Scripture Reading
2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”
7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”
8 and,
“A stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”
They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Pulpit Notes
[n.b. This is one of those instances where the variance between what was spoken and what was on the page in front of me is significant]
Today is the fifth Sunday of Easter. In this period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost we spend our time meditating on passages that explore and open up for us the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ for the world and in the life of us as believers.
We struggle to properly relate to the New Testament scriptures in part because we live in an age of technology, of science. We live in a time where there only things that matter is what we can see and observe, the material world that can be measured and observed scientifically, that can be controlled through technology.
Ours is a materialist world. What is most real is the things we can see. The unseen world of the supernatural and the metaphysical is less real to us than it was to those who lived in the period when men like Peter and Paul wrote.
In their day, it was simply accepted that our world is a reflection, a revelation of the unseen spiritual world. In many ways that supernatural world was more real, more important, than the world that can be seen. The visible world is dependent upon the unseen world.
The most important things that Jesus did were accomplished in this spiritual realm that is the foundation for the visible world.
What Peter is doing throughout much of the book is helping the young church understand these realities and what Jesus did and how they shaped the universe within which we live.
The task of our spiritual life is not to build things materially, whether churches or organizations or even nations; rather, our task is to reveal what is there in the unseen spiritual realm, this place where all things have been accomplished. Just like the Lord’s Prayer, we want to reveal the Kingdom and will of God as they already exist fully formed in the unseen heavenly realm.
Our text builds in a progression, one thought building on the other. The lectionary actually begins mid sentence in the Greek. But this is fine, because it allows us to emphasize the point I open up with here this morning.
“Like newborn babes, crave pure spiritual milk.” This is one of those moments where letting scripture interpret scripture can sidetrack you. Paul uses the image of “milk” in contrast to “meat” or “solid food.” But this is not what Peter is doing. He is not even telling his readers that they are immature, like babies. What he is doing here is saying that like babies, you need to eat the very best food you can eat, which is mother’s milk. What Peter is saying is that spiritually we need to eat the very best food we can eat.
The word that he closes to use here, that is translated “spiritual,” is λογικὸν and not πνευματικός as he does in verse five. The choice of λογικὸν, especially in regards to this teaching is that Peter is urging his readers not merely to be “spiritual” but to seek the essence, the hidden reality that gives words their power.
Something that we don’t often think about is that words and their meanings are separate things. People can use the same word but have very different associations with those words. You might have had a loving relationship with a pet dog while another person got bit by a dog. For one person the word “dog” evokes fear, and the other something warm and positive.
So “pure spiritual milk” here means to seek the full divine truth, the supernatural and metaphysical realities that lay beneath the words we use to talk about the gospel. The idea is that we are in touch with the unseen part of the teaching of the gospel that gives it its power.
Words are good. But they can only carry us so far. We can use a word like the “Trinity” or say that Jesus is fully God and fully man. But what does this mean? This is what Peter is getting at, that we get fed with the unseen power of God that is the foundation for reality, for the teaching of the gospel, for all that we are as believers.
The words that we hear, that we read on the page, words that we profess are given to us by God, these words are the anchor, but beneath the surface there are depths that we likely can never fully know. But it is these depths that are the best food for us as believers.
You cannot grow if you are not immersed in the teaching of the gospel. But this is not a scientific thing. These words are the path, the door, that open us to full mind of God. They help give us access to the heart and mind of God in which all things find their meaning.
If you want to grow in your salvation, you need the right food.
Peter shifts images, but this new image builds on first insight.
Jesus is the cornerstone of a great building of which we are the stones. This building is the household of God. He is using temple imagery here. We, as the community of believers, the Church, are being build into a house where God will dwell.
No longer is the temple a building of wood and stone. We are God’s temple. We are his house. We are “living stones.” We are being built up into a spiritual house.
We are the place, the location, where the invisible unseen world becomes visible. We are the temple of God.
Not only are we the stones of the temple, but we are priesthood that both offers worship to God, spiritual sacrifices, as well as ministering the presence of God in Christ to the nations.
We have tasted that the Lord is good and so now we share this with the world.
As Peter continues, using OT prophetic texts, he makes the point that Christ the cornerstone is focal point, the dividing line in the world. You are either part of the dwelling of God, the new household of God, the new temple of God or you are on the outside looking in.
More than that, Christ becomes the stumbling block the world. He is the thing they trip over because they cannot accept that everything, all of history, God’s saving work, his presence in the world all revolves around Jesus and the people for whom he is the foundation.
We are built on Jesus Christ.
Peter shifts the imagery. Not only are we a new temple where God dwells and where he is worshiped, where the fullness of the spiritual realities that lay beneath everything are revealed; but we are also now a new nation, a new people.
Most nations grew up as ethnic tribes, a people with tribal connections and intermarriages. The old covenant people were descended from Abraham the patriarch through the twelve sons of Jacob. From this family a whole nation was born, God’s people.
In Christ, this people is now reconstituted and reformed by the spiritual realities of God’s saving work in Christ.
In the NIV it says that we are God’s chosen people. The word for people here is “γένος” from which we get the English word “genes.” This is a similar understanding to Hebrews 2 that we looked at not long ago where it teaches that because Jesus came in the flesh, he is not afraid to call us brothers and sisters. We are a new tribal people a new family, but we are bonded together spiritually “in the flesh” just as we are bonded to Christ “in the flesh” because he was fully human, and now through faith have this family like relationship – we are bonded together in the flesh -- because we are in Christ.
This joining is not just an idea. It’s not like membership at the club or like belonging to Rotary or some such. We as a church are bonded together like we are an actual extended family. This is the importance of being able to see the spiritual. These spiritual realities are what is truly real. This is why Paul tells us that we don’t see like we once did, from a worldly perspective, but we see with the eyes of faith the spiritual realities that truly define who we are.
Additionally, we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We have been separated from the world, set apart and dedicated to God. We are sacred.
Within the boundaries of this holy temple, this household of God, we declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into light. As God’s holy people, we are the light to the world, like a lighthouse in a world of darkness.
We are the burning bush. Among us is holy ground.
When you are in Christ, you have a people, you have a home, a place, a purpose. We are the people of God.
We are a nation unto ourselves. We live as strangers in the world. This creates a divide between us and our neighbours. They stumble over Christ and they wonder why won’t join them in their ways.
But who we are, if we are revealing who we are in Christ, the world will see us, see our good deeds and they will be forced to praise God.
We are those who respond in obedience to the call of God and we respond in obedience to the spiritual, supernatural world that underlies everything. We show the world what is truly real.
We sing the praises of God. We also reveal him to the world in our worship and in our lives. We are set apart. Dedicated to God. We are the new temple, the priests within that temple. We are a new people, a holy nation.
This is the picture that Peter paints for us as to who we are and what our identity is. This is who we are in Christ.
Peter urges us to feast on this image the way that baby feeds at its mother’s breast.
Live into these realities. Be who you are.
Living stones built into a holy temple.
You are God’s chosen people, his tribe, his race.
We are people of priests who worship within the temple. That temple is us.
You belong. To God and to his people.
This is who we are. This is our identity. Be who you are.
