The Fifth Sunday of Easter, May, 7, 2023

1 Peter 2, 4–9

Beloved: Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it says in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and whoever believes in it shall not be put to shame.” Therefore, its value is for you who have faith, but for those without faith: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, a stone that will make people stumble, and a rock that will make them fall. They stumble by disobeying the word, as is their destiny.  You are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises” of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

St. Peter wrote his First Letter around the year 63 to the Christians of Asia Minor where the Church was growing and also attacks against Christians increasing.  Due to the number of citations from the Old Testament, he must have had in mind that many of these new Christians had converted from Judaism and that they would be fortified by seeing how Jesus Christ fulfilled the Scriptures and made them the people of a new Covenant.  His message to them is to maintain their faith and to live virtuously so as to refute the slanders against them and to draw others to the Light of Christ.

In the present verses, which are used for today’s second reading, Peter calls these Christians to Jesus, the living stone, “rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God.”  Peter alludes to Psalm 118, 22, which the Lord Jesus also applied to himself (cf. Mark 12, 10-11).  The “builders”, the Jews, and particularly the Jewish leaders, rejected the very stone necessary for them, and they did so out of spite.  Peter calls for these Christians to become “living stones” themselves so that God might build a temple for himself with them, a temple in which he would dwell forever.  This new temple made by God himself, succeeds the old temple in Jerusalem.  In this new temple “spiritual sacrifices” — not those of goats and bulls, but the offering of the Body and Blood of the Som of God — would be offered.  

“Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and whoever believes in it shall not be put to shame.”  Peter quotes Isaiah 28, 16 here.  In the verse, God is speaking and he says that he is laying this stone, His Son, in Zion, the Holy Church, making him it’s foundation.  Though accounted “rejected” by the Jews, God calls this stone “chosen and precious”, for it is his only-begotten Son.  We are to believe in this stone who holds us all together and without whom we are nothing.  He is to be for us also “chosen and precious”.

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” for those who believe; but for those who do not, “a stone that will make people stumble, and a rock that will make them fall” (Psalm 118, 22).  Just as for the Jewish leaders Jesus was so contemptible that he had to be rejected, but for God he was “chosen and precious”, so for those who believe, he is the cornerstone, but for those who do not, he will be their judge: “He who does not believe shall he condemned” (Mark 16, 16). 

“You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  Peter here paraphrases Exodus 19, 6 in declaring the dignity of those who believe in Jesus Christ and belong to him through baptism.  The Christian faithful succeed the ancient Israelites as God’s chosen people and, consecrated to him, offer their sacrifices of praise.  This is both our glory and our responsibility as believers, as those built into the Cornerstone who is our Savior.