Thursday, March 12, 2009

Lent Week 2 Friday - Christ, the corner stone

Readings: Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13, 17-28; Ps 105; Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46

Christianity has provided society with many benefits – schools, hospitals, wonderful culture, social cohesion etc. Many non-Christians are perfectly willing to accept this, but they believe that things have moved on: Christianity may have been a useful scaffold in building up modern society, but now society is able to support itself.
Exeter Chapel screen detail
Today’s Gospel shatters this world view. Christ is not some support that we can ultimately do away with, but rather He is the corner stone. We abandon Christ at our peril.

We all want to live in a pleasant and prosperous society, but we need to remember that ultimately we are working for the glory of God. There may be times when we forget this, times when we put our own desire for pleasure and prosperity above seeking God’s glory. But it is never too late to turn back to God, as the story of Joseph and his brothers teaches us. It was jealousy and envy that caused Joseph’s brothers to sell him to the Midianites, but this led to a sequence of events that ultimately resulted in Joseph’s family being saved in a time of famine.

Due to the financial crisis, our society will be facing difficult times over the coming months and possibly even years. Yet we shouldn’t despair. We need to turn back to Christ and remember that He is the corner stone, the basis for how we see and understand the world and that everything we do in Him will bear fruit.

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