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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, last week Pastor Wolf-Muller preached on this confession of St. Peter, and as I was listening a couple of times, he mentioned the disappointed gospel reading, this one from St. Matthew. Well, you shouldn’t really read it or preach it or teach it as one part; you have to teach both parts. And so at least once, when he was making a point, maybe twice, I heard him say, “But more on that next week.” And my ears kind of perked up. Not that I don’t listen to his sermons very closely, but I really had to pay attention.
And it’s interesting because after this was at early service, in between the services, I think even back here in the sacristy, I said, “Well, I’m preaching next week.” And he said, “Hmm.” He didn’t say sorry about that. I know you were preparing the Jeremiah text. No, I wasn’t, actually. But he’s right, you know. I mean, I really had to pay attention and take some notes in the last sermon, the late service, and thank goodness his sermon this time was actually very similar to the first one. But he’s right. He’s right that you can’t really preach about verses 13 through 20 as he did, and then leave out the rest of the chapter, just kind of stop there.
So before we go into today’s lesson from St. Matthew, we need to look back and reflect on at least a few points from last week because they’re important to us for the context for today.
So you may recall Jesus had taken the disciples way, way up north to Caesarea Philippi, out in the middle of nowhere. I kind of think this is maybe the first church men’s retreat. And there it was that Jesus asked the disciples this question. He said, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” It was rhetorical, of course; he already knew what the answer was. And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” And true, fair enough, it is true.
But he was more interested in knowing exactly what the disciples thought, where they were, and their understanding of who He is. And so he asked the next question, and that is, “But who do you say that I am?” And not just for the disciples, although Jesus wanted to really hear what they had to say, what He thought of them. But also this point is for us. It is the most important question. What is your confession? Who do you say that I am?
Well, we hear from Peter’s confession. His confession is that yes, indeed, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. This confession, which is really spoken by Peter, but on behalf of all the disciples, well, it merits this little bit of praise from Jesus, but not because Peter and the disciples have somehow finally gotten it, that it’s finally sunk in as to who Jesus is. Though Jesus tells him, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” That this confession is not of you; it’s a gift of God. And that this confession is the basis for the establishment of his kingdom, of the church. As we heard last week, this was the first time the word “church” is used in the Scripture. Jesus goes on and says, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church and his kingdom.” The gates of hell will not withstand the pressure of the Lord’s Word, of his holy gospel.
And then Jesus shows the disciples how the kingdom does come. It comes through the promise of forgiveness. Forgiveness, as he referred to it, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, which he has given to us so that we may and will give it to others. Now, we might look at that last verse from last week and wonder what it means. Why did Jesus tell the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ? I mean, surely Jesus would want everyone to come to faith.
Well, Jesus wants the disciples to keep it to themselves for the very reason that he’s about to rebuke Peter, and that’s because they know who Jesus is, but they are completely wrong about how his kingdom will come. And so we go on to today’s text, which begins from that time, which refers back to the point of the disciples’ confession. Now Jesus is now satisfied that they are confident in his nature, in his divinity, but he now has to show them all that he has to do and accomplish to do the Father’s will and to set in motion the coming of his kingdom. And they’re not going to be very happy for what he has to say.
Of course, they know that Jesus has and will be continued to be subjected to the insults, to the persecution of the Sanhedrin. But what is this talk about being killed? There’s no way this is going to happen. Peter said as much. I mean, after all, Jesus has managed to silence his critics up to this point. He has even escaped the wrath of the people that the church leaders had incited against him. But again, Jesus says all this must happen.
Now, we know Peter had to be feeling pretty good about himself for this compliment of sorts that Jesus had given him. You can imagine Peter with the other disciples kind of basking in the glory of that moment. “I said that.” But never mind that Jesus had just told Peter, by the way, this confession is not of your own doing. Some of you may have heard, I’ve heard it said that Peter is described as the captain of the disciples, and maybe that’s why he thinks it’s his job to pull Jesus aside and rebuke him. Not that Peter is going to reason with Christ or caution him or counsel him. He rebuked him. This wasn’t what we call constructive criticism. Peter is saying, “No, Jesus, you’re wrong.”
And to Peter’s surprise, this private conversation then becomes public when Jesus offers his own rebuke back to Peter. “Get thee behind me, Satan.” And those are shocking words to hear. To hear Peter referred to in this manner. And imagine how he felt. Imagine the look on his face, how his face had just fallen.
Now sure, Peter needed to be rebuked himself. He needed to be scolded, but Satan? Peter had to be thinking, “Wait, what did I say that was so wrong? Give me a chance, Jesus. Give me a chance to explain what I meant.” Jesus doesn’t need him to explain. He doesn’t need to wait because Peter’s rebuke to Jesus was satanical. It was just like Satan’s temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Peter’s rebuke of Jesus appealed only to Jesus’ humanity and not to his divinity, just as Satan had appealed to the weakness of Christ in the desert.
You remember, Christ was hungry, so Satan just says, “Jesus, I know you’re hungry. Just turn these stones to bread, and you won’t be hungry anymore.” And there too, Jesus said, “Be gone, Satan.” So Jesus must expose Peter’s weakness. He shows Peter his ignorance despite the fact that he does have faith, but Peter, unfortunately, is still clinging to the picture of the Messiah that the Jews want and the one that they demand and they expect. He’s clinging to the kingdom they desire of, as Pastor described it last week, a kingdom of armies, firepower, generals, borders, etc.
And so now Peter, the rock, is the stumbling block. He is a rock to be tripped over. He is, as Jesus calls him, a hindrance. And so are the rest of the disciples. Jesus, of course, knows they’re thinking just like Peter. He rebukes them as well, but maybe a little bit more mildly than Peter. But this is important to Jesus because he now has to teach them what it will mean to be his disciple so that he doesn’t elaborate on what’s about to happen to him. He goes right to them and talks about what is to be expected of them.
Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Take up his cross. Now this is the second time we’ve heard Jesus say this to the disciples. The first time, when he basically commissioned them and sent them out, he said, “Anyone who does not take up his cross is not worthy of me.” And surely this imagery of the cross, it wasn’t lost on the disciples. No doubt they have seen those condemned by the Roman authorities carrying their crosses in these public processions on the way to their deaths.
And I think we’ve all heard someone say about some particular burden, “Well, I guess that’s the cross you have to bear,” or “the cross that I have to bear.” And yeah, a couple of weeks ago I was in a Zoom call, and one part of the meeting was about benefits for church workers. And the person that was giving this information stressed how important it is to have a plan so that when it’s time to “hang up your cross,” that is, when you retire, you will be ready.
Now I thought that sounded kind of silly. I even asked pastor what he thought about it. The more I thought about it now, and the more that I’ve reflected on today’s lesson, it’s very silly. It’s not just silly; it’s dead wrong. Because our cross to bear isn’t some particular trouble, it’s not some hardship, it’s not some kind of affliction, it’s not the day-to-day weariness of having a vocation. We all know and experience that. No, the cross to bear is living the life of Christian faith. It’s denial of self, as Christ says; it’s living for Jesus.
Luther said it this way: he said, “To take the cross upon one means, for the sake of the Word and the faith, voluntarily to take and to bear the hatred of the devil, of the world, of the flesh, of sin, and of death.” So here it is not necessary to choose a cross. We simply begin the first part of life and deny thyself; that is, we rebuke the righteousness of works and confess the righteousness of faith, and immediately the other part will come along with that, namely the cross which you have then taken upon yourself just as Christ took His upon Himself.
And so that’s what it means to bear the cross. It means, as Jesus says, that you will lose your life, but you will find it. Not might, but you will. You will give up the old life, the earthly life. To do otherwise is to cling to the things of this world, to riches, to fortune, to goods, even to family and friends. But these things will not and cannot save you. And for what is it all? In whatever you gain, whether it be great or whether it be very little, you will still forfeit your soul. Satan is a deceiver who promises the world, just as he did to Jesus in the wilderness, but Satan never delivers on his promise.
Now in last week’s gospel lesson, Jesus wanted to hear the disciples’ confession, and he wants to hear our confession. I think that we Lutherans are often accused of not making a public profession of faith, but our confession is our public profession of faith. We confess this faith in the rite of holy baptism. We just confessed the faith in the words of the Nicene Creed, and in doing so we confessed and professed not just a Jesus who was and is and what He has done and is doing in the rite of confirmation.
We also confess faith in Christ, who Christ is, what He has done, but we also declare what we intend to do, that we intend to do everything Jesus said one must do who will come after Him and follow Him. We declare that we intend to live according to the Word of God and in faith were it indeed to remain true to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit even to death. We intend to continue steadfast in our confession and church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it. And this is what Jesus wanted the disciples to know, to understand, and to confess.
So Jesus, in this rebuke to Peter, shows Peter that his confession is not of his own doing; it is a gift of God. And so, no, we know from the second part of the confession, today’s lesson, it’s just as important, in fact, probably more important than the first. And as Pastor mentioned, that’s why these readings cannot be separated. We can’t just confess one Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God who was made man and stop there.
We have to confess that He was crucified, that He died, that He was buried. We must confess that He rose again, that He ascended to heaven, that He sits at the right hand of the Father. We must confess that He will come to judge the living and the dead. Because the coming of His kingdom is not a point in time, it’s not a place; it’s the final victory over sin, death, and the devil.
So we don’t confess faith in a Jesus who didn’t need to die or didn’t need to be resurrected, as so many do today, because that is the Jesus of Peter’s sincere but incomplete confession, a confession that Jesus corrected in this rebuke. And so, brothers and sisters, Peter’s rebuke, as hard as it is to hear it—even to look at the words of it—it shows us that even the disciples, those who were closest to Jesus, those ones whom he shared the most intimate of moments with, the ones who he gave his most deepest affection to, they were subject to human frailty and error.
We know Peter slipped up a lot, and he said things that came only from his sinful flesh. He did it there at Caesarea Philippi, he did it on the Mount of Transfiguration, he did it at the table of the Last Supper, and he did it at least once more in the courtyard of the high priest as Jesus was on trial for his life. And as sinful as Peter could often be, he was, above all things, redeemed and forgiven.
So thanks be to God that we have a Savior who forgives our trespasses, who corrects, who reproves, and yes, even rebukes us rather than condemn us. And although we, today, we get it. We know who Christ is; we know what he has done. We know this not because of our own ability or confession that simply comes from our lips, but because of the faith that has been given to us by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that gives us the ability and the confidence again not to confess just from our lips but from our hearts. Hearts which the Word and the Spirit have changed from ones being enemies of God to being hearts where he richly dwells.
And like Peter, we once thought only of the things of man and not of the things of God. But in His infinite love, grace, and mercy, God has given us the power by His Word and by the Spirit to confess Jesus as Christ, the Son of the Living God. And may this confession, this gift of God, give you the peace which surpasses all understanding. And may it keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
