“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken | Acts 2:22–25
In our text Sunday, we saw Jesus refer to Himself as the stone the builders rejected:
Have you not read this Scripture:
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone | Mark 12:10
When Jesus says this, He is quoting Psalm 118. In this Psalm, David gives voice to the struggle of Israel (Out of my distress I called on the LORD), while reorienting these difficulties to God. The phrase: His steadfast love endures forever bookends the Psalm and is repeated throughout. This is meant to do two things:
- It is placing all moments of life into the redemptive plan of God. It is saying: no matter what happens, a loving, good God is in control of where it is going.
- It also shows that there is a pattern that God uses over and over again: elevating what has been overlooked.
As David writes this Psalm for a nation, he uses his own life as an example. In 1 Samuel 16, we get the story of David being anointed king. As Samuel goes down the line of Jesse’s sons, from most impressive to least, God keeps saying: no. It isn’t until after they get through all of the older boys that they even remember that they have a brother, the reject, who is out watching sheep. He is the one that God calls to be king, making him the cornerstone of the nation.
Jesus uses this to show us that the descendant of David, the eternal king, will also have to go through rejection before being put on the throne. He will not be accepted as the Savior, He will be unfairly tried; He will be beaten; He will be killed. All of these are a setup for the elevation of Jesus at resurrection. We see this reversal, from rejection to exaltation, in one of my favorite sections of scripture:
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. | Philippians 2:8–11
It is Jesus’ obedient humility, His willingness to be rejected, that leads Him to becoming the cornerstone. As we see in Acts 2, this was the plan the whole time. He willingly gave Himself to rejection. It was by the definite plan of God. The cornerstone could not be placed without rejection.
God’s plan of redemption, from Israel to David to Jesus, keeps telling the story of a people who are taken from amongst the rejected and made important by God.
Peter references the rejected stone in 1 Peter 2, and then goes on to call Christians: living stones being built into a spiritual house. This imagery is transferred to us. We are those that God is calling to do His work. If this is true, then we should expect to be rejected. The Christian life is not about becoming good enough, or making sure that society accepts us. We should expect the opposite. If Jesus was turned on, we will be too. The good news is that it doesn’t matter how bad your situation gets or how the world turns on you, because you belong to God. He is in the business of taking what has been overlooked and abused and turning it into the power by which He makes all things new.
This life should not be measured by your status or situation, but by your salvation. Being a living stone that God is using to build His kingdom makes rejection a single step on the journey toward glorification.