"The Shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land." Reflection for 2 Wednesday Lenten Service

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who builds the church on a mighty rock.

            We begin again this night standing beneath the cross of Jesus, but our song moves on to the phrase, “The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land.”

            Mighty rock, it brings up images of rocks in the ocean waves, water thundering over them, seemingly unstoppable. Or boulders pushed for miles and miles by glaciers. Larger images of Plymouth rock, the Rock of Gibraltar or Mount Rushmore fill our minds. Things of such strength they would seem to last forever. But, we think about the affect of wind, water upon such things and we know they may not, the forces of nature may in fact overwhelm them.

            What we think of as mighty may not in fact be mighty. We consider ourselves. We understand that we cannot last forever, the winds and waters of life will pile up upon us. We will be weathered down. We feel weary when the weight of it all falls to us. How can we go further, when we look up at the cross we stand beneath and see our Lord dead.

            Peter again reflects. He thinks back to the time just after his call to be a disciple. He still went by Simon then. It means “He has heard,” Simon loved his name, and he loved that he heard the call of Jesus to follow him, but then something happened during the following. Jesus gave Simon a new name. It hurt for Peter to consider that time, for it was just before he rebuked Jesus. Jesus had asked the disciples who do you say that I am, and he had declared, “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living Lord.” Peter again reflected on how his understanding of Messiah had changed so much in the hour since Jesus had died on the cross. But, the moment of declaring that Jesus was Messiah brought forth Jesus’ response to him. “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Peter, Petros, Cephas, all meaning Rock. How was he the rock? He was a weary disciple who did not understand where to go? What to do? How any of this will work? And Jesus made him the Rock? And the first thing he did after being named rock? He rebuked Jesus. How in the world could he be the rock?

            After all he had gone through, he was too weary to be a rock.

            Peter paused. And he considered another lesson that Jesus had taught them. A full year before Jesus renamed him to Rock. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.”

            What if, Peter thought, the important thing was not the rock, but what Christ built upon it, his church. And if it’s Christ building it, and Christ says that I’m a rock, it certainly can’t fail. Maybe it’s not up to me. Maybe as rock, I just need to let Christ work.

            We reflect. If Christ is the one who creates the rocks, and the one who builds the church, they will certainly never fall through fault of our own. At least not enough to destroy, maybe a church here or there will close, but the whole church of Christ? Built by Christ on the Rocks of the world? That can never fall. And if it can never fall, it will always be a place of safety and strength that we can turn to in this weary world.

            Let us pray,

God our Rock. Help us to be like Peter, help us to be rocks in this world where continue to build up your church. Help us, as your church, the body of Christ, to reach out to all in this world, especially those who are so weary, so they may find a place of safety and solace. Amen.

            Next week we move to looking at James and John as they look to their future with our theme line “A home within a wilderness, a rest upon the way.”