In Jesus Holy Name August 23, 2020
Text: Matthew 16:15-16 Pentecost XII – Redeemer
“An Opinion Poll…What’s the Buzz?”
When Jesus and His disciples arrived at Caesarea Philippi He asked them a critical question about His identity, purpose and mission. It was an opinion poll. Opinion polls are quite popular in this election year. They are not new.
We know that strange rumors had been swirling about this Jesus ever since the prophet John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the “Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world.” (Quote from “The Body” Charles Colson p. 63)
Some people thought that Jesus might be the new king after he fed the 5000 near the Sea of Galilee (John 6). This carpenter’s son from Nazareth taught the crowds with mysterious parables. He healed the sick and fed thousands with meager rations. He annoyed the religious authorities, especially when He raised children from the dead. He flaunted Jewish rules of association by spending a few days talking to a woman, at a Samaritan well. Then he traveled to non Jewish territory to heal a Canaanite woman’s daughter.
And now, on His return to Jewish territory, He and the disciples, stop off at a spring in Caesarea Philippi. This is not a place that Jewish families visited on vacation. It is a city at the base of Mount Hermon. There is a pagan shrine there. Jesus has his reason for this location.
The surroundings are impressive. Flowing springs, Lush gardens. A spring flowing from a cave, but also a place of horrendous pagan worship. Temples and monuments dedicated to the worship of the Greek god Pan line the pathways. A massive white marble temple to Caesar looms tall. Jesus has chosen the location a of a pagan shrine to ask a crucial question for His disciples ..and for us as well.
Those who came to the pagan temple believed that their fertility gods lived in the underworld during the winter and returned to earth each spring. They saw the cave and the water from the spring as the symbol of the underworld. Their gods used the cave and spring to travel to and from that underworld. It was in their mind literally the “gateway to hell”.
Each spring those who came to worship engaged in the old fertility rites of Baal worship, including prostitution and sexual interaction between humans and goats. Imagine the scene as being similar to the “Burning man” event in Nevada’s Black Rock desert. It is a literal orgy of wanton sexual encounters and substance abuse.
You can imagine the questions in the minds of the disciples. This is not a place for us… Jesus why did you bring us here? Jesus always has His reasons. . Jesus leans forward and says rather quietly to a small handful of men… knowing there is not one monument built in His honor, not one building erected to His glory….What is the buzz? Who do people say that I am?”
After Peter and Jesus walked on the water, we know the disciples with
their heart and mind had made a transition from seeing Jesus as a great prophet
to being the long-awaited Messiah. Here they are, standing at the “temple of Pan, at the gates of hell” when Jesus looks them straight in the eye and asks: “Who do people say that I am?” They gave their answers. “But what about you?” “Who do you say that I am?” To which Peter replied: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”
Such faith, Jesus said, could only come from God. This is good third article stuff….. long before Luther even wrote the definition to the 3rd article of the Apostle’s Creed Jesus knows that faith in Him is created by the Holy Spirit.
What happened in that Gentile city changed the course of history. For it was there that he asked the question, “Who do men say that I am?” That is the fundamental question. “But who do you say that I am?”
Here is what we often miss. What was the belief of those who came to the temples at Caesarea Philippi? The streets are lined with prostitutes. The Marti Gras is in full swing. The pagan worshipers believed that the spring and the cave from which it flowed was the entrance to hell. Into their world view, into this world of sexual perversion, the world of Jeffery Epstein, Jesus stands near the cave and spring and says… No matter what you see here in this place. The “gates of hell” will not overcome “my” Church, nor the faith that Peter just confessed.
That is exactly what Ephesians 2:20 says. “For you are…built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” The cornerstone or the bedrock of the church is Jesus Christ Himself. And upon that bedrock are the apostles. Those unlikely men, those uneducated men, those Galilean men, those fishermen, those tax collectors, those political rabble-rousers, those men who left everything to follow our Lord Jesus Christ, are the foundation stones of the church.
Peter’s answer rings true. He has not changed his opinion about Jesus since kneeling in the boat on a stormy sea. There is no one else qualified to grant forgiveness but Jesus. There is no one other than Jesus who will stay closer to you when everyone or everything is stripped from you. There is no one else who can turn your bitterness into relief or turn your grief into joy.
Only He can relieve the abuse. Only He can erase the bitterness and remove the scars. All other counselors and friends can simply put arms around you, weep with you and point you to Jesus. And when you have taken your last breath and you step into eternity, having answered Jesus’ question with faith. He alone is qualified to escort you from the grave to glory. He is God.
Jesus said: “I will build my church”. He, Himself will be the foundational stone, the theological truth which will not be destroyed by Satan. Christianity is more than a personal relationship with Jesus. It is true that we are justified by faith, but Christianity is much more than a private transaction with Jesus.
When Peter made his confession, Jesus did not say…”Correct, you are now saved…be at peace…” No.. His plan, not understood by the disciples in that moment, would be to establish the “Church” after His resurrection from the grave. Paul is correct when he states that the “Church” is the body of Christ on earth, founded on the words of Jesus and written down by the apostles.
When a person is baptized, or when a person comes to faith…
each one is brought into a community, which we call the “Church”,
which in turn becomes congregations all around the world, which is what we call the “Church Universal”. Leonard Sweet in his book “Aqua Church” writes: “Baptism is a communal ritual, a water branding and initiation rite into the household of faith. After all, the Lord’s Prayer is addressed to “Our Father”.
In these days of “sheltering in” zoom has become a method of “connecting”, when social gathers are outlawed. The internet is an information medium through which Redeemer sends out “a bible study”, A thought For the Week. The internet and Facebook have replaced the water cooler and bar stool. Our children and grandchildren must now attend school on a computer from home. It doesn’t seem to matter that a 7 year old, a 10 year old, let alone a 14 year old can sit quietly for long periods of learning. We need face to face connections. We hunger for community. We were created for intimacy. Zoom is good but it doesn’t fill our hunger.
We just discussed this in staff this week. Information and knowledge can be offered through personal bible reading, zoom bible study, but how can we get back to “community”. So here we are…. Worship on a patio is one step of reality.
In your reading of I and II Peter this week, if you have been following the “Thought for the Week” you will remember that Peter wrote that we are: “A holy nation without walls, a chosen people, for one purpose… to “declare the praises of God Himself who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.” ( I Peter 2:9-10)
“The Church is not a civic center, not a social club, or encounter group, with no Sunday morning meeting place. It is a new society, created for the salvation of a lost world, pointing people to Jesus and the forgiveness He offers.” (The Body Charles Colson p 66)
Jesus said, “I will build my church.” Which means that you and I are managers of His church, in this place.. “And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” It means that we must stand against evil, to fulfill our Savior’s demand for justice and righteousness in the present.
Warren Wiersbe, Christian author, says that he does not attend church to hear a sermon or to have fellowship, though he enjoys both, but to “Bear witness that Jesus Christ is alive and worship Him.” Martin Luther said: Apart from the church, salvation is impossible.” Not that the church provides salvation: God does that through the Holy Spirit. But the “saved cannot fulfill their mission as Christian apart from the membership in a community of believers. Jesus told us to let our “light” shine.
Lighthouses shine. That’s it. They don’t blow horns. They shine. They guide ships through the fog to safety. They warn of rocks below. To miss the light of a lighthouse is to find misfortune. A church outside Geneva, Switzerland, maintains a centuries old tradition. Everyone who comes to church brings a light from home. This happens not just on Christmas Eve for a candlelight service; it happens at every service. The three hundred year old sanctuary starts out dark, and then slowly become light as the worshippers bring their unique lights and hang them on hooks that just from the church’s walls.
When the congregations meets a parishioner who was absent from worship, they say, “We missed your light”. (Leonard Sweet Aqua Church p. 202)
Jesus was clear. The gates of evil can not stop His love from flowing from those who are part of His “Church” “C”. His mission was clear. He was about the business of dying. He had no hope of escape. No thought of release. After He had been whipped, spit upon, beaten, and crowned with thorns; Jesus was taken to Calvary where He died on the cross. Understand, Jesus had already fulfilled the law of God perfectly so that you and I might be saved. He had resisted every temptation of the devil. Jesus had carried our broken commandments to the cross, nailed there with His body. His lifeless body was placed in a borrowed grave.
The good news is that Jesus did not stay in that borrowed grave… He rose from death and the grave. In blinding resurrection light Satan’s attempt to hold people in the grip of the fear of death was shattered. We have been created in the image of God…which means we are reflecting God’s love and glory in our lives. The world should not miss our light.
