The Shadow of Your Wings

Living Stones

flutterby | May 10, 2008 08:39

… you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1Pe 2:5

Last Sunday our pastor presented a moving sermon, one that has touched me deeply. He began with the children’s sermon by reminding us that the Church is not a building, it is a body. We are that body.

He then directed our attention to the sixteenth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, reading from the first verse, “I commend to you …” the names of those believers and saints, to the close of verse 16 - “Greet one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ greet you.” Brother Pastor spoke each name with honor as he sought to familiarize us with the individual members of the body. Those living stones being built into a tabernacle for God. That initial course of lithos laid upon the sure foundation of Christ, our Rock, our Cornerstone, precious and true.

As the sermon unfolded we were asked to consider those living stones who had influenced us in our walk with Christ ~ those who led us to the Lord, who taught us, discipled us, prayed faithfully for or with us. Pastor then picked up a basket filled with small white rocks which he held before us. “In remembrance of those who have gone before, who have touched your life for Christ, come, take a stone and place it on the altar, a sacrifice of thanksgiving.” I saw people, young and old, quietly rise and make their way down the aisles. Some faces were solemn, remembering perhaps a beloved Sunday School teacher or the preacher who first caused them to hear the name of Jesus, those who were now resting in Him. Others shone with joy, glad to bring to mind that dear saint who had nurtured and loved them into their walk with Christ. Each took a stone gently, tenderly placing it upon the altar, a wall beginning to form and grow, building.

Beautiful.

I watched the procession with tears quietly slipping down my cheeks as I tried to recall the living stones in my own life, and was saddened to find very few. There was my grandmother, a devout Methodist woman, who “made” us kneel beside the bed to say our nightly prayers when we visited her, but never really shared her faith and love of God with us. I do know that she was faithful to pray for us, for which I am truly grateful. I struggled to remember someone, anyone, who had been a mentor, a teacher, a touchstone for Christ to me. Even my coming to the Lord as a young woman was born out of the wooing of the Spirit, not by the leading or encouragement of another believer. My sister had some influence, because in her I saw the joy of the Lord, and I wanted that joy, but we never talked about it or about Him. As a young Christian my walk was guided by some wonderful writers, Catherine Marshall, Marjorie Holmes, A.W. Tozer, Paul, Matthew, John … That great cloud of witnesses surrounded and enveloped me, but an individual? A Phoebe, or Herodion, Nereus or her sister? I’d not known the church in that respect, as someone whom I could “greet” with a holy kiss.

My weeping increased as I began to realize that perhaps my own children had not known such a blessing either. They’d been “raised” in church, but because we were in the military our church “family” was never constant. We were rarely in any one place long enough to become a part of the building, or to allow others to invest in the building up of their spiritual houses. And though we, as their parents, “kept” the faith and often talked about it, we didn’t always “walk” in it. I wept for them.

In the midst of the tears, the sorrow, the shame, the Spirit of the Lord began to whisper to my soul, “You are a living stone.” I became aware of the many opportunities that yet lay before me to become one of the rocks used in the building of another’s faith, and I remembered a word the Lord had spoken to me years ago, “Build up my Church.” I saw the stones - carved out of forgiveness, sculpted by grace, each chipped from the Rock that is our salvation, chosen by God and precious; each piece placed with the utmost care, mortared together with love upon the sure and true foundation.

Beautiful.

"I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried Stone, a precious cornerstone, and the man who rests his trust on it will not be disappointed."

1 Pe 2:6, Isa 28:16