Wednesday after Reminiscere + 1 Peter 2:1-25
In
the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
In
chapter 1, St. Peter taught us that we live in the world but we are not of it.
We are elect foreigners, refugees of the heavenly country because we have been
“born
again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which
lives and abides forever” (1:23). At the beginning of chapter 2 Peter
continues this initial thought. “Desires the pure milk of the word, that you
may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (2:2).
Peter isn’t making a distinction between “infant” Christians and mature
Christians. St. Paul makes than comparison in 1 Corinthians 3. He tells the
Corinthians that he initially fed them with milk, not solid food, but he had expected
them to have been weaned off milk and eating solid food, though they weren’t.
That’s not what Peter is doing here. Peter writes to all Christians to tell
them that they should be like newborn babes. As newborn babes desire their
mother’s milk, and nothing else, so Christians are to desire the pure milk of
the word and nothing else. The Christian, the one who is born again through
water and the word and made a child of God, should spend their entire life
craving the pure milk of the Word because it is good, live-giving, and
faith-sustaining. Too many Christians abandon the Word at some point, wanting
to be fed with talk of social issues, community news, or whatever it popular.
Those things don’t nourish faith though.
But then Peter moves on to a different metaphor for
your life in Christ. “Coming to Him as
to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 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” (2:4-5). God
not only makes you His children through faith in Christ Jesus. He makes you
into a spiritual house. You come to Christ, who is a living stone. Stones
aren’t alive. But this stone is. He is a living stone because He is risen from
the dead. He is a living stone because “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). He is a stone who is alive and
makes other alive. He is a living stone who is the foundation of our faith. He
makes you a living stone. Not in the same way He is a living stone. He makes
you alive, though you were dead in trespasses and sins. He makes you alive,
forgiving your sins and raising you to the new life of faith. He brings you
into His church where He puts you with others and builds you into a spiritual
house, which Peter also says is a royal priesthood, to offer up sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
Before we talk about what it means that you are a
holy priesthood, Peter teaches you that Holy Scripture foretold that Christ
would be this living stone. He is the cornerstone that God the Father lays in
Zion. And “he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame”
(2:7). Christ is a cornerstone you can build your faith upon because He is
trustworthy. None that put their trust in Him will be ashamed. He is good for
His promises. They are sure and certain, not like the promises of men that
falter and fail, because He is the Son God. His the foundation of our faith,
sturdy and precious, on which we build. As the cornerstone, He is immoveable.
Nothing else in the world is like this. Everything changes. You know this well.
The only thing constant seems to be change in our world. But “Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday, today, and forever”
(Hebrews 13:8). We build on this foundation by faith, trusting His promises,
and living each day knowing that His promises of forgiveness, life, and
salvation are true for us and will always be true for us. Those who do not
believe Christ can’t build on this stone. They stumble over it in unbelief.
But
to those whom The Living Stone makes into living stones, Christ fashions them
into a spiritual house, His holy Church. To you He says, “You are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into
His marvelous light” (2:9). Peter
borrows from Exodus 19:5-6 where the Lord says many of the same things to Old
Testament Israel. They too were a nation of priests, but not in a complete or
full sense. They still had the Levites as priests over them to serve as
intermediaries between them and God. The Levites were priests to offer prayers
and sacrifices on behalf the kingdom of priests. But this is not so with the
Church. The Levitical priesthood wasn’t supposed to be permanent. Everything
about it pointed to Christ’s redemption and taught Israel what they were to
expect of the promised Messiah. But we, we have a better high priest. Christ
our High Priest offered Himself for the sins of the entire world upon the altar
of the cross, so that every sin of thought, word, and action would be paid for
and atoned for, so that all who believe in Him have the benefits He earns by
His sacrifice. Christ our High Priest makes continual intercession for us
before the throne of God the Father.
In
this we aren’t like ancient Israel. Our High Priest has offered Himself once
for all and continually makes intercession for us. But you are a part of the
royal priesthood of the baptized. And you are called to do the things a priest
does, “to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (2:5). The sacrifice you offer
isn’t the blood of bulls or goats. It’s not a sacrifice of your time, your
talent, or your treasure. Those aren’t sacrifices to God. The sacrifices you
offer as a member of the royal priesthood are our praises. The apostle writes
in Hebrews 13:15, “By Him let us continually offer the
sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” The sacrifice of
praise, that is the daily sacrifice we offer, or at Peter says, “that you may proclaim the praises of Him
who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had
not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy” (2:9-10). The longer I work in the secular world the more I am convinced
it is necessary to not only offer the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our
lips, within these walls, but in the world, to our families, at our jobs,
within our vocations, for how else will the unbelieving world hear the praises
of the God who has called us out of darkness into His wonderful light, if His
own priests won’t proclaim it? May God open our lips so that we may confess His
name and declare His praise.
There’s much more to this chapter of Peter’s epistle
that we simply don’t have time to cover. He reminds you again of your refugee
status, and that as a citizen of the heavenly country you should flee the lusts
of the world which wage war against your soul. He reminds you that though you
are a citizen of heaven and a member of His royal priesthood, you must still
live under the laws of this land, and that you must even serve earthly masters
and “submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the
Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who
are sent by him” (2:13-14). You are
even called to suffer, following the pattern of suffering Christ left for you.
We will hear more from Peter after Easter. But for today, you are a royal
priesthood. So offer your prayers directly to your merciful God. Offer to Him
the daily sacrifice of praise. Confess Him boldly before men for their
salvation and for God’s glory. To this He has called you. Amen.
In the Name of
the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.