The Stones Will Cry Out
Jesus is famous for his numerous parables: ‘the kingdom of heaven is like…’
We are so accustomed to the imagery and symbolism used in the bible that we hardly notice it. And not just in the bible. All good storytelling and literature use images and symbols, parables, and metaphors to paint scenes that are somehow more appealing, are more memorable, and make more sense than a straightforward explanation.
Someone, for example, is a ‘wet blanket’ or there’s an ‘elephant in the room’ or, life is described as ‘an emotional rollercoaster’. Shakespeare employed numerous metaphors: ‘His face is all carbuncles…and his fire is out’ Henry V.
The disciples brought the donkey to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came down the road from the Mount of Olives, the crowd joyfully praised God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
‘Hosannah in the Highest. The King of Israel! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!’ But the Pharisees said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’ ‘I tell you’, he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, even the stones will cry out.’ Mt 21 and Luke 19.
An absurd picture. The one thing that inanimate objects, especially hard stones, cannot do is cry out. Was this simply poetic exasperation directed at his chief critics, the Pharisees, always there to pour cold water on the joy of the people and his mission?
Before we explore this further, I have three questions, primarily for those of us who live in England:
Q1. Would you say you are a Christian?
Q2. Do you know how to become a Christian?
Q3. Have you ever thought you’d like to be a Christian? If so, would you like to?
In England and the rest of the UK, our history, culture, traditions, holidays, and the laws that govern us are still largely bible based. And yet I can guarantee that Question One would flummox many or elicit a negative answer. In England, despite Christianity pervading our national life, there is widespread ignorance of true Christianity.
Jesus remains box office, but few know the answer to Q2 and therefore Q3 becomes nonsensical.
I know. I was brought up to go to church. I held the reed palm crosses made for Palm Sunday in the local CofE church services as a child. I sang the hymns. I knelt. I tried to pray. I listened to scripture being read at school and in church. I liked Jesus. Admired him, his courage, his inclusion of the outcasts, his denunciation of hypocrisy, his willingness to die, his unstuffy ‘out on the road’ discipleship with the rough fishermen. The miracles. The parables. The way he answered the scribes and the Pharisees. I was familiar with the parables and some other bible stories. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until I abandoned church in my teens and ran into someone who could explain the answer to Q2 that I had even the chance of answering Q3.
At this point, if you’re still reading, you might be thinking what’s this got to do with ‘the rocks/stones will cry out’? The answer is everything.
The stones will cry out is most definitely a poetic image, but it is also prophetic. To be more precise it is a prophecy that can be seen throughout the scriptures. It made sense to Jesus to utter those words.
We should begin with the Old Testament, with Moses in the desert on the way to the Promised Land with the Israelites. Their water had run out and the people were complaining to Moses.
‘The Lord spoke to Moses. ‘Take the rod…speak to the rock…and it will yield its water…Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod and water came out of the rock abundantly’ Numbers 20
When St Paul commented on the journey of the Israelites in 1 Corinthians 10 he wrote:
‘All were baptised into Moses…all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ’
Without lingering to interpret the spiritual and physical dimensions at play, the picture of life-giving water coming from an inanimate rock is beyond our everyday experience. It, like the whole of the Old Testament, was pointing forward to the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus.
Moving on from the Law to the Prophets we read in Jeremiah 31 and in Ezekiel :
‘The days are coming…when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts…no more shall every man teach his neighbour saying ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest of them’ Jeremiah 31 v 31f
‘I will give you a new heart and a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes’ Ez 36v26,27
At the Last Supper, after supper, Jesus took the cup and said ‘This cup is the New Covenant in My blood, shed for you’ Luke 22 v 19
The picture of the stones crying out is beginning to become clear. The literal rock in the desert, the stone, pours out water; ‘Crying out’ a metaphor for shouting, the pouring out of speech and singing likened to the pouring out of water or a thunderous waterfall. Then the great Prophets of the Old Testament looking ahead to the New Covenant explain that what was external in the Old will become wonderfully internal in the New.
Despite the Law, despite the miracles in the Old Testament, and the sacrifices, the temple worship and so on, the problem of sin, of our hard hearts inherited from Adam, had not been overcome. But in the New Covenant the picture is of a heat transplant.
The promises in the New Covenant are internal. Our old stony hearts are removed and we receive a new ‘fleshy’ heart and a new spirit. And His Spirit. God Himself taking up residence, permanently, in us. This is the Christianity that is, tragically, unknown by so many. So many who think they have rejected Christianity, but find they have not even known what it is they have apparently rejected.
Imagine a knock on your front door. You open the door to find Jesus standing there. Along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. You invite them in. They explain they love you. You say ‘really, but…’ and list all your shortcomings. And they talk to you about the New Covenant and how they will be in you not just with you.
Jesus remains box office
Jesus said ‘He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’ John 7 v 37. That is real Christianity. ‘…the Spirit…who dwells with you, will be in you’ John 14 v 17. And so is this.
When Jesus replied to the Pharisees it was more than a poetic repost. It was ‘look around at these people, it’s happening, the stones are crying out. Listen to what they are saying. Listen to their praise at what God has done in their lives. The stones are crying out.’
Not only that but you can bet that Peter was probably standing close to Jesus with a smile on his rough Galilean face. Jesus, as we know, had said to Peter ‘Simon, son of Jonah, you shall be called Cephas, Peter’ John 1v 42, Cephas being Aramaic and Peter or Petros being Greek for ‘Stone’. On another occasion Jesus repeats this name changing:
‘Blessed are you Simon bar Jonah…and I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build My church…’ Mt 16 v 17,18
In other words, true Christianity is all about stones, the rocks; individuals like those in the multitude crying out as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey over the palm branches strewn on the road. They have become like the rock in the desert pouring out life-giving water. He was saying ‘If I stop these from crying out there will be far more – even some of you Pharisees – when you let God take from you your hearts of stone and replace it with a new heart and spirit and My Spirit – you, too will be shouting your praises rather than seeking to arrest and kill me’.
To bring this to a halt we should revisit the three questions:
Q1. Would you say you are a Christian?
Q2. Do you know how to become a Christian?
Q3. Have you ever wanted to be a Christian? Would you like to?