+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. (Amen.)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
As we heard moments ago, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus told Simon Peter both that he was blessed that God the Father revealed to him that Jesus was the Christ and that, on the confession of Jesus as the Christ, Jesus would build His Church. Considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, with the help of the Holy Spirit, this morning we realize that similarly “God blesses you by revealing Jesus and building His Church”.
As we heard this morning, Jesus first asked His disciples Who people said that the Son of Man was, and they gave Him identities that essentially amounted to Jesus’s being the reappearance of a notable prophet. Then Jesus asked His disciples Who they said that He was, and Simon Peter answered that Jesus was the Christ— the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Savior—the Son of the living God. As we heard two weeks ago, at least the majority of Jesus’s disciples, if not all of them, had worshiped Jesus as the Son of God after Jesus walked on the sea (Matthew 14:22‑33). But referring to Jesus as the Christ? That was essentially something no one other than the Divinely‑inspired evangelist St. Matthew had done up to this point in His Gospel account. And, now that Simon Peter was led by the Holy Spirit to so confess Jesus as the Christ, Jesus strictly charged His disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ, as least not until after He was crucified and resurrected and so had completed His work as God’s Savior for all humankind, and then, after Pentecost, Jesus’s disciples told everyone that He was the Christ, though not everyone faithfully confesses Him today.
Who do people today say that Jesus is? Mainstream Jews today might say that Jesus was a historical Jewish person, maybe granting that He was a teacher or maybe calling Him a failed Messianic figure. Muslims today might say that Jesus was the Messiah, but they would reject that He was the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Of course, neither Jews nor Muslims are Christians, but even some who would call themselves Christians also give such inadequate identities. For example, Mormons would say that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, but they would not confess Jesus’s uniqueness as the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Similarly, Jehovah’s Witnesses would say that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, but they would not confess Jesus’s equality to the Father with respect to His Divinity. Roman Catholics might say that Jesus did not do enough to save us from our sins, that we have to do good works in order to be saved. In the Reformed tradition, followers of John Calvin would say wrongly that Jesus did not intend to save the whole world, and followers of Jacob Arminius would say wrongly that people cooperate in their conversion. All that is not even to talk about how Jesus works, or to get to the question Who do you say that Jesus is?
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus made clear that flesh and blood did not reveal Jesus’s identity to Simon Peter but God the Father in heaven revealed Jesus’s identity to Simon Peter. Based solidly on Holy Scripture, Lutherans believe, teach, and confess that neither Simon Peter, nor Daniel Gordon, nor any one of us— whether eight days old, eight years old, or eight decades old—by our own reason or strength, can decide to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, or come to Him. We all are conceived and born sinful; we all are spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins that we all then commit; we all are held accountable for our sinful nature and actual sins, and so we all deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity—we deserve death and torment until God the Father blesses us, by revealing God the Son to us, by the power of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit calls and enables us both to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God the Father to forgive us our sin for His Son Jesus’s sake. Such repentance is the difference between those whose sins are bound or retained on earth and in heaven and those whose sins are loosed or forgiven on earth and in heaven.
In today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 51:1-6), the Lord through Isaiah told the people of Israel to look to the rock from which they were hewn and the quarry from which they were dug, Abraham their father and Sarah who bore them, both of whom had God‑given faith in the Savior Who was coming from their seemingly‑stone‑cold‑dead line. In some ways, that rock is essentially the same rock as the confession of Jesus as the Christ in today’s Gospel Reading. Jesus is the unique Son of God and the Son of Man, born of the Virgin Mary, anointed as our Prophet and Priest and King, Who lived the sinless life that we fail to live, and Who died on the cross for our failure to live that life. Out of God’s great love and mercy, Jesus died as our substitute, in our place. Jesus was made like us and helps us (Hebrews 2:14-18). The day that Jesus rose from the dead He gave His disciples‑turned‑apostles the authority over sins that we heard Him promise in today’s Gospel Reading (John 20:21-23), so that when we repent, confessing both our sins and our God‑given faith in Christ, then we are forgiven and have God’s peace and joy.
Like Daniel Gordon can now, most of us can point to our baptisms as the first time that we know that God blessed us by revealing Jesus to us and by building us into His Church. At the Baptismal Font, God makes us His children, as St. John writes, children born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but children born of God (John 1:12-13). Elsewhere Jesus says that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and in Holy Baptism we are born from above of water and the Spirit, and so we can enter the Kingdom of God, His Church (John 3:5-6). God reveals Jesus as the Christ even to infants (Matthew 11:25), little ones who can and do believe in Him (Matthew 18:6). Simon Peter and the other apostles made clear on Pentecost that the promises of the Gospel’s forgiveness was for those listening to them and for their children (Acts 2:38-39). People of all ages can privately confess to their pastors both the sins that particularly trouble them and their faith in God’s forgiveness, all for the sake of Holy Absolution, and then they can be admitted to the Holy Supper of Christ’s Body and Blood that give the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Through His Means of Grace, Jesus the Christ builds us into His Church. With the Church we confess Who Jesus is as the Christ, the Son of the living God; what He has done in dying on the cross and rising from the grave to save all people from their sins; and how He works through the reading and preaching of His Word and through that Word connected with water, touch, and bread and wine. We cannot build God’s Church, but Jesus can and does build It, working through His ministers, whether or not we can see and measure the success of His building His Church. We confess our sins and our faith in Him, in both word and deed. More detailed statements of faith, creeds, have been needed in the time since the Father first revealed the Son to Simon Peter by the power of the Holy Spirit and since Simon Peter first confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. Those more‑detailed creeds also confess such things as one baptism, the forgiveness of sins, and the communion of saints, that is, the participation in the holy things. The Living God is God of the living, and we, who are touched by His water of life and His bread of life, answer St. Paul’s appeal in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 11:3‑12:8), to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. Even when God permits us to be afflicted in various ways, we have His comfort of the forgiveness of sins now and the sure and certain hope of the resurrection and glorification of the body on the Last Day. Jesus said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church, which means conversely that the Church does prevail against the gates of hell.
This morning we have realized that “God blesses you by revealing Jesus and building His Church”. So, we join in the doxology of today’s Epistle Reading to praise God: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
