Advent, Day 14: A Stable Lamp Is Lighted

But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. He will become a sanctuary, a stone one strikes against; for both houses of Israel he will become a rock one stumbles over—a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken. 

- Isaiah 8:13-15

Stones are solid. You can lean on them, or you can trip over them. These images of the strong rock and the stumbling block show up again and again in the Bible.

We hear that "the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone."

When Jesus processes into Jerusalem on a donkey and the chief priests urge him to keep his followers quiet, Jesus says, "If my followers were silent, even the stones would cry out."

Jesus chooses Peter on which to build his church because Peter is a solid rock ("petrus" = "rock"). But Peter also becomes his own stumbling block when he denies Jesus three times.

It's not Christmas yet, but here's a song that begins with Christmas and lays out the entire story of our salvation, using the recurring theme, "And every stone shall cry."