Daily Devotional • November 26
A Reading from 1 Peter 2:1-10
1 Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture:
‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him* will not be put to shame.’
7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner’,
8 and
‘A stone that makes them stumble,
and a rock that makes them fall.’
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,* in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
10 Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.
Meditation
St. Peter says that we are a royal priesthood. Origen writes, “If you want to exercise the priesthood of your soul, do not let the fire depart from your altar.” It’s kind of a cool saying, but what could it mean? This phrase of Origen’s comes from his commentary on Leviticus, which details the strict roles and duties of the priest, particularly in offering sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. If God’s people sin, the priest sacrifices a sin offering, which culminates, after a series of steps, in burning a young bull on the altar outside the tent of meeting. That’s very Old Testament, however. What of the new covenant made through Jesus’s death and resurrection? We no longer offer burnt sacrifices on an altar, for the Lamb of God has offered himself up as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.
St. Peter tells us we were called into the royal priesthood in order that we may “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light.” In the times of the Temple, the altar with its fire was located outside. Now that fire is no longer needed for sin offerings. Instead, it can stand as a beacon. We who were called into the light to be members of the royal priesthood, we now keep the altar burning bright, not because we can make any offering on behalf of people’s sins, but because we are lighting a beacon by which people can find and enter into the temple. The light of our faith calls others to the royal priesthood whereby together, we are given the honor of approaching the inner sanctum as equals so that we may partake of the sacrificial food, the one and only forever sin offering—the body and blood of Christ.
Let us follow Origen’s entreaty: do not let the fire depart from your altar. It may be the means by which another lost soul finds his way out of darkness and into the presence of God.
Sarah Cornwell lives in Wheaton, IL with her husband, James, and their seven children.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Essex Fells, New Jersey
The Diocese of Rochester (USA) – The Episcopal Church
This ministry of The Living Church Foundation is made possible in part by a special bequest from the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer.
