Christ, the Living Stone … Building Us Together (1 Peter 2:4–5)
Stones! Later in this academic year, Concordia Seminary will celebrate the 100th anniversary of our beautiful Clayton campus, with its impressive stone buildings. In Mark 13:1, Jesus’s disciples marveled at the Temple: “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” The Temple was impressive and was established as the place where God dwelled among His people, bestowing forgiveness and life. Yet Jesus pointed His disciples away from the stones. He explained that the stones they see will be destroyed, but there is a greater hope for them. “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26 ESV).
Jesus taught that He is the new and greater Temple, God dwelling with man, and the Apostle Peter describes Jesus as a “living stone.” Peter began his first epistle by thanking God for granting Christians a new birth through the living hope found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This living Jesus is the “stone the builders rejected” who “has become the cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:7). He is the living stone, chosen and precious in the sight of God. In Christ, we are made alive, forever. In Christ, we are chosen by God and precious to Him.
All of that leads us to our theme for this academic year: “Christ the Living Stone … Building Us Together.” Christ, the living stone, builds us together with Himself and with one another as a living edifice, for His holy purposes. Without Christ we are dead in our sins, yet Christ “bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV).
The stones of our campus our beautiful. And the gifts and dedication of our faculty, staff, students and alumni are great blessings. But in the most important sense, Concordia Seminary thrives because of Jesus. Jesus Christ, the Living Stone, is the life of all of us at Concordia Seminary, the life of all of us in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the life of every Christian. He builds us together that we might serve others in His name, that we might offer “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” that we might “proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:5, 9 ESV).
May all we do be to His glory.
In Christ’s love,
Thomas J. Egger
President