May 3, 2026 • 13 mins
Peter gives us a challenge to live as the Blocks of the Temple, Jesus
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SPEAKER_00 (00:03):
Good old Thomas always gets a bum rap.
He's called Doubting Thomas fromthe time of the resurrection
when he said, I want to put myhands in the side and then I'll
believe to now.
And Jesus has a response.
I've been with you all thistime.
You still don't know?
(00:24):
You haven't figured it out?
You wonder if is he talking toThomas or is he talking to us?
We are here to celebrate thefifth Sunday of Easter.
The fifth Sunday celebrating thecalendar celebration of the
resurrection of Jesus.
(00:46):
It's the resurrection that we'recelebrating.
Forget the fifth Sunday, sixthSunday, it doesn't matter.
It's the resurrection that we'recelebrating.
And what is the resurrection butJesus giving life by the Father?
Given life by the Father fromthe tomb.
(01:07):
And he comes back out of thetomb.
And now he's saying, I want youto follow me to the Father.
We look around in our world andwe say, Yeah, I want to follow
you.
And I like to use Peter'sreferences tonight from his
(01:29):
gospel, his letters, I shouldsay.
And he's saying, just pretendthat each of us is a major block
of stone, metaphorically.
That every one of us isimportant to build the community
(01:51):
of the church and to build thebody of Christ.
And this goes back in ancienthistory to when God said,
Behold, I'm laying a stone inZion, which is the mount of the
temple.
So God is becoming present tohis people in the temple,
(02:15):
metaphorically using buildingblocks to build this temple.
And the temple was indeedbeautiful.
It was knocked down once duringa war and then rebuilt again.
So it's regarded as a sacredplace in Jewish history.
And even around the wall of thecity of Jerusalem, you could
(02:37):
still see the temple in thedistance.
And it was on a mount.
The mount was called Zion.
That's why we hear Zion, a holymountain, because that's where
the temple was.
But Jesus comes on the scene andhe replaces the temple with the
temple of his body.
(02:58):
In the resurrection, everythingchanges.
What was knocked down, what wascrucified, what was mocked, is
no longer dead.
He has come back to us.
The Father who laid the stone onthe temple in Zion gives us the
(03:22):
new stone, the new rock, Jesus.
And Jesus invites us to go tothe Father.
You see, that's a constantinvitation for us.
That we're always being invitedby Jesus to be part of the
temple, God, to be part of it.
(03:44):
We're invited every Sunday, wecome to liturgy, every day that
there's a liturgy.
We're constantly being invitedto be an active member of the
body of Christ, metaphorically,to be a very strong stone in the
community of the church.
(04:06):
The church being the new temple.
Jesus, the temple, who comes tous from the Father at the
resurrection.
Very important.
All the stuff about beingknocked down and thrown over and
crucified, it's out of the waynow.
(04:26):
Jesus, the man, did that for usso we could embrace him as one
of us.
But Jesus God rose from all ofthat.
The wounds were healed.
The wounds were checked out inhis hands and his side.
And now he lives.
(04:48):
So Thomas a little queasy onthat, we heard on the night of
Easter.
And now as Jesus is preparing totake his leave, he says to you
and to me, I want you with me.
Awesome.
(05:09):
It's a wonderful invitation.
But we have time.
We have the duration of ourlives to live in order to live
up to becoming each one of us,metaphorically, a stone in the
temple, a stone in the body ofChrist.
And we're building blocks.
(05:33):
Jesus remembers, he used it whenhe was talking about himself
being the temple in John'sGospel, and he refers to the
stone that the buildersrejected, becoming the
cornerstone.
He was referring to himself.
John knew that because when Johnwrote the gospel, Jesus had
(05:54):
already resurrected from thedead.
But when Jesus said that, he wasin the temple's precincts.
And they basically said, We'regoing to knock you down, we're
going to get rid of you.
You don't belong here.
You're not who you think youare.
And Jesus said, We all remember,destroy this temple.
(06:18):
Now he's talking about himself,destroy this temple, and in
three days I'll rebuild it.
So he gave them foreknowledge ofwhat his body would go through,
and they saw the broken templeon the cross.
(06:38):
And they saw the broken templebeing placed into the tomb.
But he came back.
So Jesus is not a dead rock.
Jesus is not a nice story aboutthe past.
Jesus comes to invite every oneof us to be living stones, as
(07:00):
Peter refers to.
Living stones in his body.
Now, the direction of thehomilies during Easter are
always positive, I think.
Especially for me.
Positive because it's Easter,it's a glorious time, it's a
promising time.
(07:22):
But don't forget the reality.
In Jesus' lifetime, we knowJudas.
We know Satan existed.
And in our lifetime, Satan mightstill be active.
Excuse me.
Satan is active in the world.
(07:44):
And in the church.
Deceiving.
The Prince of Lies, he's called,deceiving us, contorting our
imagination and our belief.
And Peter refers to them aspeople who disobey the word and
(08:08):
come to their own destiny ofdeath, not physical death,
spiritual death, eternal death,versus the eternal resurrection
of Jesus.
The scriptures teach us todaythat because it's Easter season,
(08:29):
everything is not joyous.
Should be, but everything is notjoyous.
There are still people in ourfamilies, the world, the church,
that are deceiving, that areevil, that will corrupt the
temple.
(08:50):
However, through all of that,we're challenged through Peter's
letter to remember who we are (08:56):
a chosen race.
So each one of us is a member ofthat chosen race.
Each one of us is a member ofthe body of Christ.
Each one of us is a metaphoricstone in the temple.
(09:22):
But stones can fall apart.
The binding, whether it's cementor mortar between stones, could
wear away.
And we, as stones in the body ofChrist, can also wear away.
So what do we need?
(09:42):
We come before the Lord andannounce the resurrection every
day, and we make an affirmationof faith in the Lord, to ask him
to strengthen us, to ask him toremind us as to who we are, to
ask him to remind us that eachone of us is a living member of
(10:04):
the body of Christ, and that weare challenged to live that way.
And the challenge is indeed thechallenge.
Jesus knew Judas, Satan knewJesus and wanted Jesus.
All of the apostles were testedand tempted.
(10:28):
As far as we know, they gavetheir whole selves to their
faith in Christ throughmartyrdom.
We don't have to be martyrsright now.
We might be someday to ourfaith.
We don't have to be martyringour lives, but we have to be
(10:51):
martyrs to the dirt, the sin,the negativity in our world.
We have to get rid of all ofthat in order to be a strong
royal priesthood.
We are the building blocks ofthe church.
(11:12):
Every one of us is necessary.
And yet every one of us is notworthy.
And those of us who are notworthy to be members of the body
of Christ are called forth forpenance, called forth for
(11:32):
reconciliation, called forth forchange.
We come before the Lord everytime we celebrate the Holy
Eucharist.
And what do we say right beforethe communion?
I'm not worthy.
Lord, I'm not worthy.
Yes, it's reiterating thecenturion's promise to Jesus.
(11:56):
But we can indeed say that.
But as soon as we accept thefact that we are not worthy, we
also have to accept the factthat he died for us and calls us
to be worthy, calls us to beholy temples, calls us to be
living members of the body,calls us to be a royal
(12:17):
priesthood, a holy people.
That's our goal.
It's not easy, nor was the crosseasy, but it's our call to be
living members of the body ofChrist, that we may live in
Peter's words his own wonderfullight, and that gives us hope,
(12:40):
that gives us promise, and thatgives us energy to leave and
live in the world that Hecreated for us.
Good old Thomas always gets a bum rap.
He's called Doubting Thomas fromthe time of the resurrection
when he said, I want to put myhands in the side and then I'll
believe to now.
And Jesus has a response.
I've been with you all thistime.
You still don't know?
(00:24):
You haven't figured it out?
You wonder if is he talking toThomas or is he talking to us?
We are here to celebrate thefifth Sunday of Easter.
The fifth Sunday celebrating thecalendar celebration of the
resurrection of Jesus.
(00:46):
It's the resurrection that we'recelebrating.
Forget the fifth Sunday, sixthSunday, it doesn't matter.
It's the resurrection that we'recelebrating.
And what is the resurrection butJesus giving life by the Father?
Given life by the Father fromthe tomb.
(01:07):
And he comes back out of thetomb.
And now he's saying, I want youto follow me to the Father.
We look around in our world andwe say, Yeah, I want to follow
you.
And I like to use Peter'sreferences tonight from his
(01:29):
gospel, his letters, I shouldsay.
And he's saying, just pretendthat each of us is a major block
of stone, metaphorically.
That every one of us isimportant to build the community
(01:51):
of the church and to build thebody of Christ.
And this goes back in ancienthistory to when God said,
Behold, I'm laying a stone inZion, which is the mount of the
temple.
So God is becoming present tohis people in the temple,
(02:15):
metaphorically using buildingblocks to build this temple.
And the temple was indeedbeautiful.
It was knocked down once duringa war and then rebuilt again.
So it's regarded as a sacredplace in Jewish history.
And even around the wall of thecity of Jerusalem, you could
(02:37):
still see the temple in thedistance.
And it was on a mount.
The mount was called Zion.
That's why we hear Zion, a holymountain, because that's where
the temple was.
But Jesus comes on the scene andhe replaces the temple with the
temple of his body.
(02:58):
In the resurrection, everythingchanges.
What was knocked down, what wascrucified, what was mocked, is
no longer dead.
He has come back to us.
The Father who laid the stone onthe temple in Zion gives us the
(03:22):
new stone, the new rock, Jesus.
And Jesus invites us to go tothe Father.
You see, that's a constantinvitation for us.
That we're always being invitedby Jesus to be part of the
temple, God, to be part of it.
(03:44):
We're invited every Sunday, wecome to liturgy, every day that
there's a liturgy.
We're constantly being invitedto be an active member of the
body of Christ, metaphorically,to be a very strong stone in the
community of the church.
(04:06):
The church being the new temple.
Jesus, the temple, who comes tous from the Father at the
resurrection.
Very important.
All the stuff about beingknocked down and thrown over and
crucified, it's out of the waynow.
(04:26):
Jesus, the man, did that for usso we could embrace him as one
of us.
But Jesus God rose from all ofthat.
The wounds were healed.
The wounds were checked out inhis hands and his side.
And now he lives.
(04:48):
So Thomas a little queasy onthat, we heard on the night of
Easter.
And now as Jesus is preparing totake his leave, he says to you
and to me, I want you with me.
Awesome.
(05:09):
It's a wonderful invitation.
But we have time.
We have the duration of ourlives to live in order to live
up to becoming each one of us,metaphorically, a stone in the
temple, a stone in the body ofChrist.
And we're building blocks.
(05:33):
Jesus remembers, he used it whenhe was talking about himself
being the temple in John'sGospel, and he refers to the
stone that the buildersrejected, becoming the
cornerstone.
He was referring to himself.
John knew that because when Johnwrote the gospel, Jesus had
(05:54):
already resurrected from thedead.
But when Jesus said that, he wasin the temple's precincts.
And they basically said, We'regoing to knock you down, we're
going to get rid of you.
You don't belong here.
You're not who you think youare.
And Jesus said, We all remember,destroy this temple.
(06:18):
Now he's talking about himself,destroy this temple, and in
three days I'll rebuild it.
So he gave them foreknowledge ofwhat his body would go through,
and they saw the broken templeon the cross.
(06:38):
And they saw the broken templebeing placed into the tomb.
But he came back.
So Jesus is not a dead rock.
Jesus is not a nice story aboutthe past.
Jesus comes to invite every oneof us to be living stones, as
(07:00):
Peter refers to.
Living stones in his body.
Now, the direction of thehomilies during Easter are
always positive, I think.
Especially for me.
Positive because it's Easter,it's a glorious time, it's a
promising time.
(07:22):
But don't forget the reality.
In Jesus' lifetime, we knowJudas.
We know Satan existed.
And in our lifetime, Satan mightstill be active.
Excuse me.
Satan is active in the world.
(07:44):
And in the church.
Deceiving.
The Prince of Lies, he's called,deceiving us, contorting our
imagination and our belief.
And Peter refers to them aspeople who disobey the word and
(08:08):
come to their own destiny ofdeath, not physical death,
spiritual death, eternal death,versus the eternal resurrection
of Jesus.
The scriptures teach us todaythat because it's Easter season,
(08:29):
everything is not joyous.
Should be, but everything is notjoyous.
There are still people in ourfamilies, the world, the church,
that are deceiving, that areevil, that will corrupt the
temple.
(08:50):
However, through all of that,we're challenged through Peter's
letter to remember who we are (08:56):
a chosen race.
So each one of us is a member ofthat chosen race.
Each one of us is a member ofthe body of Christ.
Each one of us is a metaphoricstone in the temple.
(09:22):
But stones can fall apart.
The binding, whether it's cementor mortar between stones, could
wear away.
And we, as stones in the body ofChrist, can also wear away.
So what do we need?
(09:42):
We come before the Lord andannounce the resurrection every
day, and we make an affirmationof faith in the Lord, to ask him
to strengthen us, to ask him toremind us as to who we are, to
ask him to remind us that eachone of us is a living member of
(10:04):
the body of Christ, and that weare challenged to live that way.
And the challenge is indeed thechallenge.
Jesus knew Judas, Satan knewJesus and wanted Jesus.
All of the apostles were testedand tempted.
(10:28):
As far as we know, they gavetheir whole selves to their
faith in Christ throughmartyrdom.
We don't have to be martyrsright now.
We might be someday to ourfaith.
We don't have to be martyringour lives, but we have to be
(10:51):
martyrs to the dirt, the sin,the negativity in our world.
We have to get rid of all ofthat in order to be a strong
royal priesthood.
We are the building blocks ofthe church.
(11:12):
Every one of us is necessary.
And yet every one of us is notworthy.
And those of us who are notworthy to be members of the body
of Christ are called forth forpenance, called forth for
(11:32):
reconciliation, called forth forchange.
We come before the Lord everytime we celebrate the Holy
Eucharist.
And what do we say right beforethe communion?
I'm not worthy.
Lord, I'm not worthy.
Yes, it's reiterating thecenturion's promise to Jesus.
(11:56):
But we can indeed say that.
But as soon as we accept thefact that we are not worthy, we
also have to accept the factthat he died for us and calls us
to be worthy, calls us to beholy temples, calls us to be
living members of the body,calls us to be a royal
(12:17):
priesthood, a holy people.
That's our goal.
It's not easy, nor was the crosseasy, but it's our call to be
living members of the body ofChrist, that we may live in
Peter's words his own wonderfullight, and that gives us hope,
(12:40):
that gives us promise, and thatgives us energy to leave and
live in the world that Hecreated for us.
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