"Building on the Cornerstone" - Sermon for Easter 4

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is our Good Shepherd.

            This Sunday we have two different descriptions of Jesus that come up quite often in the New Testament. Jesus as the Good Shepherd and Jesus as the Chief cornerstone.

            I want to look at cornerstones first. Now days it’s usually just an ornate block, if not just a plaque attached to the wall stating when the building was built. Sometimes it’s still the first block placed, but not necessarily. It’s mainly ceremonial it seems.

             But, not so in Jesus’ time. They didn’t have any laser levels or precise bar levels. No internet connected GPS devices to show exactly where to place each steel I-beam and 2X4. They often had brick and stone, and they needed something to guide them. And so they had the cornerstone. It was indeed the first stone placed, not necessarily the largest, but often that was the case. And it was lined up to the directions that they wanted the walls to stand, and then each additional stone would be placed in connection to it. It was the laser level and GPS device they used to make sure they built the building correctly. And if you take it away, or don’t use it, your building may collapse.

            The cornerstone wasn’t just some thing to remind you of the past or to mark when a building was completed, it was what the whole building was arranged towards. If you built without paying attention to the cornerstone, you had no structure, no foundation for your building to last.

            In our text, Peter reframes a line from Psalm 118 to talk about Jesus. That Jesus is the cornerstone, the thing that we need to build upon, and pay attention to. I think we need to take this text more seriously. I’ve heard many sayings, not from anyone here at Immanuel or even in town, that what’s important about Christianity is being saved from hell. That all we do is simply eternal fire insurance. This makes us ask though, is Christ our fire insurance? Or our cornerstone? Is Christ a plaque that we simply put on to mark an occasion? Or is Christ the true cornerstone that we build our life upon? So we just state that we are saved? Or do we work in the world knowing we are?

            Our text from John today calls Jesus the Good Shepherd, who lays his life down for the sheep. In the text are two other groups of characters, the sheep, and the hired hands. It’s tempting to simply put ourselves as the sheep in need of a shepherd and move on. And that’s a wonderful thing, we are indeed the sheep of Christ’s church, and he is certainly our good shepherd, laying down his life for us on the cross. Sort of a strange sentence, laying down his life, by being raised on the cross. This is most certainly true, to us Luther’s phrase from the Small Catechism.

            But, it leaves out a part of the text. I think Christ also calls us out at Hired Hands. And not just pastors, I think each and everyone of us. At times we are indeed sheep, listening to the call of our lord, but other times Christ now calls us to be his hired hands. To do his work in this world. And he asks us, are we going to be bad hired hands? The ones who will say they’ll do the job, but then run away when the wolf shows up? Or will we be good hired hands, laying down our life for our fellow children of God, our fellow sheep?

            Our text from 1 John gives these two texts a bit of context if you will. It summarizes them rather well. Verse 18, “Little Children  (that’s us), let us love, not in word and speech, but in truth and action.” And verse 23, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us.”

            What we do when we are Christians who build upon the cornerstone, and attempt to be good hired hands, is we show love in truth and action. When we enact Christ’ salvation for us by helping our neighbors in need whoever they may be, we follow Christ’ commandment to love. When we act like it’s eternal fire insurance and as bad hired hands, the we only love in word and speech, if even in that way.

            There’s a parable of Jesus’ that I love. It’s from Matthew 21 vs 28-32. Jesus says, there is a man with two sons. He says to the first, go work in the vineyard today. The son says, I will not, but then later changes his mind and goes to work. The father also says to the second, Go and work in the vineyard, and he says, I will, sir. But, then he does not go. Jesus then asks the chief priests talking to him, who does the will of the Father. And they say, the first, one who went and worked, who actually did something.

            Are we the second son or the first? The ones who do something or just say we will? Do we love our neighbors for real or just in word? Are we good hired hands or bad? Do we build on the cornerstone or simply wear it as a badge?

            Dietrich Bonheoffer, the 60th anniversary of his death in a concentration camp during World War 2 we just recently remembered on April 9th, called this the question of cheap grace. Yes, as Romans says, nothing can take away the love given to us in Christ our Lord, but what do we do with it? Christ laid his life down for us, he is our good shepherd and cornerstone because he did so. Do we act upon that? Or do nothing about it?

            It’s a hard question because like we talked about last week it points out the Law to us, that very often we don’t act upon it, and it points us to our sin in not doing so. But, it also leads us to the Gospel, that Christ still has lain his life down for us, and when we act this way, disregarding what he did, we are like lost sheep, but the Good Shepherd promises to still be our good shepherd, to still lead us to still waters, to lay us in green pastures, and lead us to right paths. And then when we start to build upon the cornerstone, and be the good hired hands he calls us to be, then, as we walk through our dark valleys, fearing evil, fearing we will fail, Christ is with us, his rod and his staff, comforting us.

This is most certainly true, Amen.