[Machine transcription]
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
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 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, and 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
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 him 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 he 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
Rebuke, that word, rebuke, 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, 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 were 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, 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.
