The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. Peter and John are healing in Jesus’ name when they are arrested. But it’s so obvious they have done nothing wrong.

They know it. The crowds know it. They respond to their captors that they weren’t hurting anyone; on the contrary, they healed the crippled man and saved him. They were arrested because they were healing in Jesus’ name, and proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the dead. But the thing is that it was true. Jesus had risen from the dead. The crippled man was healed in Jesus’ name. Everything they were doing was true. What they were doing was right. And arresting Peter and John didn’t stop it from being true. Peter calls them out. He says in effect, look how wrong you were: the man you arrested and tortured and killed, he came back and he’s the true son of God. He’s the one. He’s the only route to salvation, and you missed it. Jesus is the stone that they rejected, but he is the true cornerstone on which everything else depends.

And Peter knows this first hand. Peter is out fishing all night and has caught nothing, when the Lord tells him to put his net out again. And this is ridiculous because of course Peter had already had his net out. But he does, and in another fishes miracle, there are so many fish that they can all barely haul them in, but the net is not torn. None of this makes sense.

But here is Jesus, cooking them fish for breakfast, when he died last week and they all saw him die. And that doesn’t make sense either. Except that Jesus is the cornerstone. Jesus was discredited, arrested, tortured, executed, but he has risen. None of that was true. What’s true is that he is the way. Arresting the disciples for talking about it doesn’t stop it from being true. Killing Jesus didn’t stop him from being the way. He rose. He is the cornerstone. He is the salvation.