Rock of ages

High in the hills of the mountainous region known as Central Otago, in New Zealand’s South Island there is “monument” to greed and folly. One of the deepest vertical gold mine shafts in the country pierces directly into the native rock to depth of almost 100 meters. (328 ft)

The main engine house of the mine shaft circa 1900

The stark beauty of the area was likely wasted upon the miners who toiled for almost 40 years trying to eke out a living looking for that precious yellow metal that has driven so many to despair, madness and murder…gold. The bone-numbingly cold winters and searing summers were just a small part of the privations the miners and their families faced in this semi-desert region… isolation, often interrupted food supplies, no alternative work. 

Every stick of firewood, every sack of coal had to be hauled by horse and cart for 50 miles (80 kilometers) or more; the nearest town was over a day’s journey away. All of this contributed to a “life-style” few would contemplate, or covet, today.  

When the mine "payed out" in the early years of the 20^th century, the miners and their families simply “upped sticks” and moved away; the village was abandoned to rabbits, wild herbs, gorse and lizards. All that remains today are a few gaunt ruins of single room dwellings, a roofless, door-less local pub and a tumble down stable. Even the lonely graves of the miners who died “on the job” are unmarked, simply neat mounds of dirt and rock raised a few inches above the surrounding stony ground. A dozen or so people lie waiting for the final trumpet blast to awaken them from their deep sleep.

The miners spent much of their adult life digging into the rock, hoping for that “big strike” of gold that would turn their dreams into reality. It never happened…   

Like the miners of old, we too need to dig deep into the rock, but the rock that we “mine” is a living, eternal one; none other Jesus Christ Himself.

He is the Rock; His work is perfect. For all His ways are just, a God of faithfulness, and without evil; just and upright is He. Deuteronomy 3:24 MKJV   

But the Lord has become my High Tower and Defense, and my God the Rock of my refuge. Psalm 94:22 Amplified Bible

No only is Jesus the rock upon which we build our faith, He is the cornerstone of that faith. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is from the Lord and is His doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has brought about; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:22-24 Amplified Bible

What is a cornerstone?

It’s a stone placed at the corner, or the intersecting angle, where two walls of a building come together. In times past, buildings were often made of cut, squared stone. By uniting two intersecting walls, a cornerstone helped align the whole building and tie it together.

Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom every building having been fitly framed together, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord; in whom you also are built together for a dwelling place of God through the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22 MKJV

When our faith is fused to the “living rock” of Christ we become like the wise man of Matthew 7.

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. And the rain came down, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it did not fall, for it was founded on a rock. Matthew 7:24-25 MKJV