Is Jesus truly our cornerstone?
Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)
Americans love underdog success stories: for example, transformational figures who faced early rejection or dismissal, like Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, and Oprah Winfrey. The lives of the saints include many such underdog stories, like Saint Joseph of Cupertino, who was reportedly widely scorned as a feckless good-for-nothing before becoming known for his great holiness and miraculous gifts. Similar stories fill the Old Testament: a childless patriarch; a stammering prophet; a heroic prostitute; younger sons chosen by God above their older brothers; longsuffering, childless wives blessed with children of promise.
The refrain from today’s responsorial psalm resonates with this theme: “The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.” This Old Testament underdog metaphor is repeatedly applied in the New Testament to Jesus—first by Christ himself in the synoptic gospels, and then by Peter in today’s first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. Speaking to the leaders of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, the council of elders, Peter pointedly tells them that they are the builders who rejected Jesus, God’s chosen cornerstone…
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