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Matthew 16.21-28
“The Turning Point”
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Just a few years ago, University of Notre Dame church historian, Mark Noll, released a useful book called Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. Its opening chapter started with a look at “The Fall of Jerusalem” in AD 70. In doing so, Noll conveyed the point that, as he saw things, the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem was the first decisive turning point in Church history.
However, for all the virtues of the book—and there are many—, I wonder if Noll has the right starting point. More than that, I cannot help but wonder why he begins his project, well, so late in the history of the Church. Certainly one would think Pentecost was as significant, if not more so, to the History of Christianity than Titus’ siege against Jerusalem. And even with that said, the Christian Church did not begin at Pentecost, but with Jesus calling the disciples to follow him. And as far as decisive turning points are concerned, we have to seriously consider the event here in Matthew 16 as perhaps the first momentous episode in the History of the Christian Church.
The reason I say this is because here, for the first time, the basic confession that would identify the Christian Church is proclaimed from the lips of Peter (“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” Mt. 16.17). These words are the foundation of the Church; “the rock” on which the Church is built.16.18 And even more significantly, Peter’s confession is clarified and defined by Jesus himself, who says that the “Christ” whom Peter confesses, is the One who must go to Jerusalem and be crucified to death.16.21 In other words, not only are we here presented with the foundational rock upon which the Church emerges [“Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God”], but also the definitive meaning of that confession: “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the One who must suffer and be crucified.” And so far from it being bad news, Jesus began to show them that it was the heart of the Good News they were to embrace and preach.
To confess Jesus as the Christ, to confess him as Lord, is to confess Him as the Suffering Servant sent by the Father to be crucified to death and raised from the grave. To confess any other Christ than this crucified-resurrected One is, in the judgment of Jesus, flat out devilish.
Matthew tips us off that following Peter’s public confession about the true identity of Jesus, nothing is going to be the same again. This is why Matthew opens verse 21 with the words: “From that time Jesus began…”. The words “From that time” inform us that a major turning point in the narrative has been reached. These words repeat the formula Matthew used earlier in chapter 4 at verse 17. There he writes: “From that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” This first “from-that-time” saying signals the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, as prophesied by Isaiah,9.1-2 and is immediately followed by the Lord calling his disciples to follow him as he preaches the good news of the kingdom. Mt. 4.18-22 But as we read it here in chapter 16, Matthew announces that the second main stage of the entire Gospel has begun. It, too, is a momentous turning point. Now that the cat is out of the bag and Jesus is being openly confessed as the Messiah of God, his focus will be his march to Golgotha.
Not that Jesus’ miraculous ministry or his teaching about the kingdom of heaven has come to end. Both continue, but no longer as the main focus of attention. From this point on the focus is upon what is to befall Jesus in Jerusalem. Sure, Jesus’ death has been alluded to earlier in Matthew,9.15; 12.40 but here and now, in light of the public declaration that He is Christ, Jesus announces openly his intention to suffer and die at the hands of his enemies. Your Christ, Jesus tells them, will go to Jerusalem to be nailed to a tree.
Now, we have to feel the weight of this moment. It was no accident that the announcement of Jesus’ imminent death was delayed until Peter tells Jesus what they were prepared to tell the crowds about him. He’s “the Christ, the Son of the living God” was the word they were beginning to leak onto the streets. And as soon as that news made the headlines, Jesus puts the skids on his healing ministry and shifts into high gear the ultimate purpose for which he came; “setting his face to go to Jerusalem,”9.51 as Luke puts.
It was important for Jesus’ identity as Messiah to be firmly fixed in their minds before they could be told of his death since being crucified would explode any notion that he was in fact the Christ. We must understand that his being nailed to a Roman cross would communicate only one thing to the twelve and any other followers he had gained: To be crucified meant the humiliating and pathetic defeat of Jesus and his hapless kingdom movement. To speak of the death of messiah was to speak of no messiah at all.
If there was anything the disciples knew it was that would-be messiahs come and would-be messiahs go. They had seen it. Their Jewish history was full of pretender messiahs, dreamer messiahs, and revolutionary messiahs, all of which talked the talk but when the going got rough, both they and their messianic movements found themselves under a pile of rubble or their dead bodies dangling from a Roman cross. But it hadn’t so with Jesus. He not only taught the Word of God with divine authority, he commanded demons and they obeyed, he wrought eye-popping miracles never-before-seen in Israel, he healed, multiplied, raised the dead. So much so that Jesus could say “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” John 14.11 No pretender could say that. No dreamer messiah backed up his rhetoric with the miraculous. Jesus talked the talk and walked the walk. The authenticity of his messianic kingship could not be stronger: he had come in grace and truth with all righteousness, power and authority. Without a doubt, he had proven himself to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Where the others failed, Jesus was succeeding. The disciples were now prepared to commit their lives to this fact and ride this gravy-train to victory and honor. And that’s why, having compared Jesus with all the “would-be-Christs,” they were willing to say: Believe the hype: this one’s the Messiah. There was no turning back for the disciples now that they were openly confessing him as Christ: for them to be wrong here meant sure and swift death.
And this is why Peter rudely interrupts Jesus, who was in the middle of showing 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 day be raised.” 16.21 So while Jesus was explaining to his disciples something that at this point is mysterious and completely out of their view, Peter brazenly terminates perhaps the most important Bible study ever taught up to that point, to in effect tell Jesus that he is out of his flippin’ mind with such crazy, dangerous talk.
When Jesus spoke about suffering and death, Peter heard defeat; the words of a quitter; the confession of a loser. In no way did the messianic identity of Jesus celebrated five verses earlier fit the program of suffering and death now laid out by Jesus. What the heck was Jesus talking about?! To Peter and the other disciples, what Jesus now began to say to them seemed flatly contradictory of their triumphal confession of him as Messiah and his acceptance of that confession. More than that, now that word was out that Jesus is the Christ, to go about speaking about his pending death meant nothing other than a death sentence for themselves as well! Any would be messianic king by very definition was a rival to Rome’s regional rulers and thus to Caesar’s rule itself. And everyone knew that challengers to the throne were rebels and their followers were rebellious insurgents with them. The Romans knew only one way to deal with revolutionaries: crucify them.
Peter’s vision of the messiah was a common one in that day: the Christ would come with power and authority and purge Israel of her enemies. The Messiah would end her exile, restore the House of God, and assume the throne of David to execute justice. And he would do it all impressively, with a great show of splendor and glory, even with sword in hand, leading a massive army of Jews. And let’s face it; Jesus had given them every reason to believe his credentials were legitimate. The Messiah was present among his people, healing them, providing for their needs, teaching with unprecedented authority. Indeed, Jesus coupled all of these signs with teaching that said the messianic kingdom was already beginning with the promise that its full realization lay in the immediate future. For the disciples and the crowds, the line between promise and fulfillment seemed simple and direct. This is why after Jesus had lined up the 5000 in military formation and fed them, the crowds “intended to come and make him king by force”. John 6.15 They were seeing him more and more as a Davidic general, mustering his ever growing legions to march upon Jerusalem. The king is here & we’ll follow him to fight!
Before Jesus had even begun his public ministry virtually every Jew already had stamped upon their minds a notion of what the victorious Christ would be like, and how he would conquer their Roman enemies and “restore the kingdom unto Israel,” Acts 1.6 liberating their geo-political state. And now Jesus, like no one else before, was doing things—miraculous things—that indicated he was different; that he was the One; that he was the Son of David come to reclaim the throne.
But it was because of this and other prevailing warped views of messiah that, before this point in Matthew 16, Jesus so frequently charged his disciples and those who were recipients of his healing power not to tell anyone about what he had done or who he was. He even commanded evil spirits to shut their mouths about his identity. Mark 1.25 He needed to keep his Messianic identity largely hidden because man’s ways are not God’s ways; because mankind prefers to define the work of God according to our own understandings and desires; because, as Jesus says to Peter, by nature we do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. Hanging from a cross is that last thing anyone wanted to see happen to the Christ. Sure, the disciples would follow him, but without the cross; they would find their lives by saving it through military action not losing it for his sake; and in the process, they expected to would gain the whole Roman world. And isn’t that the way it is with us: we’re uncomfortable confessing that we worship a crucified Creator.
Even after Peter’s great confession on behalf of them all, Jesus “warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.” 16.20 And the reason for this couldn’t be plainer: they shared the same mistaken notions of Messiah as everybody else; and before they went about publishing Jesus’ messianic identity, Jesus had to disabuse them of their false ideas and open before them the will of God according to the Scriptures. The turn the Gospel now takes necessitates the radical redefining of categories for the disciples. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his own soul?” 16.24-25 They would learn that the kingdom of God is not about fighting to the death, but about Messiah’s death ending all fighting between God and man. Such a Gospel is received by faith, not the aspirations of agendists.
What is interesting here is that the Christ’s “being sent to Jerusalem,” “suffering,” “being put to death,” and “being raised to life” are all “necessary,” according to Jesus. As unthinkable as it would seem, Jesus says that all that shall befall him in Jerusalem is a matter of divine necessity. It’s not fate; its not tough luck for baby Jesus. It’s the will of God, and the fulfilling of the Scriptures. 26.54; Lk 24.26-27 It is the compulsion of God’s will and His love for this lost world that He sent His only-begotten Son to suffer and die. So certain and sure is God’s love and will to accomplish our reconciliation that in Luke 20.17-18 Jesus says with resolute assurance: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” As sure as the Lord God lives, Jesus will find the climax of his messianic mission in the Holy City itself in a final and fateful confrontation with Jewish and Gentile authorities.
Jerusalem would be the place of his war with Israel’s true enemies – sin, death, alienation and the devil. It would also be the place of his victory over the grave, the place of his enthronement, the place where the kingdom of God would break through: And all this in a way far from the thinking of the disciples and their contemporaries. In a way that smacked of “defeat” and shame to human eyes but yet in a way that would crush the serpent’s dominion and bring us eternal life.
And as Jesus was explaining all of this, we can imagine Peter, aghast and freaked out, quickly taking Jesus by the arm, away from the rest of the disciples to straighten him out. This alone was quite a remarkable act in itself, given Peter’s confession and acknowledgment of Jesus as his master and Lord. Now Peter takes the role of the master and rebukes the Messiah’s teaching about the Father’s will! He gives Jesus an earful: Peter’s Messiah (like the Jesus of our wishful thinking) will have no suffering, no cross.
But what do the Scriptures say? Isaiah 53.10: “His soul shall be made an offering for sin.” It says, “He shall taste death for every man.” Heb 2.9 “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isa 53.5 This was the will of God concerning Christ, and Jesus owned that will as his own, embracing the horrors of it out of sheer love for us.
Consequently, Jesus rebukes Peter as sharply as possible, looking at the disciples so that they may receive this verbal smack down too: There’s no coming of the kingdom of God, there’s no salvation for Israel unless the Scriptures are fulfilled and exactly what God has foreordained comes to pass. Unless the Messiah is betrayed, suffers, is crucified and raised on the third day then there is no Gospel, says the Lord. The kingdom of God consists of the crucified King. The cross is His throne of salvation. Like it or not. Any idea of the Christ and His kingdom that does not have his suffering, death and resurrection at its center is mouthing the kind of trash that spews from the tongue of Satan, says Jesus. It is utterly scandalous; an offense and a stumbling block to the saving work of God in Christ.
Although we don’t read of Peter’s reaction Jesus’ slap down, it is obvious that he would have been bewildered and crushed. In opposing the death of Jesus, Peter was going against the will of God and had unwittingly gotten into bed with Satan, who early on in Matthew’s narrative had attempted to sidetrack Jesus from his Father’s will and received the same rebuke: “Get away from me Satan!” 4.1–11 By denying the Christ of the cross, Peter’s confession became in effect a stone of offense: a messiah not of God but of men.
The Gospel of Christ thus suffers no compromise, no reprieve, no sanitizing or romanticizing of the cross. It is “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, [which] cleanses us from all sin.” 1John 1.7 So wherever and whenever Jesus is presented as the Christ, without the necessity of his suffering, without the necessity of the cross, without the necessity of the resurrection, without the fulfilling of the Scriptures, you may be sure you are not hearing the things of God, but the things of men, indeed, even whisperings of Satan himself. Show me the cross, I tell you, but with Christ Jesus nailed to it.
Each and every one of us, like all throughout the ages who hear that Jesus is the Christ, are faced with a momentous turning point: Will it be the Christ of the Scriptures whose battered body atones for sin on the cross and is raised bodily from the grave and really comes to us in the Eucharist, or will it be a Christ fashioned after the things of men – sanitized so that all symbols of him crucified are expunged from our sight; sanitized so that we have a tidy little show-and-tell snack and not actually bonding with his real body & blood.
Lacking in the disciple’s perspective was a sense of the gravity of sin and thus of the necessity of the cross as the instrumental means to the very possibility of the experience of God’s kingdom of grace and mercy. Their thinking was dominated by Israel’s national-political hope. It was no surprise that the disciples, Peter first among them, were baffled by Jesus’ somber announcement, which seemed not so much a serious detour as a blatant contradiction of their hopes. Lk 24.21 Jesus’ purpose was far greater than the blessing of Israel with the establishment of political independence and the experience of material blessing. His purpose was to counteract the effects of sin universally Gal 3.13 and thus to deliver humanity from a far greater enemy than the Roman oppressors. It is this purpose that makes the work of Jesus the turning point of the ages and that controls Jesus in the accomplishment of God’s will. It is this that drives him to the cross and draws us to the Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Rev. John J. Bombaro, Ph.D.
Grace Lutheran Church, San Diego
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