By
this time it should be obvious that I read 1 Peter as a sustained reflection on the
consequences of the new birth for people who feel like cultural exiles in the
world. This particular reflection calls
on the church to remember its baptism as if they were all new Christians, and
this section may have originally been an address specifically to new Christians,
which was later folded into Peter’s wider masterpiece. It
addresses us as if we have arisen from the baptistery: As new born babes… (2:2) As you
come to him, the living Stone… (2:4) The new birth is like entering a
temple—Americans might sense some remote hint of the feeling of awe inspired by
the approach and entrance into special revered space if they have walked up the
steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Critical to my “approach” to these verses
is the notion that the new birth brings about an approach or a coming into an
experience of the sacred that is likened to the approach of faithful Israel to
a sacred stone which marked entrance into the sacred precincts of the
temple. Jesus is a living Stone. That is to say he is functioning like a
sacred stone was critical to Temple entry.
This draws heavily on the early church’s understanding
of Jesus as the renewed Temple of God. To
be joined with Christ in baptism is to be ushered into this experience of the
sacred space. Of course God in Christ is
a living temple—a living Body. The glory
of God resides not in dead stones but in the incarnate body of Jesus who comprises
the Temple as Living Stone. And the very
approach into Christ, the living Stone, is one where believers are made into
interconnecting stones—we are made into a spiritual house—a spiritual temple—we
become living sacred space. Yes, we are
a house in the sense of a household of priests (2:9), but also a holy temple—thus,
“living stones,” who collectively house the glory of God’s Spirit. This dual meaning of house makes the image
sometimes hard to follow, but I think we know a collective bunch of people are
a ‘household of faith’ and that household always occupies some space. Thus, where the Body of Christ is we also have
a temple—a mysterious space in which the holy may be encountered.
All three of the Stone passages Peter cites in
these verses are about the approach into sacred space.
Isaiah
8:14 is a text where God is
himself becomes the appropriate sanctuary for both North Israel and South
Judah—he is the one temple presence that the faithful of both divided kingdoms
may enter. He, is the place of refuge. God is the sanctuary area where there is
safety. Yet, for those who are
disobedient attempting to enter into this sacred space is dangerous. For those, God is not a sacred garden of
safety walling out danger—he is rather a discarded stone at the edge of the
compound which trips up those defiant and unholy souls who wish to presume on
the benefits of the holy. To the
faithless the holiness o God is a fearful and dangerous stumbling stone.
Isaiah 28:16 looks forward to the
re-establishment of the Temple compound which will wipe away evil. There is a Stone which is the foundation of
the Temple’s activity. The Temple will
bring the living water of righteousness to Israel and the nations. That is good news for those who love
righteousness. Yet, for those who have a
covenant with death, the waters of the temple will come as a deluge which
washes them away.
In Psalm 118:22 we meet the metaphor that we often associate
with Palm Sunday when Jesus entered into the temple courts the last week of his
life. There Jesus is being rejected as
the entry into the Holy by the leaders of the Temple in his day. This is similar to Israel’s ancient rejection
of God in the quoted Psalm. The builders
of Israel had rejected a certain building stone—the way I might throw away some
2x4’s that I deem crooked. But God,
when he takes over the building project in making the Temple new, selects the
very stone the builders rejected and makes it the integrating capstone that
makes an entry into the compound possible.
Without the capstone—two sides of an arch would just crumble. What was rejected is now celebrated as the
very entry into the sacred space. The
instrument of entry into the holy, rejected by some—is the one who has ushered
us into an experience of the holy. The Jesus the society around the Christians
of Asia minor may reject Jesus, but for believers he is the holy threshold into
holy space.
In all three passages we are reminded that
holiness is necessary for entry into and the creation of sacred space. So it is in light of these verses that I read
the initial commands in the first verses of the chapter. The initial command to take off, lay aside or
discard a series of evils, I read as if it were a moral dress-code for priests
of holy space. The concept is a
baptismal theme (Gal 3:27). Malice, deceit,
hypocrisy, envy and slander all stem from insecurity and a competitive
comparative righteousness which exists in the world of favoritism. These things are discarded as inappropriate
attire for people who have received an anointing as priests--who have been born
and adopted by an impartial Father, sacrificial Son and imperishable Mystery. All of
these forms of poor dress-code make a community of people and unsafe and unholy
place. Yet, when priests take off
unclean attire in holiness they make the temple a sacred place of refuge for
all who enter.
The
second image of new birth, alongside a change of clothes, is that of tasting heavenly
milk. Such an image likely arises from
places like Isaiah 55:1, 10 where Israel is encouraged to drink milk that costs
nothing—by drinking in the word of God that is showered from heaven. “Tasting” the goodness of the Lord occurs as
this kind of positive metaphor only in two other locations in the New
Testament. Once in John 2 where the
master of the wedding feast in Cana tastes wine of the Kingdom which Jesus
makes from 30 gallon water tanks. The
other is Hebrews 6 where believers are similarly commanded to go beyond their
baptism in which they are said to have, “ tasted of the heavenly gift, made
partakers of the Holy Ghost, tasted the
good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.” Newly born priests are, thus, to take their
gospel strait up. Learning to crave undiluted
gospel will enable them to grow up into the salvation which is already born in
them in embryonic seed form. Such ritual
clothing and diet will produce a community where there is a sacred and safe
space.
This section reaches a crescendo in verse
9: So, we are a chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that we may declare the
praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. Thus, our new birth then has caused us to
take off unholy clothes—to drink the heavenly milk of the Word, to exhibit the
kind of character that makes our space safe for others—a place of refuge. We minister to the world by mystically entering
into the heavenly temple where God creates light out of darkness. Once we were barred from entry into such holy
space. Once we, like early Christians in
a pagan empire, lacked a common adoption or any sense of belonging or
covenantal agreement, but then we received the mercy that involves us in the
redemption of the world. But now we are
priests who maintain sacred space that declares the wonders of God’s underived
and eternal life. So in addition to a
new set of clothes, a new nutritional source of holy food, a new approach into holy,
the new birth also ushers us into a new
vocation—one of declaring praise and exhibiting the danger and the safety of
Divine Presence in the world.
