In the passage from Matthew 16:13-20 we hear a conversation between Jesus and Peter that happened in a region called Caesarea Philippi.
A wee bit of background to this conversation: prior to this conversation the disciples and Jesus had been on the other side of the Sea of Galilee in North Israel, they then crossed over, arriving at this city which Herod’s son Philip had named after Tiberius Caesar and himself. This was a pagan region where the city had been named after two kings. Amongst it we find a group of Jewish men, one who is a Rabbi, the Rabbi Jesus. The Rabbi asks a question of his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” This was like Jesus was questioning his disciples, asking “who do you say I am?”, or ‘what do you recon fella’s, who am I?’ Their reply was, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
The interesting thing here is that Jesus was being regarded in the same light as or even as one of the Old Testament prophets.
Jesus went onto ask the question, “But what about you, who do you say I am?”
The reply from Peter was profound. I wonder if it took a few of the other disciples by surprise even. Peter’s reply was “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
So here we are a group of believers in the one true God, with their Rabbi. On questioning his followers who they believed he was Peters declaration is “You are The Christ.” Now this is no small thing. The prediction of the Christ, aka The Messiah, aka The Chosen One, aka the Anointed One, The King had been around for many centuries. I was doing some work on the Psalms recently, one of the scholars’ commentaries I was reading was Jewish and in his commentary he was discussing the future coming of the Messiah. The coming of the Messiah was to be the biggest of events in the Hebrew people’s existence.
Jewish people have a good list of scriptures that they used to develop the concept of the coming Messiah, The Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Daniel and the Psalmists all refer to the coming of this person.
Here is Peter in this pagan land, in a city named after two kings declaring to Jesus that he is the Messiah the King who was to come. Messiah.
The following comes from an online reading titled Judaism 101, “The word messiah has been replaced with Mashiach”, as the Jewish meaning did not according to this source include the concept of saviour. This page says this about the Mashiach.
“The Mashiach will be a great political leader descended from King David (Jeremiah 23:5). The Mashiach is often referred to as ‘Mashiach ben David’ (Mashiach, son of David). He will be well-versed in Jewish law, and observant of its commandments (Isaiah 11:2-5). He will be a charismatic leader, inspiring others to follow his example. He will be a great military leader, who will win battles for Israel. He will be a great judge, who makes righteous decisions (Jeremiah 33:15). But above all, he will be a human being, not a god, demi-god or other supernatural being.” (http://www.jewfaq.org/mashiach.htm)
The Christian concept of the Christ, the Messiah is that he is a great leader descended from the line of David, a son of David, Jesus is. He is well versed in Jewish law, and observant of its commandments. Jesus certainly is, he stated that he had not come to do away with the law but to fulfil the law. (refer Matthew 5:17). He even taught the teachers of the law in reference to the law. He has certainly inspired others by his example. Military leader, well Jesus is, however not in an earthly sense as he is the commander of the armies of heaven. Revelation 19:14 says this, “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.” We also know that he will judge the living and the dead; he is the one who will sort the sheep from the goats. He is human but also truly and properly God. In the Salvation Army we have a doctrine that says, “We believe that in the person of Jesus Christ the Divine and human natures are united, so that he is truly and properly God and truly and properly man.”
Peter declaration of Jesus as the Christ changed things. As for us coming to know Jesus as the Christ certainly changes things.
In Peter’s case we see that this young fisherman who was in partnership with his brother went on from hauling in a net at the Sea of Galilee, to become the founding World Leader of the Christian Church.
Peter had this role of opening the door to the kingdom of God. Jesus directive to Peter was, “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.”
Peter in his life opened the door many times, at Pentecost he opened the door to three thousand souls (Acts 2:41), “he opened the door to the Gentile centurion Cornelius, so that it was swinging on its hinges to admit [the whole gentile] world.” ( William Barcley, Commentary on Matthew, 145) If the gentiles were and are willing to enter. Later in Acts fifteen, we see that the Jerusalem Church Council opened this door even wider and this was due to Peter’s witness. Jesus words of promise to Peter that he had the keys to the kingdom of heaven were seen to be correct; you and I are present here today, because Peter fulfilled the mission that Jesus gave him.
This promise of Peter what an awesome thing this is, this one man, this one man who responded to his Rabbi, who in faithful response changed the world forever for thousands, millions of us have come to know Jesus and salvation because of Peter’sinital actions. Sitting at the Wellington Airport last week I looked around thinking that this was a huge thing, more massive than could ever be achieved today for Peter’s influence was two thousand years ago and has had time to spread. But as I looked around I thought about the influences of people, people of influence in relatively modern times. Being where there were plenty of planes, I thought of the Wright Brothers and Richard Pearce our own inventor of aviation. To be fair to Pearce the Wright brothers have had an incredible influence on the way the world is structured. If I had the cash and the time I could leave Wellington, and be in the Europe of my ancestors within a day. No sailing ships, no scurvy or sea sickness, no six months in a leaky boat. As I gazed around the airport I got thinking about J R R Tolkien, because of Smaug, Sméagol and the Eagles that are hanging from the Airport ceiling and the influence that Tolkien has had on the film industry via Peter Jackson in New Zealand and how Tolkien’s books are becoming international hit movies. However the door that the apostle Peter opened is eternal and remains so.
We as believers also have this ability to open the doors to the kingdom of heaven for people, to show people the door through which they can enter.
What follows from Jesus is this saying, not just a saying but a declaration that Peter has the ability to bind and that what he bound on earth would remain bound and what he loosed would remain loosed. Apparently ‘to loose and to bind’ were common Jewish phrases. William Barcley says, “that they we used especially of the decisions of the great Rabbi’s. He says that their regular sense, which any Jew would recognise was to allow and to forbid. To bind something was to declare it forbidden; to loose was to declare it allowed. These were regular phrases for taking decisions in regard to the law, [Barcley states] that is in fact the only thing that these phrases in such a context would mean.”
What Jesus was saying here was along the lines of ‘Peter you are going to have some heavy responsibilities, the decisions that you make will affect the welfare of the whole church, it’s up to you to guide, to direct the church in its way forward. That the decisions that you make will affect the lives, the life outcomes and the eternities of men for all time, from this time and on into eternity.
Quite the weight of responsibility, a lot more than Peter Jackson’s responsibility on showing the world what middle earth looks like as he interprets Tolkien’s stories!
We also are in a similar place not I believe to bind and loose things, I believe that the responsibility to do this has been taken by Peter, with the input of the Apostle’s in the infant church. These things, these ways of living are contained in scripture, this way the world contains a path of life through the way it advises we live. Our role is to unlock and open doors for those who might enter.
Jesus is quite blunt with a couple of groups of people at one point of his ministry and he says this thing to them about doors, among other things he is trying to straighten them out on. He says this, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13). Why would he say this?
Let me tell you a wee story. When I worked in the electrical distribution industry I had some pretty heavy responsibilities. One of those responsibilities was to open and close doors and another was to open and close switches.
The door one was pretty important because leaving a door unlocked into a substation was an invitation for people who didn’t understand the dangers within to be severely hurt or killed by the electricity contained within.
The switches that I got to operate could remove power or allow the supply of power to vast areas or for work to happen on lines and switchgear, To close a switch at the wrong time could have and does have devastating consequences. As we know electrical supply is vital in the modern world. Now the interesting thing here is that the keys to open those substation doors or distribution switches were held by a very limited, qualified group of people who could only open or close the switches under very controlled conditions.
The teachers of the law and Pharisees had developed this idea that the door to the kingdom of Heaven was to be treated in the same way, only by the qualified in an exclusive way.
What I want to make clear today is that the keys to the kingdom of heaven do come with a responsibility. But this responsibility is to share these keys freely, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees that Jesus was directing his woe at, had somehow lost their direction, they held the keys tightly. At the start of Matthew chapter 23 Jesus says this about them. “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything that they tell you. But to not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”
Question; do we practise what we preach, because if we are not, will that put a load on someone else’s shoulders?
A case in point or two, “that man goes to church and claims to be a Christian but still treats his wife roughly and hits her and their kids.” Or what about this old hardly annual, “I’m not ever going to church the place is full of hypocrites, you know old so and so, she’s a Christian and just look at her dodgy dealings.”
While these are a couple of excuses I’ve heard for people not going to church and maybe just someone’s justification for not attending church. They could also be the thing that stops an individual entering the kingdom of Heaven, the entrance of which I believe starts here on earth.
We have a responsibility to handle the keys to the kingdom well, for our actions can have eternal consequences for others. Keys like: “The greatest among you will be your servant” (Matthew 23:11), “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek” (Matthew 5:38), ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive. ” (Acts 20:35) “ also “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Luke 6:31) , “love one another as I have loved you”(John 13:34 Paraphrase), love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength etc. This way like Peter we will see God at workaround us as others come to a knowledge of Christ through our actions, through the fruit that is evident in our lives as we live in response to the Holy Spirit living in and at work through us. I heard at a meeting recently and it’s a phrase that I like and it’s this, “The quality of the fruit is dependent on the strength of the root”. When we are strong in the ways of God we will not topple easily? Our lives will produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
The keys we carry if used as scripture directs, as God directs, as Jesus taught us allow others into God’s kingdom, allow others into a relationship with Jesus that is eternal. We only need to look around to see the depth of need, and the desire in people we know, or see somehow existing under dire circumstances the desire for life change.
This week as you hop in your car and put the key into the ignition, as you unlock the door to your home or workplace ask yourself am I handling these keys with the same care as I treat the keys to the kingdom of God or do I tend to lose them, misplace them.
Will you treat the keys that you hold in your hand with the same care as you treat the keys you hold in your heart and mind?
