Christ the Cornerstone

Have you ever walked into a Cathedral, and stopped in awe, to look around you at the magnificence of the building? It’s hard to take it all in – the decorative stained glass, the detailed carvings, the soaring spaces far above you, the hidden vaults below.
What makes the building of a Cathedral even more wondrous, is when you realise it was all achieved by hand. Footings and vaults were dug out with shovels. Each stone was cut by masons with chisels and squared by eye. Materials were lifted onto wooden scaffolds by ingenious pulleys and strong arms. The wall thicknesses were calculated by experience alone, to bear the weight above them, as walls become larger and more impressive, and grew with additions over time. All the plans were drawn by hand and somehow translated into the stunning architecture that we continue to marvel at today, more than one thousand years after the first cathedrals in Britain were built.
Crucial to the structure of any early stone building, be it Cott or Cathedral, was the laying of the Cornerstone. Cut true and square, laid at the junction where the two main walls were destined to meet, this stone had to be perfectly square and level, otherwise all the stones laid after would not follow a true line, and the building would be unsound. It was the reference point from which all other stones were aligned.
Thus Paul, in Ephesians, describes Christ as our Cornerstone, with ourselves as members of the House of God, saying:
“and in [Jesus], you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.” Ephesians 2:19-22
This year marks the 200th Anniversary of the completion of the building of Kirkcolm Church. But any building is just stones and mortar. A church is not its walls, but its people. As such, we carry a baton of mission that has been passed from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean; from France to Ireland; from St Columba arriving on the shores of Scotland; right through to the joining of Ervie and Kirkcolm parishes and the present day.
Throughout all this time, Christians have carried the image of Christ as the Cornerstone for their lives, building their lives on the bedrock of Faith, surrounding themselves with the strength of their fellow-worshippers, seeking to share the Good News of Redemption inside and beyond the House of God. Jesus lives in us as the Holy Spirit and is our Cornerstone against which we judge all that is to be righteous and true.
Who knows where our descendants will be worshipping in the next two hundred or two thousand years? But with Christ as our Cornerstone, we can continue to pass the Gospel of Christianity onwards, confident in the Kingdom to come; a promise as solid as the stones our church is built from.

Let us Pray:

Heavenly Father, we ask you to help us remember that Yours is the house where all are truly welcome. Help us to reach out and offer the Peace of Christ to those in need of His loving mercy, to bring safety and comfort to those who suffer. Let us be the living stones on which the Kingdom is built. Amen.