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In our Scripture lesson, the Jews pick up stones to stone Jesus for blasphemy. Death by stoning was the punishment for blasphemy which, by claiming to be God, when He was a mere man, Jesus was deemed both guilty and deserving of. Jesus had said that He and God the Father were one, and that the words He spoke and the miracles He performed in His Father's name and at His bidding attested to this.
The reason the Jews did not believe in Jesus is because they were neither of Him nor of His Father but of their father the devil. The reason they lied about Jesus and were trying to destroy Him is that they were of Satan. And he is a liar and a destroyer and the father of both from first to last. As dutiful children of their father, they were simply following suit.
But Jesus is God's Son and, therefore, one with the Father. The reason He is God's Son is that He is God the Son. His words and His miracles in His Father's name and at His bidding prove this. The Jews understood this accurately. They just didn't believe it because they were neither of God the Son nor of God the Father but of their father, the father of all fellow liars and destroyers, the devil. They were just doing what their father did. Like father, like son.
Like Father, like Son, indeed! Jesus was just doing what His Father does, too. The fact that He is God the Son and, therefore, one with His Father, is why the Jews were powerless before Him. They might as well have picked up cream puffs to stone Him with, for all the good it did them--they who were God's children by virtue of being Abraham's descendants.
God could more readily raise up children for Abraham and Himself from the stones underfoot as convert their stony hearts and not trample them underfoot! Imagine their consternation. Imagine their consternation when, conspiring with Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles against Jesus to charge Him and convict Him and put Him to death, instead of carrying out their plot, they found that they had actually done what God's hand and His plan "had predestined to take place" (Acts 4:18-31).
Imagine their consternation at the fact that, instead of staying where they put Him, in the grave, Jesus rose from the grave and saved those He came to save. They may as well have taken up cream puffs to stone Him as have expected Him to remain underfoot as their stepping stone. But He was no cream puff much less a powder puff. And this was no powder puff derby.
They may as well have attempted to convert their stony hearts to hearts of flesh as have thought they had the tender-hearted makings of the children of God. They may as well have gone on thinking they had the right stuff, for all the good it did them. And they did, for all the good it did them!
God could sooner turn the rocks underfoot into His children as convert their rocky hearts. And He did, for all the good it did them--and us. Uniting us dead stones with His living Stone, Jesus, the Father has made us alive in Him, building us up in Him, into Him our Head, His house of living stones, with living mortar--faith--a living foundation of Prophets, Apostles and Evangelists, whose Word makes alive because of our Cornerstone and Topstone Jesus, the Life of all the living, the Death of death our foe!
Imagine the Jews' consternation when, instead of staying scattered when they struck the Shepherd, the sheep gathered at His resurrection and ascension, called together by His Spirit through the faith He called forth on the Day of Pentecost. And now in the tide of Pentecost, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the bleating sheep were preaching and teaching the Shepherd's Word and continuing the healing He began in His name and through His Word.
And the Jews could neither deny it nor prevent it nor counteract it. They were as powerless before the sheep as before the Shepherd the sheep followed and served. And their descendants, the opponents of Jesus and our opponents, are just as impotent to this day, in the continuing high tide of Pentecost and the high water mark of the Spirit.
The Stone the builders rejected is become the Capstone, a stumbling block to the so-called builders and a rock of offense to their fellow destroyers, but to us whom He has saved and made living stones and built up into His house, the Rock of Ages cleft for us, the Head of our corner and the Keystone of our arch, our over-arching Refuge and the Door to our safe haven and eternal home.
And our sanctuary, as that house of prayer of old, is really jumping because we former cripples are cripples no more but, as that cripple of by-gone days, are walking and jumping and praising the God who has healed us. And, filled with the same Spirit in this Pentecost season, we all speak the Word of God boldly. Amen.
- Pastor Erickson