“30 Pictures of Jesus” 30 Day PlanНамуна

Today we see Jesus as the Cornerstone.

Psalm 118 was sung every year at Passover. God’s people remembered how he rescued them from slavery in Egypt and brought them into his presence. Surrounded by enemies, Israel had no strength of its own, but God became their refuge and salvation. Even when they were rejected and exiled among the nations, God’s love brought them back home. So priests, Israelites, and converts from other nations would join together in one great choir, singing that their whole story began and ended with the steadfast love of God (Psalms 118:1–4, 29).

At the center of the psalm is the story of the king, Israel’s representative. He was surrounded by enemies, swarmed like bees, pressed to the point of death—but God rescued him. The king, once rejected, was given victory and led in triumph to the temple gates (Psalms 118:10–21). As he entered God’s presence, the people marveled and sang: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalms 118:22). God had taken what was cast aside and made it the most important stone in the house he was building.

Centuries later, these words echoed in Jerusalem during Passover as Jesus entered the city to shouts of “Hosanna!” (Matthew 21:9). But the leaders who should have welcomed him as king rejected him instead. They arrested him, condemned him, and crucified him outside the city walls. Jesus became the stone the builders refused.

But rejection was not the end. Just as Psalm 118 foretold, God raised up the rejected one. Jesus was delivered from death and exalted as the cornerstone of God’s new temple. In his death and resurrection, he became the foundation stone of salvation itself (Acts 4:10–12). Now, people from every nation are being built like living stones into the house God is raising on Christ (1 Peter 2:7).

This is good news. When we are rejected by the world, we share in Jesus’ story. And because he is the cornerstone, our place in God’s house is secure. The God who turned rejection into salvation in Israel’s story, and in Jesus’ story, is doing the same in ours.