September 1, 2002 Matthew 16:21-26
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
What a difference a day makes.
I would imagine that at next weeks worship services and for sure on Sept. 11, and probably on Sunday the 15th of September, those words will be the theme of many sermons across the United States and perhaps around the world.
Many people, many pastors will use the events of Sept. 11, 2001, to illustrate how lives change, how our country changed, how the world changed because of one terrible, tragic, unthinkable act.
I don’t mean to diminish what happened on that day or the effect that it had on thousands of people, especially those families who lost loved ones in the Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City or at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., or in a remote field in western Pennsylvania, however, I would offer to you today that our lives, all of our lives, can change dramatically from one day to the next, from one hour to the next, from one minute to the next, without any tragic outside influence.
We see a dramatic example of this in our Gospel text for this morning.
Remember last weeks Gospel?
Jesus and his disciples had gone to Caesarea Philippi. It was here that Jesus had asked his closest followers, “Who do you say I am?”
Peter stepped forward and became the spokesman for the group and shouted out, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”
We don’t see many pictures of our Lord with a smile on his face, but I can picture him, at this point, turning to Peter, and with maybe even a hint of laughter in his voice, saying, “Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah.”
We discussed last week, and I’ll remind you again, that Peter, as we are told in the Scriptures, did not know this because he figured it out. No little light bulb had gone off inside Peter’s head and, POP, he realized that this Jesus he had been following for almost 2 years, watching him heal the sick and drive out demons, was in fact the promised Messiah.
It didn’t happen like that. It didn’t happen like that for Peter just like it doesn’t happen like that for us. Peter didn’t intellectually figure this out.
I hear people all the time say that they know the exact moment they became a Christian. Sometimes they’ll ask me. Do you know when you became a Christian? Do you know when you were born again?
You know what my answer is.
Yes, I know the exact moment I became a child of God. It was when Pastor Kruse, on June 8, 1952, spoke the Words, “I baptize you in the name of Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” as he poured the water of Holy Baptism onto my head.
Was I conscious of what was happening? Had I woken up that morning at the ripe old age of 1 month and run into my parents room and said, “Mom, Dad, today’s the day I’ve decided to become a Christian.” Of course not.
It was a gift from God and the work of the Holy Spirit.
My intellectual capabilities and Peter’s were about equal when it came to figuring out Jesus.
But, and this is pure conjecture on my part, I think maybe Peter didn’t hear the rest of what Jesus said. The part about it being revealed to him by Jesus’ Father in heaven.
Why do I think that? Because of what happens next.
Today’s Gospel explains what happened after Peter made his confession of who Jesus is.
And this, my friends is a turning point in the ministry of Jesus.
This is just like Luke chapter 9, verse 51.
If you remember back to last summer, I brought this verse up time and time again. I’ll refresh your memory:
“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”
Today’s Gospel is the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem and the cross.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus follows up Peter’s confession with kind of a confession of his own. He tells the disciples what his future is going to be. Once again, from Mt. 16:21: “Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Now, when we hear that read to us or we read those words ourselves, we look at them from an entirely different perspective than the disciples who were with Jesus at that time.
We have the luxury of knowing how everything turned out.
The disciples, on the other hand, have just heard Peter declare that Jesus is the Messiah, and you’ll note, that Jesus didn’t deny it…he just told them not to tell anyone that he was the Christ, and now, they hear THE MESSIAH saying that he is going to suffer and be killed.
It’s interesting, but totally understandable, that the disciples didn’t latch onto the final words of Jesus. “on the third day be raised to life.”
Let me try to put it into a perspective that we can all understand.
Remember when you were going to school and the teacher would send home a bunch of homework. You know, silly stuff like writing term papers, math, social studies, (do they still have that?), history.
And you could think of at least 100 ways that you would rather spend your time and that would be far more beneficial to your future…like playing catch or fishing or watching TV.
And your mom or dad or both would tell you that you had to do your homework because it would end up being beneficial to you when you grew up. It would help you accomplish the things that you wanted to. It would make you a better person.
Those last words didn’t really connect at that point did they…if you’re really honest. You weren’t looking at future benefits. You were/are looking at the here and now and what’s this going to mean to me.
Well, now you know how the disciples felt.
Now you can see how they were practicing that “art” of selective hearing.
“on the third day be raised to life.” passed right by their collective ears.
Peter was especially incensed at the words he heard coming from Jesus.
Our text says he took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.
Rebuke. Interesting term. If you look that one up in the dictionary, it has some pretty serious meaning.
Rebuke can mean “haul over the coals”, “scold”, “censure”, “reprimand”, or to put it real plain, “give a talking to.”
Peter isn’t happy with what he has heard and he’s letting Jesus know in no uncertain terms that nobody but nobody is gonna mess with his Messiah!
Again, if we were just sitting in a hotel room one night and picked up a Gideon’s Bible and opened it to this passage and didn’t have any knowledge of what was going on, when we read Jesus’ next words to Peter we would probably think he was mad at Peter for trying to “take over” or tell him what to do. After all, Jesus was the leader.
Jesus’ next words to Peter are; “Get behind me Satan!”
What a difference a day makes indeed. From, “Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah,” to “Get behind me Satan!” in less than 24 hours.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He says to Peter, “you are a stumbling block to me.” Interesting play on words there. Before he called Peter a rock, now he’s a stumbling block.
Can you just picture Peter. One minute he’s higher than a kite because he’s spoken words that brought praise from his teacher, his master, his Rabbi, and the next thing he knows, he’s being called Satan and a stumbling block.
The big question is, “Why?”
Did Jesus suddenly freak out? Was the pressure of knowing what he had to do suddenly getting to him, making him lash out at his dear friend?
We talked last week about Jesus’ human traits. Don’t you think that this would have been tempting to even Jesus?
He has a band of men, a group of followers that love and adore him. They would be willing to lay down their lives for him.
Perhaps…maybe this earthly king idea isn’t such a bad one after all.
It would sure beat crucifixion.
Being human, of course Jesus suffered through temptations just like all of us. But he also was divine and knew the will of his Father in heaven.
He knew that he had one mission and one mission only on this earth.
So when he turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me Satan!”, he also gives an explanation as to why. He says, “you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.”
Wow! Peter thought that he had it all together. He thought that he had finally got it. He thought he was doing the right thing. Only to have it thrown back into his face.
My friends in Christ Jesus, we can actually be grateful for Peter’s dubious example here because Peter so very much reflects you and me.
How many times in your life did you think you had it all together? How many times did you think that you were actually doing the right thing?
From this text this morning we receive a word of warning and a word of caution.
A warning that we should never try to deny the will of God, and a caution that when we attempt to overstep our boundaries, when we try to institute our will, we become a stumbling block to God.
Peter thought that he was going to save the life of his friend Jesus, but what he was attempting to do was stop Jesus from going to the cross which meant salvation for all believers.
God has given us mission to tell all the world of the saving grace accomplished by Jesus through his death and resurrection.
If we complicate, compromise or corrupt that message in any way, we are a stumbling block.
In the last part of the lesson for today, Jesus talks of taking up his cross and following him.
Think about it for a moment. I certainly do. Every week I stand in this pulpit and preach the Word of God. Through the power of the Holy Spirit I try to convey to all who hear or read these words that we, all of us, not just those gathered here this morning, but all of us, are sinners. That we have nothing to look forward to but damnation, eternal damnation. I don’t know any way to describe to you what eternal damnation is going to be like, but it’s not good, trust me.
And yet, God loved each one of us enough that He sent His only Son to this earth to be born of a virgin, to suffer, and to die. That death, that sacrifice was the atonement for all of our sins.
And then God raised Jesus from the grave and Jesus ascended into heaven.
That’s what God has promised to all who believe in Him. Eternal life in heaven.
That’s the message. Unfortunately that message gets polluted.
People, don’t necessarily like the message because there is no immediate gratification. We want to look at the here and now…not the future.
Taking up the cross means that there might be some suffering this side of heaven. How can I or you or anybody persuade somebody that being a Christian, having to suffer, is the way to go?
So what happens is the Gospel message gets changed. The suffering servant is replaced with personal satisfaction and earthly prosperity. Confession of sins is replaced with feeling good about oneself.
Any time we try to supplant the message of Christ crucified with anything else, we become a stumbling block.
But there is good news my friends.
Yes, we are very much like Peter. While trying so hard to do good, we sometimes become like Satan himself.
Martin Luther commented on this by saying that man was both saint and sinner.
We will try “like the devil” to do good, and yet at the same time be offensive to God.
Peter did. If you look at Peter and his relationship with Jesus, perhaps it is a mirror of yours.
Peter was the first to confess by divine revelation that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the living God", but immediately after his confession, he tried to prevent Jesus from doing his work as the Messiah who would die on the cross.
At the Last Supper he refused to let Jesus wash his feet, but then he changed his mind and demanded that Jesus wash his whole body.
In Gethsemane Jesus asked him to watch and pray, and yet he slept.
Peter promised to follow Jesus all the way to prison and death and yet, after his arrest, he denied even knowing him three times.
How could Jesus choose such an emotional, impetuous, contradictory person such as Peter?
Well, in choosing him, and, in fact, in choosing of us, we see the unfathomable wisdom and love of God.
St. Paul spoke about such divine choosing in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."
Just like each one of us, Peter failed many times. From Saint to sinner in the blink of an eye.
But God never abandoned Peter.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter spoke with a passion never heard before about the Christ, the Son of the living God.
In the same way God will not abandon you.
He has blessed and made you whole through the blood of Christ Jesus.
Take up his cross and speak with your own passion the pure Gospel of Christ. Amen.
