Living Stones for a Living Hope (Week 48, July 23)
Readings
Isaiah 51:1–6
1 Peter 1:1–12
1 Peter 2:4–12
Silent Reflection
Remarks
It’s always been God’s plan from the opening chapters of Scripture. God was looking for a partner and He found a unique sojourner in the person of Abram. After watching humanity descend into chaos, after watching evil organize itself, even after the Great Deluge, God found the antidote to the evil that was ravaging all creation.
The antidote would take the form of an imperfect human who was willing to trust the story God was telling in the world and partner with Him to pursue justice and righteousness. God was so confident that partnering with humanity would not ultimately fail, He made a promise banking on it. He promised the great redemption project would be founded in normal people like Abram who were willing to believe in the impossible and lay down their lives on behalf of others.
Not only that, though. God made many more promises, continuing to bank on this partnership. And despite enormous human failures along the way, God wouldn’t quit. God kept making promises and kept calling the best out of Abram. Even centuries later, after this little family had become a great nation, turned into an empire, and fallen apart, even after they sat in exile in Babylon, the words of Isaiah the prophet called them back to this truth.
Look to the rock from which you were cut
and to the quarry from which you were hewn;
look to Abraham, your father,
and to Sarah, who gave you birth.
When I called him he was but one,
and I blessed him and made him many…
Isaiah says this call and this blessing will go beyond just this family. A few verses later, he references “the islands,” which is an allusion to the Gentile, outsider nations. Isaiah says, “the islands will look to me and wait in hope,” reminding us of the promise that God will bless all nations through Abram and his seed.
Centuries later, God’s people sat in the light of the resurrection shining in the darkness of persecution. They found themselves continually counting the cost and grieving the stories of those who paid the ultimate price. Why? Because they chose to do good. Because they stood against the lies and the imperial systems that oppressed their neighbor. They chose to show the world a better way.
“Live such good lives among the pagans,” Peter said to a world that was dying for this faith and this work. Yet Peter, and others, believed in a promise made to Abraham long, long ago with the words of Isaiah ringing in their ears: Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth…
God had used them to build a nation that He promised would bless all nations—a nation through whom God said He would put the world back together. This family had seen drought and defeat, victory and triumph, hard times and blessing. They had seen a temple built and a temple destroyed.
But now Peter was suggesting God is building a new temple, and as people came to Christ, the Living Stone, they in turn would be used as living stones to build a temple—a spiritual house. And this temple would be the place where God lives. God would live in their midst, in their community, in their fellowship. And God would now work through them to put the world back together.
Peter called it “living hope.” It was not abstract and static. This hope was concrete and dynamic. This hope was experienced and real. And it was the promise of Abraham realized.
So now here we sit, almost 2000 years later, in the shadow of this great spiritual house. Yes, it may seem like an old house in disrepair, but the material required for the remodel is already here lying on the pavement. You are that material: a living stone. And as you, yes you, come to Him, the Living Stone—rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to Him—you also will be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, even now, in this time and place.
Silent Reflection
Response
As you consider the “spiritual house” God wants to dwell in, what do you see? Describe it to the group.
Do you see yourself as an integral part of God’s mission?
What are the defining characteristics of “the quarry of Abraham and Sarah”?
What is the one thing that you (as a group) can do this week to make sure the presence of God is living in your world? What does it mean to live such good lives among the pagans in your world? Do that and report back and debrief next week.