theology, message, and ministry. That singular event was like a massive meteor hitting the ocean of humanity, with a powerful tsunami of spiritual power and grace still making waves up to this very day.

Indeed, the Cross of Christ impacts all of creation, the entire universe. The person and work of Jesus Christ has cosmic implications for the salvation and deliverance of everything from the grip of evil.

On the practical daily level of things, none of this is about trying to do or be better, to somehow work harder at being a Christian or doing Christian mission and ministry. The fact of the matter is that we can only give to others what we have received from God. This means that:

  • The Holy Scriptures are to be received with reverence and fear, as a message given for us to learn and know so well that it becomes as familiar to you as the backdoor of your house.
  • The Christian life is about dying to self, taking up one’s cross and following Christ. If we desire the power of the resurrection, then this will first require embracing and allowing the powerful suffering of the cross to do its work.
  • Faithfulness is at the heart of living. Our task is to show up, pay attention, and speak the truth in love, and let God use this to accomplish the Divine holy will. Being married to outcomes and consequences will likely lead to reliance upon worldly wisdom, and eventually disappointment.
  • The Cross of Christ is what everything and everyone hinges upon. The world does not revolve around you nor me. So, let’s get in sync with the Spirit of God and rely upon the cruciform power provided for us by means of Christ’s death.

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; who lives and reigns now and forever. Amen.

Accept the Situation (Jeremiah 30:12-22)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

“This is what the Lord says:

“‘Your wound is incurable,
    your injury beyond healing.
There is no one to plead your cause,
    no remedy for your sore,
    no healing for you.
All your allies have forgotten you;
    they care nothing for you.
I have struck you as an enemy would
    and punished you as would the cruel,
because your guilt is so great
    and your sins so many.
Why do you cry out over your wound,
    your pain that has no cure?
Because of your great guilt and many sins
    I have done these things to you.

“‘But all who devour you will be devoured;
    all your enemies will go into exile.
Those who plunder you will be plundered;
    all who make spoil of you I will despoil.
But I will restore you to health
    and heal your wounds,’
declares the Lord,
‘because you are called an outcast,
    Zion for whom no one cares.’

“This is what the Lord says:

“‘I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents
    and have compassion on his dwellings;
the city will be rebuilt on her ruins,
    and the palace will stand in its proper place.
From them will come songs of thanksgiving
    and the sound of rejoicing.
I will add to their numbers,
    and they will not be decreased;
I will bring them honor,
    and they will not be disdained.
Their children will be as in days of old,
    and their community will be established before me;
    I will punish all who oppress them.
Their leader will be one of their own;
    their ruler will arise from among them.
I will bring him near and he will come close to me—
    for who is he who will devote himself
    to be close to me?’
declares the Lord.
“‘So you will be my people,
    and I will be your God.’” (New International Version)

Jeremiah, by Marc Chagall, 1956

Once in a while, I get a response from a patient in the hospital who was given a poor diagnosis, or a very challenging prognosis, that goes something like this: “These doctors are always focusing on the negative. I’m only going to listen to the positive. I don’t need all that negative talk and energy.”

I believe in things like hope, optimism, and confidence. Yet, those qualities can only be acquired through the purgative force of hard circumstances and suffering. That means, in order to truly embrace the positive and encouraging, we need to first sit with the negative and discouraging realities in front of us.

Bottom line: It hurts to heal. Cuts need peroxide. Serious wounds need to be vacuumed. Severe internal issues require a surgery – being opened up – with a surgical knife, in order to get the body in a position to heal itself.

I find it curious that so many folks who believe in the Bible have never read the Old Testament prophets.

And very few preachers have never even given a sermon from the prophets. “It’s too gloom and doom, too negative. I focus on the positive and build up the church with New Testament truth!”

So, how’s that working for you? If there is a spiritual cancer that needs removal, it’s going to take some pain and hard treatment. And that is a lot of “negative” stuff.

There wouldn’t be a New Testament without an Old. I am suggesting that perhaps one reason why there is so much spiritual immaturity amongst many churches and Christians is that there is a lot of biblical illiteracy, due to the neglect of the prophets.

Without the prophets, we do not get a true feel for the pathos of God; that is, the Lord’s spiritual and emotional energy against injustice and oppression. And, practically speaking, it leaves us with neither resources nor skills to cope with adversity and trouble when it comes.

What do you do when you – or someone you love – hears that they have an incurable disease or condition?

Those without a solid grounding in the biblical prophets will likely want to rush to the places in Scripture that talk of answers to prayer and miracles and resurrections. But little do they realize that one cannot experience life apart from death, that there is no resurrection without a crucifixion, no positive glory without negative suffering.

No healing can take place if there is no pain of a cross.

Conversely, those who have become familiar with the message of the prophets are sure to respond to the incurable situation with expressions of personal grief and public lament, with humility and submission to the will of God.

Prayers will arise from deep within them that are grounded in the justice of God, and rely upon the promises of God. They will look to their inner spirit, without outwardly blaming God and medical staff for being uncaring and negative.

And, most of all, the spiritually and prophetically aware person will lean into their prodigious support system of a loving and gracious God, as well as the many persons who want to help.

The mature believer engages in a combination of submission and subversion – submitting completely to the will and ways of God, while simultaneously praying against the unfairness of disease, disaster, and death.

Healing and restoration will happen. The kicker is that we just don’t know the timing of any of it. We may not realize healing until the next life. Then again, we might experience a dramatic restoration of health and happiness, far beyond what we could ever ask or imagine.

The wise person learns to be patient, and wait for the proper time. They are comfortable with whatever timetable the Lord has for them. For what is most important to them is that they are close to the God who is near to the brokenhearted.

If we are guilty, we admit it, and seek to repair whatever damage may have been done. And if we are innocent, well then, we admit that we are not our own, but belong, both body and soul, to our faithful Creator.

Even in pain, we rest; even though suffering, we are at peace.

Accept the situation as it is, and not as you want it to be.

O God of love, you are the true sun of the world, evermore risen and never going down: We pray you to shine in our hearts and drive away the darkness of sin and the mist of error. We pray that we may, this day and all our lives long, walk without stumbling in the way you have prepared for us, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God in glory everlasting. Amen. – A prayer of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536)

Saints, Sinners, and Sacrifice (Mark 8:31-38)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (New Revised Standard Version)

Saintly Sinners and Sinning Saints

People cannot be separated easily into the categories of saints or sinners. We are much more like saintly sinners or sinning saints. 

If we look closely, everyone is, at the same time, both beautiful and hideous; holy and depraved; full of faith and full of fear. And when it comes to the church, it is both the place of spiritual sensitivity toward others, as well as a den of decadent self-interested individuals. 

So, anyone searching for a church or a community that is a nice clean upward path of success with everything done to perfection with no one ever being hurt or unhappy, will be sorely disappointed. Such an organization or institution does not exist; and, it never did.

Yet, with that reality in mind, Jesus stands right alongside imperfect people, despite all their flaws, shallowness, and self-interest. Jesus is very well acquainted with people’s damaged emotions and open putrid spiritual abscesses. Yet, Christ treats everyone with mercy; Jesus never tires of rehabilitating and reforming.

Christ’s disciple, Peter, is the poster child for humanity’s mix of faith and failure. He stepped out of a boat in great faith and walked on the water, only to begin sinking because of his great fear. (Matthew 14:22-33)

It was Peter who made a bold and right confession of faith, and then turned around and bought into a satanic agenda. Yet, Jesus was right there, next to Peter all the way. Christ both rebukes and loves, all the while never abandoning us, but always working in and through us to accomplish good and right purposes.

The bald fact of the matter is that following Jesus involves pain and sacrifice. That’s the reality of living in a broken mixed-up world. What’s more, Christ’s Church is still imperfect and in the process of becoming holy. So, if we will admit it, we are all like Peter – a little devil who needs to get in line behind Jesus.

Everyone gets frustrated or disgusted with church, or really any consistent gathering of people. It’s easy to complain and even avoid others. It’s much harder to take up our cross and lose our life for the sake of Christ and others. We truly can choose to put love where love is not, even when we do not feel loved.

Imagine that your family has gathered for a holiday. Everyone is together. But you are struggling with tiredness and anger. Your spouse is sulking. Your teenage kids don’t want to be there. You worry about your aging parent. And you’re anxious about whether your crazy uncle is going to be nice or go on some weird political rant.

You want to be present, to celebrate the holiday. Your family is anything but a Hallmark card. Everyone’s hurts and hang-ups are not far from the surface. But you are together for a reason, to celebrate and experience joy. It may be a twisted human version of togetherness and spirituality, but it’s still a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that is to come. So, you deal with it all, and find some peace and satisfaction, transcending the carnal and experiencing the sacred.

In much the same way, the church gathers together in an imperfect way, a crazy mix of sinner and saint. But we gather in and around Jesus – and that makes all the difference. There’s a reason for doing this that is bigger than all our dysfunctional ways and dyspeptic attitudes. 

Jesus Christ is building his church, and he will keep it going until the end of the age. Fellow saints and sinners, Jesus isn’t finished with us yet!

The Sacrifice of Jesus Is Needed

Jesus openly stated openly that it is necessary for him to suffer deeply and die a cruel death. It’s God’s plan. But Peter didn’t like that plan, at all. So, he took Jesus aside and rebuked him, believing Jesus to be off his rocker for even suggesting such a terrible scenario. Jesus, however, turned the tables on Peter and rebuked him right back because being Christ-centered without being cross-centered is satanic.

Peter presumed to know what was best for Jesus. He believed the suffering of the cross would never happen. Peter’s perceptions were dim and limited. He did not the reality of how the world truly is; and that Jesus needed to offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the entire planet. 

Sometimes, like Peter, we may believe that the way I see and the way I perceive is the way things really are; or, at least, how I think they should be. 

Peter had been walking with Jesus for a few years, watching and enjoying him. It was all good. So, in his mind, it should never change; why try and fix something that isn’t broken? Oh my, but broken the world is!

Just because it was good for Peter did not mean it was good for everybody or should always be this way. If Peter had his way, we would likely be in hell. We, like Peter, are finite humans with limited understanding and perceptions.

One can easily slip into a satanic mode of believing that because something is going fine for me that everyone else is doing okay, too. I like it, I want it, so what’s the problem? 

The problem is that we too easily view life through selfish lenses. In such a state, we fail to:

  • see other people’s needs
  • perceive a lost world with any sense of reality
  • understand that Jesus has an agenda different from our own

Our limited perceptions come out in saying things such as:

  • “Oh, she’s just depressed because she is avoiding responsibility.” 
  • “People on government welfare are lazy.” 
  • “He’s addicted because he doesn’t want to help himself.” 
  • “They’re picketing because they’re a bunch of malcontents.”

Statements like those are legion, and betray a satanic worldview devoid of grace. It’s a compulsive need to find blame. It’s a belief that if there’s personal suffering, there must be personal sin. 

We belong to one human family, and therefore, we are all in this life together. One person’s joys are our joys; one person’s struggles are our struggles. The detachment we can have toward other humans is completely foreign to the words of Jesus. 

The Christian life always involves suffering, and Jesus invites us to follow him in his way of sacrifice.

The Sacrifice of Christ’s Followers Is Needed

There is a way to reverse a satanic agenda and demonic thinking: self-denial. Jesus issued an invitation to fall in line behind him and walk with him in his suffering. 

Self-denial is not so much doing something like giving up chocolate for Lent; rather, it’s giving up on ourselves as our own masters. It’s a decision to make the words and ways of Jesus the guiding direction for life. It’s the choice to quit holding onto the way I believe things ought to be, and take the time to listen to Jesus.

The logic of Jesus is relentless. Life comes through death. We give up our lives to find life. It’s unhelpful to adulterate our lives by serving the gods of success and perfectionism. Jesus invites us to quit our moonlighting job with the world, and go all in with him. In this way, we find abundant life. 

Jesus was encouraging not only submission to suffering, but also an embrace of suffering. In doing so, we find reward and joy. For those familiar with this path, suffering is a blessing. In walking this road, they find the true purpose and meaning of life. 

Few people suffered as much as the nineteenth-century missionary medical doctor to Africa, David Livingstone.  He was a pioneer explorer who opened up the interior of Africa to the outside world. He had two reasons for doing so: To take the good news of Christ’s suffering to the African people; and, to open Africa to legitimate trade, so that the illicit slave trade would end. 

Dr. Livingstone’s hand was bitten and maimed by a lion. His wife died while on the mission field. The one house he built was destroyed in a fire. He was often wracked with dysentery and fever, or some other illness in the jungle. 

Someone once commented to him that he had sacrificed a lot for following Jesus. His response: “Sacrifice? The only sacrifice is to live outside the will of God.” When asked what helped him get through the hardship, he said,  “The words of Jesus to take up my cross are always ringing in my ears.”

We may mistakenly believe that we must watch out for ourselves; push for our personal preferences; that if I accept the invitation to follow Jesus in the way of self-denial, I will be miserable and people will walk all over me. Those thoughts are merely demonic whispers in the ear.

There are two differing ways of thinking and acting: 

  1. The way of success, perfection, and a pain-free life as the evidence of God’s working. 
  2. The way of suffering as right and necessary in order to connect with God and be in solidarity with those who suffer. 

Suffering, rejection, and execution did not fit into Peter’s church growth plan. But according to Jesus, we do not exist only for ourselves, to be in some sort of spiritual country club. We exist to follow Jesus in his path of sacrifice and suffering for a world of people who desperately need to know the grace of forgiveness, and the mercy of Christ.

Since Jesus died, we are to die to ourselves. Since Christ lives, we are to live a new life. In God’s upside-down kingdom, joy comes through suffering. We follow Jesus as the mix of sinner and saint that we are. Amen.

Jesus Is the Cornerstone (Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

Let Israel say:
    “His love endures forever….”

The Lord is my strength and my defense;
    he has become my salvation.

Shouts of joy and victory
    resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!
    The Lord’s right hand is lifted high;
    the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”
I will not die but live,
    and will proclaim what the Lord has done.
The Lord has chastened me severely,
    but he has not given me over to death.
Open for me the gates of the righteous;
    I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
    through which the righteous may enter.
I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
    you have become my salvation.

The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The Lord has done it this very day;
    let us rejoice today and be glad. (New International Version)

Jesus The Cornerstone, by Gloria Ssali, 2016

Indeed, today we rejoice with gladness and celebrate that Christ is risen! Christians have a firm foundation of faith that gives us strength and stability.

Everyone’s life is constructed on some sort of foundational support. If we consider a building, it’s foundation has four cornerstones. For us as people, those stones consist of the body, the mind, the emotions, and the spirit. Each of these stones is holding up the one building of our life, and so therefore, they each need our attention in order to be well maintained.

Physical

Jesus is the

Mental Spiritual

Cornerstone

Emotional

We can neither treat them as if they are different sizes (which then would never hold up the building of our life) nor as of different importance.

For example, if we get a crack in the physical stone of our life, it is insufficient to examine the mental stone and try to repair the crack through positive thinking or mindfulness. Or, if our emotional stone is damaged, it won’t get fixed by focusing on the spirit stone by only praying.

These days, a lot of people have had bad, even traumatic, religious experiences, and so they’ve jettisoned the spirit cornerstone altogether. And as their building begins to collapse, they wonder why this is all happening.

The spirit cornerstone is Jesus. We need him. We need his whole entire life – not just parts of it. Christ is not a tool that we can use and then store in the garage for next time; he’s the whole garage, and the entire hardware store. We can no more set him aside than we can set aside our lungs or our heart.

So, why do so many resist facing the cracked and damaged stones? Why resist, or even reject, Jesus? Why do so many Christians want the victory of this Resurrection Day without the hard suffering of Good Friday?

Because we are still coming to grips with what it takes to live into the victory of the Cross – yes, the Cross. There’s no new life without a death. If we want a miracle, we need to die – die to our expectations, dreams, desires, and anything we believe we need, other than Jesus.

The builders rejected the stone because it was too hard. But the reality is that you cannot build on a foundation of marshmallows. Love isn’t actually soft, but hard; it’s permanent, like solid marble; it’s not going anywhere. We need that firm base of love to construct a soul that’s worth living.

Christ’s earthly life had incredible times of miraculous healings, provisions of food and necessities, and relational connections. But that’s only part of it. There was also hardship, adversity, rejection, mockery, torture, abuse, and death. When the Apostle Paul considered it all, he said:

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11, NIV)

Both suffering and resurrection go together for a spiritually sound life, free of cracks and damage. A new life is fresh, hopeful, and full of promise – and it’s downright hard; there is nothing easy about it. We don’t get to pick and choose which parts of Jesus we want – we must take him wholesale just as he is, the entire thing.

It’s from the person and work of Jesus Christ as our cornerstone – both his cross and resurrection – that a new building is being built into a spiritual house which is the place of hospitality for the entire world.

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
    a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
    will never be put to shame.”

Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

“The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone,”

and,

“A stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:4-10, NIV)

Jesus is our cornerstone, the center of life and worship. Our priority as believers, is allowing God to build us into a community of faith that worships Jesus with lives dedicated to knowing him and making him known.

Christian worship is the expression of a relationship in which God the Father reveals himself and his love in Christ, and by his Holy Spirit gives grace, to which we respond in faith, gratitude, obedience, and love to one another and the world. 

People, at their core, exist for worship. Firmly built on Christ the cornerstone, worship becomes less about gaining truth, and more about letting truth gain us and capture us. The more we pay attention to the presence of Jesus Christ through song, prayer, Scripture, and sacrament, the more we will experience the centrality and power of God. Jesus becomes very precious to us when we align ourselves to him as the cornerstone of our faith and worship.

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship (Romans 12:1, NIV)

Jesus, as the cornerstone upon which all is supported, means that acceptable worship can happen anywhere. Everywhere can become a sanctuary and a sacred space – home, neighborhood, and marketplace – as well as church. In all these locations, Christian discipleship will prove itself.

Several years ago, a man named Matt had an aunt who had struggled for years to make ends meet. When her health started to decline, she was forced to sell her fifty acres of property to pay for health care. As an act of kindness, Matt traveled to Massachusetts and bought the land from his aunt for the appraised value of $50,000. While exploring the land to see about building a house, he discovered outcroppings of stone ledges.

Matt contracted a geologist, who surveyed the land and informed him the stone was actually Goshen stone, a type of mica used for sidewalks, patios, and landscapes. At the time, it sold for $100 a ton – and Matt had about 24 million tons on the land. The appraised value on the surface was $50,000, but experts estimated that the land was worth up to $2 billion.

Jesus is the precious cornerstone. He is much too valuable to be left in on a piece of property undiscovered. And he’s also much too needed to merely remain in a church building. He’s the cornerstone who has the resurrection power to be the foundation for all the world. So, let’s let him.

Almighty God, who through your only Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.