The other day, I was following an online chat about the rising tide of ‘cancel culture’. One participant quipped, “You know, trying to live your life under a rock somewhere is not as safe as it used to be!”. In the same vein, back in 1969, the rock and roll poet, Mick Jagger wrote:
Ooh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Ooh yeah I'm gonna fade away
Has someone prepared the way for Mr. Jagger to get what he wants, what he really really wants?
It is disconcerting how the cultural and even religious structures that we believed were rock solid are not holding up well against the swirling currents of cancel culture. What we assumed were the corner stones of those sanctuaries are starting to crumble under the corrosive effects of the new post Christian dogmas.
Where do we find a cornerstone that can withstand the flood tides of evil? For a lot of us Jesus was a stumbling block, something that just got in our way, so we tossed him off to one side of our lives. Saint Peter says in Acts 4:11, “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone”. If we now find ourselves in a position where we must rebuild after the storms of life have done a job on us, we may have to swallow our pride and retrieve that cornerstone from the pile of things that we, in our wisdom, chose to reject.
The Bible refers to Christ as both the ‘cornerstone’ and the ‘capstone of the arch’. The cornerstone is the first foundational stone to be laid and the capstone is the last stone to be laid. The capstone is the stone where all the horizontal and vertical forces of the building are resolved. Jesus is not only our foundation but is also there with us at the ultimate tension point of our lives. Structurally he is both our Alpha and Omega. To bear witness to this interior strength we must concretely live our lives for Christ.
To my online friend whose current attempt at salvation consists of trying to live under a rock somewhere and to Mick Jagger who is looking for some shelter, I’d like to quote Colossians 3:3, “For you have died (faded away to this world), and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.”
Photo Credit: The Approaching storm--Explored - Flickr, yooperann
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