Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith, the foundation and the focus. He is both the starting point of our faith and what holds it all together. When Jesus is our cornerstone, every decision we make gets measured against his life and teaching. Just as builders constantly checked their work against the cornerstone to ensure everything was level and square, we return again and again to Jesus' example when we're facing choices. How did Jesus treat the outcast? How did he respond to conflict? How did he balance truth and grace? When we're unsure which direction to go – in our relationships, our work, our response to injustice – we align ourselves with the cornerstone.
But Jesus isn't just our starting point – he's also what prevents our lives from collapsing under pressure. When the weight of grief presses down, when relationships strain at the joints, when our own failures threaten to bring everything crashing down, Jesus as the keystone holds the arch of our existence together. Without him, all our good intentions, our moral efforts, our attempts at community would eventually buckle and fall.
