Thirteenth
Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16A)
August 23,
2026
Text:
Matt. 16:13-20
The “Rock” upon which our Lord
builds His Church is the confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God” (Matt. 16:16; ESV). That is the
foundation. That is the bulwark. And it is the apostolic preaching. This Man, Jesus of Nazareth, is the
Christ. That is, He is the promised
Messiah, the Seed of the Woman, the Offspring of Abraham, the Son of
David. He is the One who would crush the
serpent’s head in suffering the mortal snakebite. He is the One through whom all the nations of
the earth would be blessed. He is the
One, the rightful heir to David’s throne, who would win for Himself a Kingdom
by His death, thus saving His people from their bondage to sin, death, and the
devil; leading them out in exodus, through the wilderness, and into His
Promised Land. And He is the Son of the
living God. The Word, the Logos, the
Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Of
one substance with the Father. Sent by
the Father to accomplish the salvation of the world, by atoning for sin, and
reconciling sinners to the Father.
Rising to new life on the Third Day, and giving life to all who believe
on His Name. Simon Peter speaks on
behalf of all the Apostles, and the whole Christian Church, leading us in the
Creed. Who do you say that I am? “You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God.”
But Peter didn’t come to this
conclusion on his own: “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my
Father who is in heaven” (v. 17). Now,
that is important. The holy Christian
faith… the Rock upon which the Church is built… is not something a man… or a
group of men… dreamed up. It is divinely
revealed. It comes directly from
God. Note the Trinitarian character of
it. Peter leads the Church in confessing
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And this
is revealed to him by the Father. And
how does the Father reveal it to him? By
His Spirit, who works faith when and where He pleases in those who hear the
Gospel (AC V). It is the Spirit who
gives the Word, and the Spirit works through the Word, as Peter himself will
write: “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from
God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Peter is carried along by the Holy Spirit,
who is sent by the Father, to do this very thing, to confess Christ, and so
Peter is blessed. And so are you blessed
as the Spirit leads you to make that same confession. Think of that, every time you confess the
Creed. This Gospel is happening to
you. The Father has revealed this to
you, by His Spirit, and you are blessed in confessing Christ, the Blessed
One.
Now there is a pun in the text. “I tell you, you are Peter,” Πέτρος, “and on
this rock,” πέτρᾳ, “I will build my church” (v. 18). A πέτρος is a stone. A πέτρᾳ is a boulder, or even a rock
face. So, they are not quite the same
thing. I tell you, Jesus says, you,
Simon, whom I’m now naming “Peter”... are a stone… we might even say, one
chiseled from the rock… and on this Rock… that is, the confession revealed to
you by My Father: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”… I will build
my Church. Now, the first thing to say
about that is that St. Peter is a stone, a rock-man, formed by the Rock, the
confession. So he is a pretty big deal. And he is the one speaking for the other
Apostles, so Lutherans need to get over their objections to the idea that Peter
is the chief among the Apostles. Of
course, he is. And he’s an integral part
of the foundation, as Paul writes of the Church, that she is “built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets,” and that means Peter (Eph.
2:20)! But, on the other hand, he’s not
the main event, as our Roman friends maintain.
The confession is. Which is to
say, Jesus is… the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus is (as Paul continues) “the
cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a
holy temple in the Lord” (vv. 20-21).
Incidentally
(and this is an aside, but it is something worth knowing), there is no record
in antiquity of anyone ever having been named Peter, until Jesus here gives
Simon his new name. And now, of course,
the name is everywhere. People who could
care less about Christ and His Apostles may still name a son “Peter.” It is a testimony of God, that name… a
testimony of the Holy Spirit… calling us all to “look to the rock from which
[we] are hewn” (Is. 51:1), as Isaiah preaches to us in our Old Testament
reading. That is, look to the faith that
the Rock-Man preaches: That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living
God. Know and believe that that’s who He
is. Not all the silly things the world…
and your own sinful flesh… want to believe about Him. That He may be a great prophet, but He’s just
a prophet. That He’s a great moral
teacher. A good man, but, after all,
just a man. Never forget what C. S.
Lewis has to say about that idea in his book, Mere Christianity. Jesus claimed to be the God who gives life
and has the authority to forgive sins.
If, therefore, He is not God, yet He makes these claims about Himself…
then He cannot be a true prophet, or a moral teacher, or a good man. In fact, what would He be? A liar!
Or, a lunatic. The only other
option is that He is, in fact, the Lord.
And that means He is your Lord, and your God.
And He
is. And, by grace… not by flesh and
blood, not by your own reason or strength, your own genius and ingenuity… but
because the Father has revealed this to you by His Spirit in His Word: You
believe and confess the Rock. Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Our Lord
then gives us two unshakeable Promises about the Church that is built on the
Rock of this confession. First, the
gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18); and second, Jesus
gives His Church the Office of the Keys: Our Lord Himself will bind and loose
in heaven whatever His Church and her ministers bind and loose on earth (v.
19). Peter is given these keys on behalf
of the Church, and two chapters later, Jesus will make clear that those keys
are given, not just to Peter, but to all the Apostles (Matt. 18:18). Well, think about what these Promises mean.
That the
gates of hell will not prevail against the Church… You can think of that in two
ways. First, the gates of hell can’t
shut us in. Hell has no claim, anymore,
on those whose sins are atoned in the suffering and death of Jesus; those who
are covered and cleansed by the blood of God’s Son. That’s you!
You are free from that slavery, to live in the resurrection life of
Jesus, the risen Lord. But also (and we
don’t think enough about this), those gates can’t shut us out. That is, they have no defense against the
Gospel, such that, when the Church, offensively, proclaims Jesus Christ, the
Son of the living God, those still on this side of the veil, who are
nonetheless trapped in the hellish chains of unbelief, hear, and are freed, and
brought into the Kingdom. Preaching does
that, you know. Remember when the
Seventy-two were sent out to preach, and they come back to Jesus all impressed
that even the demons are subject to them in the Lord’s Name? Jesus says, literally, I saw Satan falling
like lightening from heaven (Luke 10:18).
As they preached! The preaching
robs Satan of his ability to stand before God and accuse.
And then,
the Keys. The binding and loosing. Now, the binding: Let this be a warning. The unrepentant are to be bound to their sin
as long as they do not repent, and heaven is locked to them. Not because they’re worse sinners than anyone
else, but because they would rather keep their sin than have Jesus and His
redemption and forgiveness. So, whatever
the Church and her ministers bind on earth is bound in heaven. That’s what we call “Church discipline,” like
the minor ban from the Lord’s Supper (when the pastor has to say, “you can’t
commune until you repent of this sin”), or excommunication (“you can’t be a
member of this Church anynmore, until you repent of this sin”). Never to be done in malice, or for revenge,
but why? For the sake of waking the
sinner up to his sin and condemnation.
So that he repents. That he may
be forgiven and restored. And then, the
loosing. The Absolution of the repentant
sinner. Forgiveness of sins, pronounced
by the minister, in the stead and by the command of Christ. The loosing key releases the sinner from his
sins, and unlocks heaven for him by the application of the blood and death and
resurrection life of Christ. Whatever
the Church and her ministers loose on earth is loosed in heaven. So, on the basis of this Promise, we confess
with Dr. Luther, “I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with
us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant
sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their
sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven,
as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.”
That is,
the Church built on Peter’s confession (“You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God”) is the holy House where you are safe from Satan’s rage and spite,
and where all your sins are forgiven, and you are free. Any other house, built anywhere else… any
other religious fellowship, not built of the Rock of this confession… is a
house built on shifting sand. In the
Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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