Text: Matthew 16:13-20
Date: September 6, 2020
Event: The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 16:13–20 (EHV)
13When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14They said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15He said to them, “But you, who do you say that I am?”
16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20Then he commanded the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
Not Even the Gates of Hell…
Earlier this week Alex and I were watching a baseball game on TV. As one of the outfielders came up to bat, the announcers said, “He came in to this series looking good, but he’s gone 0-8 since this series started. A bit of a slump.” Could the formally productive player be washed up? Was he going to have time to get out of a sudden slump given the COVID-shortened season? Well, as he stepped up to the plate he blasted a 2-run home run; his next time at bat he hit a 3-run home run. Not the pitcher, not the rest of the defense, not even his own personal struggles at the plate would stop that player from winning the game for the team.
There was some uncertainty, though. No one knew that he would pull through for his team the way he did. And there remains uncertainty. What will the next game bring? The slump could return.
Jesus in our gospel this morning makes his disciples and us promises of success for us no matter what happens. It may not feel like we can have any certainty in this life, with job, family, neighborhood, pandemic, fire, smoke heat—whatever—stress. But Jesus assures us that not even the gates of hell itself will overcome us, nothing can overcome our Savior.
Jesus was continuing his traveling, preaching, and teaching work. But in our Gospel for this morning he has a brief moment of time with his disciples. We’re going to focus on that conversation for the next two Sundays, but for today we have the first promise that Jesus makes in this lesson. Jesus begins, as they walk, with a question. “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” In other words, “What are people saying about me? What’s the word that you hear?” Jesus, because he is God, of course knew what anyone was thinking about him. But he uses this question to start to probe at his disciples’ hearts.
Everyone had seemed to hear something just a little bit different: John the Baptist, raised from the dead (what an odd thought given that Jesus and John had clearly worked at the same time before John’s execution by Herod!)? Elijah, one the great Old Testament prophets, returning to continue his work? Jeremiah, another giant among the prophets who had brought God’s Word to his people during the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians and their subsequent exile? Someone else from the past who was very important?
What is clear from all of those ideas is that there was simultaneously a great deal of respect and a great deal of confusion about Jesus. He had fed the 5,000 men plus women and children with a small lunch, but then refused to do any more free-food miracles for that crowd. He taught with authority, but people didn’t always want to hear what he had to say. He clearly was sent with power, likely by God, but what were his final goals? The people were lost.
Having heard the answers from the crowd, Jesus turns the question on his disciples: “But you, who do you say that I am?” Now, we know that Peter often let his mouth get him into trouble. But, here, Peter’s impetuousness answers with a beautiful answer on behalf of the twelve: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Let’s take just a moment and unpack that. Peter doesn’t say that Jesus was some legendary figure brought back from the dead. As amazing as that would be, Peter knew that any such ideas were selling Jesus far short of who he truly was. “You are the Christ,” he says. “Christ” is a Greek term meaning “anointed one” or “chosen one.” Hebrew used the term “Messiah.” This was a technical term for the promised one, the seed of the woman promised in the Garden of Eden who would defeat Satan, the suffering servant from Isaiah who would be pierced and crushed for our sins. This was far more impressive than “just” being some miraculously-raised prophet. The prophets were important in large part because they pointed ahead to the Christ; Jesus was the Christ himself!
Peter might have had some mistaken ideas about the role of the Christ (which we’ll talk a bit more about next week), but Jesus is clearly delighted by his confession. He says, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Faith in Jesus as Christ, as Savior, doesn’t come because we do a lot of studying or are very smart or have worked really hard. Faith is totally and completely a gift from God. That you trust Jesus as your Savior is a gift from your God who loves you dearly.
Peter’s confession is so important, that Jesus is set on building the entire foundation of the church upon it. Jesus goes on, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it.” Boisterous Peter has given Jesus an example to point. His name literally means, “Rock,” but Jesus is using a bit of wordplay here. He’s not saying he is going to build his church on Peter—grammatically, that’s impossible based on what Jesus says—but he is saying that he will build it on Peter’s confession of him as the Christ. The fact that Jesus is the Savior from sin would be and continues to be the foundation of any true-teaching church.
And it’s easy to lose sight of that, right? Churches start out wanting to do good in the world, in their communities, and that’s wonderful and important. But if a congregation becomes primarily concerned with people’s physical well-being rather than their spiritual well-being, they’ve lost sight of their foundation. If the focus is on sharing self-help tips rather than pointing to Jesus as the Christ, the Savior from all sin, they’ve lost the thread and the message they’ve been tasked with sharing. Lord, keep us from falling into this trap!
But, when we proclaim Jesus as the solution to all sin—yours and mine—then something amazing happens. Then we have something that cannot be taken away from us. Then we have a message then cannot be defeated. The promise of God is clear: nothing will be able to permanently undo this message of sins forgiven in Jesus, not even the gates of hell. The gospel message advances triumphantly, and Satan is powerless to stop it. It will and does bring comfort to the aching hearts of sinners around the world.
And that message is going to be proclaimed in some pretty direct ways. Jesus says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus here singles our Peter and elsewhere gives these keys to the church as a whole. The keys Jesus speaks about are of binding and loosing, locking and unlocking, forgiving or not forgiving.
Jesus’ death paid for all sin. Everything is done. When Jesus said, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) from the cross, he wasn’t lying or exaggerating. But, you and I have the horrid ability to reject that forgiveness. We can look God in the eyes and say, “No thank you.” We do that by ignoring God’s Word. We do that by embracing and relishing sin. And that’s where Jesus gives to his church the keys, to announce forgiveness and a lack of forgiveness to people.
For the person with a troubled conscience, who is worried that what they have done will prevent them from ever entering eternal life, we have the joyful duty and privilege to bring the gospel to them, to point them to Jesus, the Christ, and say “There is your Savior! There is your forgiveness! It’s been done and won for you! Thanks be to God!” And the person with whom we share that message can be certain that it is just as valid as if Jesus himself were sharing it, “whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
But what about the other end of the spectrum? What about the person who doesn’t care about their sin, who thinks it’s no big deal, or actually really likes it and says they will not make any effort to remove it from their life? Such an unrepentant person spurns God’s mercy and love and separates themselves from God’s forgiveness. To that person we have the solemn responsibility to warn them that they are condemning themselves because they are rejecting God’s love. They are taking the burden of their sin away from Jesus and putting it back on their own shoulders. We have to warn them that going down that path will mean no joyful entrance into eternal life, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.”
Sin, Satan, Death, and Hell cannot stand up against the advancement of our Savior’s Word. We conquer all of our enemies, because he conquered it all for us. Because of Jesus’ life and death for us, because of his promises to us, nothing can stand in our way from sharing the gospel, nothing can stop us from entering into eternal life, not even the gates of hell! Amen.
