A bit of free verse today, inspired in part by last Sunday’s Bible study. (Yep–it’s still on my mind.) I tried to follow both literal and figurative stones in Scripture to that Stone who was, in a sense, stoned into His tomb and then resurrected to be the Cornerstone, the Living Stone and Rock of our Salvation.
Stoned
In the beginning, farmers fished out stones and threw them out of their gardens,
A “waste of space” coaxing beads of sweat to drip down the brow.
It didn’t take long before farmers threw rocks at each other,
Either because they started that game as boys
Or because the stones were just in their hands anyway.
What happened next? “Maybe we can pull some together.
Brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
We’ll build a tower to heaven.”
Oh, the irony:
As though the weighty climbs higher than the weightless!
Ever the opaque blocks light,
And the obtuse fail to be right!
Rules multiplied. Do’s and don’ts.
Stony hearts and minds.
Stonings.
Once more, God worked with clay,
Knit flesh,
Plumped it,
Bore it,
And Mary delivered.
Incarnate, a new rock onto the rock of this world.
What kind of rock?
The stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
A stone become bread;
A stone from which come children for Abraham;
The living Stone, rejected by men but ever precious in the sight of God.
Did He throw the first stone?
No. He took our every burden upon Himself.
When people tried to stone Him, He casually walked away.
He turned His feet uphill to Jerusalem,
Whose lovely temple would have every stone thrown down.
He walked to the Stove Pavement.
Though no stone was thrown, He was crushed until no more breath would enter His body.
They hid Him and His glory with a great big stone rolled in front of Him,
Closing His body to the rock of His tomb and the cold of His clay.
Living water bursts out along with His blood.
The stone that the builders rejected became the cornerstone.
Now He prepares a new place for us,
Mansion-living by the Master of all masons.
It is enough to rock the world.
My God, the Rock of my salvation,
The Rock of refuge and
The Rock through every storm:
Be my Rock. Amen.
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