| You may remember that I have spoken on
this paragraph before -- in fact, on an awful lot of paragraphs since I
have delivered about 2,000 sermons during the 40 years I have been a minister.
This one, however, is a very important passage. And correctly interpreted,
it tells us a wonderful truth about Christianity. It answers the
all-important question: Who is Jesus of Nazareth, born about 5 B.C.
in the reign of Herod the Great -- born an a stable attached to an ancient
version of a Day's Inn Motel. Who was -- who is -- Jesus of Nazareth?
I. THERE ARE MANY CONFUSING, POSSIBLE-ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION.
1. At the time that Jesus asked this question of the disciples
there were many contemporary answers. (He probably got many more
answers that just those reported here -"v.14"). There were many different
views. Only 4 are mentioned but one of them stated that he was "one of
the prophets." This probably was an indication that people thought
one of the ancient O.T. prophets such as Jeremiah or Ezekiel had come back
from the dead and likely included the belief that some people thought that
Jesus was the beginning of a revival of that line of prophets which, by
the time of the Lord, had been nonexistent for 400 years, the last of them
being Malachi.
2. And in our times -- say, the last century -- the situation has not
cleared up. There have been -- and are -- almost unlimited variations
and sub-variations. He has been defined by comparison to Mahatma
Ghandi, Martin Luther King and more recently to the just-deceased Hosea
Williams and even Jesse Jackson! Others have compared him to Albert
Schweitzer, Mother Teressa and who-knows-who-else. All of these opinions
are based on the subjective admiration of the person making the comparison.
In addition the Jews see Jesus as a reformer that tampered with Judaism,
The Muslims -- as a prophet but one that doesn't hold a candle to Muhammed,
the Hindus -- as a swami, one among many.
3. Jesus would be no more impressed with their opinions than he was
with those of the people that the disciples reported about. All of
them were wrong, some of them are ridiculous and some outrageous.
And all of them were -- and are -- totally inadequate.
In our own time and culture, there are more wrong answers than right.
Even within the movement of organized Christianity there are variations
that are decidedly wrong answers.
I. BUT THINK ABOUT THE CORRECT ANSWER.
1. And Jesus -- probably intending to go there all along --
said: "But who do you say that I am?"
Peter, impetuous as he always was, jumped at the answer. It was,
in this case, one of his most accomplished outbursts.
V. 16 "You are the Christ the Son of the Living God."
2. The answer has two parts: "The Christ" -- that's the Greek translation
of what he actually said. He would have actually said it in Aramaic, "the
Meshiha" -- the Messiah -- that fulfillment of the scores or hundreds
of O.T. prophecies and allusions and the fulfillment of the specific elements
of the O.T religion -- the sacrifices, the altar, the priesthood etc.
The first part of Peter's answer majors on the Lord's being a representative
of God.
3. The second part is more about who he really was. He was the "Son
of the Living God."
We believe with the light of the rest of the N.T. that this was the
"Messianic Sonship" being spoken of and not that sonship of God which describes
ourselves -- a "soteriological sonship" (a sonship as a result of
our salvation, as the word "soterological" means). Remember that
by this time in Matthew -- the last year and likely the last months of
the Lord's ministry -- Jesus had taught his disciples on the subject as
is shown in John's Gospel. Peter was confessing the divine origin
of Jesus: We believe that in that conception in Mary's womb that
led to the first Christmas, the Second Person of the Divine Trinity took
upon himself humanity and in that person, Jesus of Nazareth, there
were two natures in Jesus: the Divine and the human.
His human nature was necessary to bear the sins of humans; His divine
nature was necessary for his perfection and for his infinite value to be
able to bear the sins of every one who would ever call upon him.
These two things: his being the Christ, the one sent by God to teach us
about God -- but more than that -- to be the messenger and agent of God
the Father; and the second thing -- being the God/man, the incarnation
of the second Person of the Trinity in human flesh. These two
things are foundational and the rock upon which the church is built.
And on this and every Communion Sunday -- when we celebrate the Communion
-- we see in the very elements of the Communion these aspects of
the confession of Peter: in the bread of the communion that speaks about
his body, that is his person contained in that body. Added to that
is the conviction that he bore our sins and satisfied the justice of God
in our behalf and we reverently take the two elements to ourselves and
make them a part of us by eating them: The bread standing for his person
as the God/man and the cup standing for his being God's appointed sin-bearer
who bore our sins -- as it says in Isaiah 53:
He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.
The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all
Paul probably had this passage in mind when he wrote in Romans:
Who bore our sins in his body on the tree.
And so, in a very real sense, you have the opportunity -- every time you
take the communion -- to make this same confession with the additional
factor that you are signifying that it is true in the very most intimate
sense. You don't just confess this verbally as Peter did but you
also make the element a part of your body representing your soul and mind
and will.
III. THE GRAND OUTCOME OF THIS CONFESSION IS IN "V.18."
1. This verse was used in the Middle Ages by bishops of Rome
against the patriarchs of Constantinople as having primacy over all the
Churches of Christendom. The idea was that the name Petros, "stone,"
was supposedly the rock on which the church is built. They tried
to convince the Easterners on the basis of the Lord's words "your are Peter…"
and ..."upon this rock" that the church universal was built upon the foundation
of the bishops of Rome because Peter was thought to have founded the church
at Rome.
2. But it is significant that as it is reported in the Greek text, that
the Holy Spirit has given us, Jesus uses a different gender of the word
in both cases. They are really two separate words. The masculine
form petros was the name of Peter, which is used in Greek for a "stone,"
a free standing stone. But when Jesus says "upon this rock I will
build my church," he uses the feminine form, petra, which is used to refer
to bedrock, the stuff that underlies most of the land of Palestine.
Therefore the statement about Peter is probably a pun on his name rather
than a direct equasion. "You Peter are a stone but upon this bedrock
I will build my church."*
3. But more than that, is the truth of the confession. The rock,
the bedrock of the church and of Christianity, is Jesus Christ and especially
this truth about the Lord Jesus Christ: "the Messiah, the eternal Son of
the Living God." He was the Second Person of the Godhead -- the Person
called "the Son," who, in the greatest miracle in all of history took upon
himself humanity.
4. I want to speak on that in more detail on The Sunday before Christmas
which is Christmas Eve this year. But here I want to comment on the
emphasis that this gives in Christianity. Christianity is Christ!
The O.T. prepared for him and predicted him. We are right in reading
into the O.T. books a Christological meaning. The Gospels speak of
his coming. The book of Acts shows the power of his Name. The
Letters are an explanation of his place in Christianity.
5. The temptation is for the church that forgets this solid-rock foundation
to become a social service agency or an arm of the Red Cross or an aide
to the school system or a political force in American society. Some
of these are things that the Lord's people might do in a para church context
but in terms of this great truth that the foundation of the church is her
dear Lord, the Christ, the eternal Son of the living God. Of course
we do many things in our church for purposes of fellowship, Christian growth,
evangelism,
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*And, in fact, 30 years later Peter (in the letter of I Peter) describes
Jesus as the foundation stone except, since he is building on a quote of
the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the O.T.) that uses the word lithos,
a synonym of petra, and so he uses that word.
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kindness to the community around us. But they are always in terms
of and secondary to the truth of the glorification of the Christ, the dear
Son of God.
Jesus said: "Upon this rock I will build my church" and it is so!
It is where Christ is seen as the eternal Son of God, the Savior and only
Lord where the church is truly built. Both sacraments speak of him
-- baptism, of his saving work and the communion more specifically of his
person and his saving work. The hymns of the church major in his
praise and the celebration of his work. According to the Book of
Philippians it pleases the Father that he should be in the church the prominent
member of the Trinity: For the Father
"has given him a name that is above every name that at the
name of Jesus every knee shall bow... and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father"
Let us make Christ Lord in our lives and in our practice of Christianity.
Let us celebrate him in the communion as it is presented to us this morning.
He is not, as he is represented in many modern churches, a CEO or an admired
historical figure! He is the Savior and he is the Lord over all we
are and have! He is God who became incarnate! Let us confess
before one another, before the holy angels and before God the Father himself
that we once again confess his Divine Sonship and our trust in his Saviorhood
and that we recommit ourselves to his Lordship over our lives.
Let us each personally determine to make him in his Lordship and in
his saviorhood, the absolute Lord over our lives so that we may personally
say "On Christ the solid Rock I stand." This week, this season, this
coming year -- O that we all might both as a church and as individuals
make Christ the sure foundation of our lives and of our corporate life.
May we take that into account as we partake of the communion this morning.
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