Pentecost XII (Proper 16 A) [Matthew 16:13-20] (27-Aug-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

[Jesus] said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, send us your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

I.

Our Gospel reading today begins where we read: Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

This is a very interesting question. First Jesus wants to ask the disciples what people are saying. Jesus calls himself here the Son of Man. This is a title that particular emphasises the fact that Jesus was a true human being. He is a member of the human race, just like us. He was born of the Virgin Mary, and had a true human mother, just like us.

And so what do the disciples say? They say: Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. What do you think of this answer? These things are just opinions, they’re not a confession of faith. Now what do we know from these opinions about Jesus? Well, first of all, they are all wrong. Jesus is not John the Baptist, he is not Elijah, and he is not Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

But also, all these people that the disciples mention had all died. John the Baptist died, Elijah died, Jeremiah died, and all of the prophets died. John the Baptist had his head cut off by King Herod, Elijah went to heaven in a chariot with horses of fire, and Jeremiah and all the prophets died too. But also, it’s not like these people who died don’t exist anymore. We believe that their souls are with God.

So Jesus is not John the Baptist or one of the prophets who have come back from the dead. Some people might have thought this because the prophets and Jesus were doing similar kinds of things. For example, Elijah raised a boy from the dead, Jesus raised a boy from the dead. John the Baptist went around saying, “Repent and believe the Gospel”, and Jesus went around saying exactly the same thing. King Herod certainly thought that Jesus and John were the same person. But Jesus is not John the Baptist come back from the dead.

Now you may know some people who believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation is where people believe that when a person dies, their ghost or their spirit comes and lives in another person, so that it is the same person who throughout history lives in different bodies. But this is not what the bible teaches. We believe that each person who has ever lived is a unique person, with a unique soul. Maybe the people thought that Jesus was a reincarnation of Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. But Jesus is not simply an empty shell of a body with the ghost of a prophet who has died living in him. A dead Jesus with a spirit of the dead is a false Christ, or an antichrist.

This is what makes Jesus different from the Dalai Lama, for example. The Dalai Lama is a Buddhist leader from Tibet. People believe that all the Dalai Lamas throughout history are the reincarnation of Buddha. It means that the ghost of the dead Buddha, or the dead spirit of Buddha, now lives in the next Dalai Lama, and then in the next one, until today’s Dalai Lama. God creates each of us with our own soul and our own spirit. We are not created as husks and shells who are possessed by ghosts. We read in Job 10: You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit. My spirit… not someone else’s spirit who came before me. God preserved their spirits too, but he preserves your individual spirit. Your body and your soul together is you! Jesus also is a true human being, he has a body and a soul like us. We know he has a body, because when he was crucified, nails went through his hands, his feet, a spear went into his side, a crown of thorns was put on his head, and we could keep going on. But also, we read about when Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, before he died, Jesus says: My soul is greatly troubled, even to death. Jesus didn’t just suffer in his body, but he suffered inwardly. He had a body and a soul, and he suffered in body and soul.

So after we hear about Jesus asking the disciples about what everyone else thinks, he then turns the question back on them, and he says: But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Can you see what is amazing about this confession of faith? First, Peter says that Jesus is the Son of the living God. He is not the Son of the god of the dead. That’s what the Ancient Egyptians, and the Tibetans, and all pagans believe. They only have a god of the dead. When you don’t have the living God, all you are able to do really is worship your ancestors, dead people. Now how many funerals have you gone to, where people get up and speak to the dead person in the coffin as if they are still alive? Now, of course, this is not ancestor worship in the complicated, convoluted way that it goes on in some cultures, but the beginnings of it are still there. Many people can’t say that Jesus is with me, but they are happy to say that grandma or grandpa is with me.

So Peter says that Jesus is the son of the living God. The living God came to Moses out of the burning bush, and said, I AM WHO I AM. Jesus even said to the Sadducees: Have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. So also, Peter says that Jesus is the Son of the living God.

Also, Peter says that Jesus is not the expression of God, or a kind of outflowing from God, or a part of God, or a kind of ambassador of God. He says he is the Son of God. The Son of Man is the Son of God. He is God and man in one person. The Son of the Virgin Mary has God the Father as his Father. This is what we say every week in the creed.

But also, Peter says: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. “Christ” in English comes from the Greek word, χριστος (Christos). The Hebrew word for Christ is “Messiah”. Christ and Messiah both mean “anointed one”. Jesus is anointed at his baptism by the Holy Spirit from heaven, not possessed by a dead spirit from hell. And being anointed by the Holy Spirit means that he is our heavenly king, our heavenly high priest, and our heavenly prophet. God the Father says at Jesus’ baptism: This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.

II.

Now what does Jesus think about this confession of faith that Peter makes? He says: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Jesus says: It’s not your father or your family or your flesh and blood who taught you this, but my Father who is in heaven. We see here that when we confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, when we are able to confess exactly who Jesus is, then we know that it is not us who came up with the idea. It is not from flesh and blood, it is not from our natural life or from our family, even if we were born into a Christian family. It is not from our human thoughts, or theories, or speculations, or feelings, or mystical experiences. It is not from our hearts and our wills and our minds, because they are all corrupted by sin. This knowledge and this confession of faith, only comes through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit only comes to us through the Word of God. Remember this the next time we confess the creed—it’s one thing to recite it and speak the words: that’s easy. But to believe these words and confess them as your own confession of faith, that can only come through the Holy Spirit. St Paul says: No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. It really is a wonderful thing to gather together and to hear the word of God, and the fact that you believe it, and put your trust in it, and stake your life on it, this is a wonderful miracle of your heavenly Father. This is not your achievement, but the achievement of the Holy Spirit.

III.

Now, Jesus doesn’t stop there. He says to Peter: And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

This is the passage where all of those jokes come about Peter having the keys to heaven at the pearly gates. But this is not what Jesus says here: the keys that are given to Peter here are not to be used at the pearly gates, but on earth. Jesus says: Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

This is also the passage which the Roman Catholic Church uses to say that the pope is the actually the head of the church here on earth. Now, I don’t say this because I want to bad-mouth Catholics, or be unkind to them. There were times in history where Lutherans and Catholics could be quite nasty to each other. I have many wonderful, dear Catholic friends, and I’m sure you do too, and there are many wonderful Christian people in the Catholic church. In fact, there are many Catholics that are better Christians than many Lutherans! Let’s not be arrogant here, and think we’re better than everyone else. But the Catholic church teaches (and this is almost what makes Catholics “Catholic”) that here in this passage, Jesus founds his church on Peter, and all the popes are carrying on Peter’s position in the church. Even today, where there are so many Christian denominations, and yet where Christians of different denominations are much more friendly with each other that they used to be, the Catholic Church stills sees the solution to church unity as everyone coming together under the pope.

We Lutherans don’t believe this, and we don’t believe that this is what Jesus set up here with Peter. We don’t have a pope, because we believe that Jesus is truly present in the middle of his church on earth, and rules it as its head, and keeps the unity of his church through his word. Where his word is taught in its truth and purity, there the Holy Spirit creates the unity of the church. And the bible is not unclear in such a way that we pastors, or bishops, or even a pope, needs to clarify it for us. The bible is a clear brilliant light from God himself, and every pastor, bishop, or whoever, is accountable to that word. As Psalm 119 says: Your word is…a light to my path. The answer to church unity isn’t about church structures and church politics—it comes about through the pure teaching of the Word of God.

And so what happens here? Jesus says to Peter: You are Peter. The name Peter actually means, “rock”. His old name was Simon—Jesus gives him a new name: Peter, rock. And then Jesus says: And on this rock I will build my church. The church is not built on Peter; Peter is only named after this rock. The rock is the confession of faith revealed from God the Father that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is the basis of everything. The church, Christ’s own bride, Christ’s own living body on earth, is founded on this rock, on this foundation stone. And even after Jesus died on the cross, we believe he rose again from the dead on the third day. So Jesus is the living God, and he is also alive again, he is risen from the dead. There is not a single smell of death about him. Even on Easter Sunday, Jesus breathes on his disciples. Now if I breathed over you, it would smell like my decaying breakfast, and gingivitis, and phlegm, and whatever else my breath smells like. But Jesus is alive, he is the Son of the living God, and his breath is sweet, his breath breathes out the Holy Spirit.

This confession of faith is the basis of everything: it’s the basis of our forgiveness, it’s the basis of the promise for eternal life, and it’s the basis for the resurrection from the dead. This confession of faith is the rock. And Jesus says here: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That’s how sure and certain the solid foundation of your faith is. You have a living Jesus who forgives you all your sin, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against that solid foundation. The gates of hell have long prevailed against the shaking sand of church politics, and church leaders, but never, never will it prevail against the confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, because this would mean that the gates of hell would prevail against that very thing that the Holy Spirit inspires and works and creates himself. The Holy Spirit is not a loser, the Holy Spirit is always the winner, because Jesus is always the winner!

Then Jesus says to Peter: And I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Jesus singles out Peter here, but he also in other places gives these same keys to all the apostles. And Peter, in one sense, is the one apostle who preaches the first Christian sermon on the day of Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit comes down with tongues of fire, it is Peter who first flings the doors of heaven open, so that 3000 people are converted and are baptised. And Jesus gave him these keys. But then all the other apostles do the same thing.

So what do we learn from this? The keys of the kingdom of heaven are Jesus’ gift. He says: I give you the keys. It’s important that anyone who claims to use these keys has had them given to them by Jesus himself. They are a very special thing, and they are not simply to be used as we feel like it. Jesus says: Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Loosing and binding means forgiving sins or not forgiving sins. When people confess and repent of their sins, then we loose these sins from them, and speak the forgiveness of sins. When people are hardened to Jesus and deny that they are sinners and don’t want forgiveness, then we bind these sins back on them. They are not forgiven. This is why in church every week the pastor speaks the forgiveness of sins, not as himself, but on behalf of Jesus Christ and by his command.

But this shows us one more thing about these keys. They are to be used on earth, and what is used on earth is valid in heaven. And they have been given by Jesus, and can only be used in the way Jesus commanded them to be used. There has sometimes been great damage done in the church, when the keys have been used to exclude someone who was not in the wrong. In this situation, we can say that the words of Jesus were not fulfilled, where he says: I give you the keys. Sometimes people have used their own personal keys, which just don’t fit the lock. But in the Small Catechism, Luther writes: I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deals with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us himself.

You can see, this church, which Jesus builds on this rock, has the forgiveness of sins in it. This is the only chance you will get, and the final judgment will be only according to how our life has been in this life—have we believed in Jesus and his forgiveness, or not? Jesus wants these keys to be used so that you hear the judgment of forgiveness that God will speak to you on the last day right here, now, in the church, during this lifetime. When we speak the absolution, or the words of the forgiveness of sins, this is God’s words from the day of judgment spoken here in advance. And you can trust in that word and take it home, just like putting in your pocket, and you can be absolutely sure that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Amen.

Dear Jesus, we confess that you are the Christ, the son of the living God, and we thank you that your Father has revealed this from heaven by the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Open the kingdom of heaven for us, that the word of forgiveness we hear in the church even today may be a wonderful rock on which we can build our faith. Amen..