The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
It was about 700 B.C., and Judah was facing destruction at the hands of the Assyrian Empire. They were the last holdout in the region; the northern kingdom had fallen to Assyria about twenty years earlier. But now Jerusalem had Sennacherib’s troops at her gates, laying siege to the entire city. The future of the temple itself was in jeopardy, and the people were wanting to know: would God really forsake the place He promised to be? Would He abandon them in their greatest time of need?
For the people of Jerusalem, things were looking bleak. They had relatives and friends who had been slaughtered by the Assyrians in the war. Many Israelites were now doubting if God was truly with them. Some were thinking of deserting the Israelite army in order to join the Assyrians, in an effort to save themselves from impending death. The king of Assyria himself had a disinformation campaign going. He told them, “Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?”
From all appearances, the remnant in Jerusalem was getting smaller. That means the church was shrinking. People weren’t attending the synagogues in the countryside or the temple in Jerusalem. They were walking away from their faith and their trust in the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim. Fear and doubt about both the future and God’s relationship to them had taken over the entire nation. Things looked bad.
Then God sent the prophet Isaiah, and calls on the Israelites to remember from whence they came: “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” The Lord reminds His people that they were called and set apart to be solid, grounded, faithful, and righteous people, trusting in the Lord to deliver them and to work all things for the good of those who love the Lord. They were not supposed to be a timid people. They were people cut from the solid rock of God’s Word, and in the face of certain war they should think and act accordingly.
Now, rocks are about as common a thing as you’ll find in nature, from the tiniest pebble to the grandest mountain ranges. Rocks are the bedrock of the planet. Generally speaking, there’s nothing special about ordinary rocks that God should enlist them in His service. But rocks and stones and mountains play a great role in the salvation history given to us in the pages of the Old and New Testaments. In the Bible, rocks and stones carry theological value and import. Important events in the Bible are referenced, or even caused, by rocks.
The ark settles on the top of Mount Ararat, a pinnacle of stone. Abraham binds Isaac upon an altar of stone on Mount Moriah. While on his way to Haran, Jacob settles for a stone as a pillow, and then in the morning when he wakes up, he sets it up as a pillar and pours oil on top of it. Moses beheld the burning bush while upon rocky terrain, and God said to Moses, “I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand as I pass by.” The Lord gives Moses the Ten Commandments on stone tablets at Sinai’s crest. Stones were also instruments of law and death: “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones.”
When Moses was in the wilderness and the Israelites were dying of thirst, Moses struck the rock, water came forth, and the Israelites were saved. Of that event Paul would write in 1 Corinthians 10:4, “All drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Israel built memorials with twelve stones from the River Jordan as they crossed over into the Promised Land. David slays Goliath with one of five smooth stones. Solomon’s temple anchors its foundation into the bedrock of Mount Zion. Elijah builds an altar of twelve stones on Mount Carmel, and the Lord God sends fire down upon that stony altar. Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: a stone cut out by no human hand strikes the great statue and becomes a mountain filling the whole earth.
Rocks were used for altars. They were set upon graves and used to make tombs; rocks sealed those same tombs. Rocks were used for protection, like Moses hidden in the cleft, or David hiding in a cave. The New Testament knows this topography as well. John the Baptist cries that the mountains shall be brought low. The devil takes the Lamb of God up to a pinnacle of the temple. Jesus says to the Pharisees, “If these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” His passion begins on the Mount of Olives; it ends with Him raised upon the cross, anchored in the stony hill called Calvary. After Jesus is placed in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, cut out of rock, a stone is rolled in front of its opening. That stone is rolled away by angels on Easter morning.
In some cases in the Bible the rock symbolizes strength, in others faithfulness, in others safety and refuge. Psalm 18:2: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Rocks are associated with judgment, as we’ve seen. On the last day, Revelation 6:16 tells us that unbelievers will call to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.” But to the one who conquers, Revelation 2:17, God will give a white stone with a new name written on it.
So God tells Israel, in the midst of their panic and fear, in the decline of the visible church and the rise of false doctrine: remember the rock from which you were cut. You came from the chief cornerstone. As the temple’s foundation was set into the bedrock of Mount Zion, so you have been set into the spiritual rock that is Jesus Christ. And in spite of wars and death, wicked kings, foreign occupations, and the destruction of earthly temples, God was faithful. Psalm 18:31: “For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?”
Today the Lord calls us to look and remember our origins, what we’re made of, the stone from which we have been hewn. We are people of His person and His work, so that our faith and righteousness, love, hope, courage, strength, joy, and comfort are all fulfilled as we endure the trials that come into our lives. America used to be called a Christian nation, but many have turned against their Creator. Church attendance is down across the board. As we survey the cultural and moral condition of our people, it seems that what was written to the Christians in Rome has become true of us. The Christian church, even though it doesn’t have physical borders, is under siege. We worry about the future and what it will bring to our children and grandchildren. We, the faithful few, look back in longing for better days, the good old days.
But the Lord tells you: you haven’t gone back far enough. Don’t just look back in time; look to Christ, the Rock of your salvation. The church has one salvation foundation, and the chief cornerstone of the church is Christ. Isaiah 51:2: “Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.” Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
We aren’t supposed to be timid. We’re not supposed to be whiners or complainers or people who live in fear. Even as we live among the ruins of Christendom, the Lord will comfort Zion. He doesn’t tell us we’re spared from these things; He tells us He’s there with us in these things, fulfilling His word of promise. You who have been hewn out of the rock who is Jesus Christ, you have been made in the living image of Jesus Christ. You are a living stone. 1 Peter 2:5-6: “You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house… For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.'”
See, the church is more than a human invention. So the Lord says to Peter in the Gospel, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The rock isn’t a person. It’s not a particular congregation. It’s not even the Lutheran church. The rock is the heaven-given confession, the words of Saint Peter upon which Christians build their foundation: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That’s the rock. This is what our faith is built upon, this confession which Jesus calls the rock, because He is the rock. When our faith is built on the rock, shifting sand is of no effect against us. The confession of faith is as mighty as God Himself, as powerful as His Word which creates and sustains all things, including you and your faith. It creates life out of death, everything out of nothing.
You are a spiritual rock. While we see little more than decay and decline around us, listen to the end of the Lord’s redemptive work. Listen to all the busy and active words of what God is doing: “Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples. My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out… Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment… but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.”
Built on the Rock, the church does stand, even when the steeples are falling. Christ builds His church in every land. We are God’s house of living stones, built for His own habitation. You are a rock, a fortress, tied to Christ the mighty fortress, for He is our God. Amen.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.