Sermon text: Matthew 16:21-28
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Amen.
Last week’s gospel was Matthew 16:13–20. Today’s gospel lesson and the sermon picks up on verse 21 through 28. Last week, we heard Peter say something that brought a commendation from Jesus, who told Peter that he and his confession of faith were the rock upon which he would build his church.
This week, Peter says something that brings a harsh rebuke from Jesus, with Jesus basically calling Peter Satan and telling him to get behind him.
So in just a few short verses, Peter goes from a commendation to a rebuke, from being called a rock to being called Satan himself.
So what did Peter do to earn such a rebuke other than show concern for the well-being of his friend and Lord Jesus? Well, we’ll discover this morning that it is this: it has to do with what Peter thinks about the Messiah Jesus. In short, Peter gets the who of Jesus, but he doesn’t get the how of Jesus.
He gets the who. Peter knows who Jesus is. And that’s what we heard in last week’s gospel lesson. Peter and the other disciples had been with Jesus for some time at this point. They had heard his preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” They heard his teaching as expounded in the true meaning of God’s law embodied in the Sermon on the Mount. They had seen Jesus’s miracles: his healing of the sick, the casting out of demons, calming the storms, and so on. Powerful demonstrations of who Jesus is. And so after the disciples had observed all of this at close up and personal range, Jesus asked them the question, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter, as he tends to do, stood up and spoke up for the other eleven in the crowd. He said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That’s the who, namely, who is Jesus? He is the Christ, the promised Messiah, the anointed one, the one anointed with the very Spirit of God, the chosen servant of God and Israel both.
The Christ, the promised end king from the line of David, the one who will bring the kingdom of heaven to earth and an everlasting kingdom. Jesus is the divine deliverer sent from heaven, the very Son of God. All of that is packed into the answer, “Who do you say that I am?” — “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus commends Peter for his answer.
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” To that reply, Jesus gives Peter an A+. He’s spot on. He’s got it exactly right.
Peter’s exactly correct. Of course, Peter did not come up with the answer on his own. Jesus tells him that God the Father has revealed this truth to Peter. So Peter’s confession comes from God himself.
Peter’s confession of who Jesus is is absolutely right. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the apostolic proclamation of this truth is the rock, the sure and certain foundation on which Jesus will build his church. So Peter gets the who, and the confession of who Jesus is, his identity as the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is really the climax of the first half of the entire gospel of St. Matthew. From this point on, the story of Jesus starts to move in a distinct direction.
Matthew noticed this shift by this little phrase, “from that time.” Having established who Jesus is, now the storyline of the gospel will move into how Jesus will accomplish his mission as the Messiah, the king of the Jews. And this is the how that Peter does not yet get.
“From that time” — that’s where we pick up in today’s gospel reading. From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and be raised on the third day. Now it starts to sound different, this king. This is not what you might expect for the mighty Messiah of Israel: that he would be rejected by the very religious leaders of Israel, the elders, the chief priests and the scribes; that he would suffer many things from them and be killed. But how can the Son of the living God be killed? How can the promised Messiah be made to die?
How can this be? The Messiah ought to have been welcomed with open arms. He is supposed to reign in glory and bring in the golden age of a blessed and triumphant deliverance from the hands of all of their enemies.
Isn’t that what the greatest kings are supposed to do? Not get killed. You see, that’s what Peter’s thinking. He gets the who, but he doesn’t get the how. And so he tells Jesus this. He begins to rebuke Jesus, the master, for this crazy talk. “Far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you.” Peter’s commanding Jesus not to go forward with his mission.
Peter is saying, “No, no, it doesn’t make sense. How can you be the Messiah and have this kind of rejection and suffering and death happen to you?” Peter doesn’t get it. In fact, what he is saying is in direct opposition to what Jesus came to do in the first place, for to avoid the rendezvous with rejection and death in Jerusalem and thus fail to redeem mankind — that actually is the objective of the devil.
And so Jesus now has to rebuke Peter with the same strong words: “Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but you’re setting your mind on the things of man.” “Get behind me, Satan.” What a harsh rebuke from a friend, from a teacher to a student. What a harsh rebuke to tell Peter the disciple, that he had just commended so highly. “Get behind me, Satan.” Why? Those are the very words Jesus used on Satan himself in the wilderness temptation.
Satan didn’t want Jesus to go through with his mission. So he tempted Jesus to take the easy way out, to achieve glory apart from suffering — the same kind of glory we seek. We like the glory. We don’t like the suffering that gets us there. So he tempted Jesus to take the easy way out, to achieve glory apart from that suffering, apart from going to the cross. So Jesus scolds him in the same way Jesus scolded the devil in the wilderness temptation: “Get behind me, Satan.” And now he uses those same words to rebuke Peter. For Peter, without realizing it, is speaking the will of the devil, not the will of God. Luther once observed that when we fail to have the Word of God in our minds and in our mouths, the vacuum is filled by the words of the devil.
So Jesus told him, “Get behind me, Satan.” He uses those same words to rebuke Peter. For Peter, without realizing it, is speaking the will of the devil, not the will of God. “Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” You see, Jesus will never be dissuaded from carrying out his mission, even if and even as that mission takes him by way of the cross. Jesus came to do the will of his Father who sent him. And that will is to redeem mankind from their sins, from our sins. And the only way to do that is for Jesus himself to bear the weight of our sins, guilt, and shame. And that’s the how that Peter didn’t get. So let’s be honest here: we would not have gotten it either. It doesn’t make sense to natural man. We see suffering as something simply as bad in and of itself. We expect glory, especially in regard to our God. We want glory and God’s approval. We don’t think things are bad enough between God and us — certainly not on our part — that it should require God’s own Son to die in our place. But that’s the reality of the situation. Things are that bad between us and God. We have no goodness in ourselves that will stand the test of God’s judgment. No, we have sinned, sinned against our creator. We have not listened to his voice, kept his word. Instead, we’ve gone off on our own, each one wanting to be our own god, making our own decisions about what is right and wrong in the universe and in our own bodies. That’s the nature of rebellion, and that is rebellion itself. That’s sin, the original sin which lurks inside of each one of us. And God’s judgment on sin is death, eternal death, separation from God for all eternity. So what’s the answer? What’s the remedy to our predicament? If there is to be a remedy, the answer will have to come from God. He will have to supply what’s needed. We could not and cannot do it. We could not pile up enough good works to atone for our sins and thus avert our eternal death and damnation. But God can, and he does. And that’s where Jesus comes in — both the who and now the how. For it will take the Christ sent from heaven. It will take the Son of the living God to do what you and I cannot and do not do. Only Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, can accomplish our redemption and our deliverance. That’s the who and the how — that he will do precisely by his suffering and death. For by dying in our place on the cross, Jesus pays the price for our transgressions. His holy blood does indeed atone for the sins of mankind.
God’s justice is satisfied. God’s great mercy is displayed in its highest form. For God so loved the world — he so loved you and me — that he gave his one and only Son, that we would not perish eternally, but instead have everlasting life. And that then is the what: this is what Jesus Christ’s death on the cross on your behalf won for you. Life forever, eternal life even now. Forgiveness of all your sins. You’re wiped away clean, a clean slate. A new life of faith and love, grounded in the gospel, growing in the gospel. Access to God your Father who loves you dearly and hears all your prayers. Even in the midst of trials and tumult, he is with you even in the midst of your troubles. He will deliver you out of all of them. He will give you the strength to endure the turmoil and suffering we encounter in this life — the misery we experience, some of which brought on by ourselves, some others inflicted upon us, and some happen just because we live in a fallen world. But God’s mercy is always greater than our misery. He is a hope that we have to hold on to.
God’s mercy will triumph in the end. And at the end will be life without end, resurrection from the dead, eternal life, and a restored creation when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. That’s the what. And it happened because of the who and the how: who is Jesus and how he accomplished our salvation. This gives us the what we have in Christ and will always have forever in him because of him. Now, at the time of our text, Peter didn’t get all of this. He got the who, but he didn’t get the how, and certainly didn’t know the why. He knew Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, but he didn’t know how Jesus would carry out his messianic mission. And that would involve rejection, suffering, and death. Peter had in mind the things of man, not the things of God. But later, after Christ’s resurrection, then Peter would indeed get it. Christ the risen Lord would open Peter’s mind to understanding the Scriptures. And Peter would then go to become a bold proclaimer of Jesus Christ, of the who and the how and the what.
And so I ask you, do you get it? I think most of you get it most of the time, for God has given you the gift of faith to believe in Christ, to trust in him as your Savior, to cast your sins upon him. But when those times of suffering, agony, pain, and doubt take charge of our lives, we have a tendency to forget the how, the who, and the why. But to know Jesus is to know how he accomplished your salvation and to know what he has done for you as a result. Then you get it all.
All of it: the forgiveness of sins, holy baptism, the body and blood for the remission of sins, eternal life, adoption as sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in Christ, and all the gracious acts and gifts given through the living Son of the living God, the anointed one. You get it all in the who of Christ; the how — the death and resurrection of Christ; the what — eternal life without sin; and the where — on the cross at Mount Calvary, in the crucified Christ. It’s all there. You have it all. It’s given to you. It’s a promise for now:
for your sins are forgiven you. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.