|
 |
 |
The Font of Heavenly Wisdom Text:
Matthew 16:13-20 Christ is the world's Redeemer…the font of heavenly wisdom, our trust and hope secure [LW 271:1]. Isn't he? Or is he? Who do YOU say Jesus is? Do you use those kinds of words to describe him—Redeemer, wisdom, the One in whom you put all your trust and hope? To be a Christian means to be identified with the Christ. But what is His identity? And how does that change you? By the looks of things it seems that many who call themselves “Christians” are suffering from an identity crisis—their conception of Who Jesus is and, therefore, who they are in relation to him.
In many ways this crucial climax of the first half of Matthew's Gospel speaks to us and to our world with more urgency and impact than it has at any other time in our life. For we are not asking for a mere exercise in theological precision or speculation. We're asking what or who is the basis of your most fundamental hope and trust. And we're asking this question in a world that, more and more, has given up on Christianity as a source of hope much less “the” source. In our country, as citizens of the United States, we are asked and expected to give space and respect not only to a wide variety in the definition of what is “Christian,” but now even to that which is most decidedly not Christian or even anti-Christian. Any expressions of the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the only Way are viewed as intolerant and bigoted. But because he said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me,” so we confess this truth.
In many ways the answer of the disciples to Jesus' question, “who do people say that the Son of Man is?” mirrors our own day. St. Matthew records only the most pious (or superstitious) opinions of the day. It begins in Matthew 13 where his hometown folks thought of Jesus as merely the carpenter's son. “And they took offense at him” [Matthew 13:57 (ESV)]. Herod was the one that started the superstition that Jesus must be John the Baptist come back from the dead. Others were more impressed with Jesus, but thought if God is doing something through Jesus, maybe it's in terms of bringing judgment like a new Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
As I said, those were only the most pious or superstitious opinions of Jesus' identity. For remember that the Sadducees, the Jewish theological liberals, just discounted Jesus as a religious lunatic. The Pharisees, the Jewish fundamentalists, called him a drunk and a glutton. The urbane scribes thought him quite simple, unsophisticated and unlearned.
In a similar way there are those today who may hold a basically favorable opinion of Jesus admitting that he must have been a good man. They see him as a teacher of morality or an example of compassion for the well-being of mankind. On the other hand are those who label his followers as lunatics, brainwashed fundamentalists bent on imposing their sense of morality on others and thus antagonistic to basic human freedom. Even among those who call themselves Christians most, it seems, keep him at arms length, wanting to believe he is their Lord and Savior but only as far as accommodating their faith so that they will be accepted and fit in to the world around them. Then there are those whose faith is simply misguided by false doctrine and teaching, religious claims imposed over the scriptures that confuse Law and Gospel.
George Adam Smith in his Historical Geography of the Holy Land (2d ed. 1894, repr. 1966 of 1932 ed.) observed that in Caesarea Philippi there stood a huge marble temple where Caesar was worshiped and also a grotto devoted to the worship of the Greek god Pan. It was in the shadow of these false religions that Jesus chose to press the issue with his disciples of his exclusive claim to be the Second Person of the only true God, the Triune God. We used to preach this text with reference to the gods of “power” or “pleasure” or as Luther defined it, “to have a god is that to which you look as your highest value.” Nowadays, however, we live, more and more, in a “spiritual” society worshiping a pantheon of false gods ranging from Islam's Allah to Buddhism to outright Satanic cults. What's termed “American Civil Religion” worships at the altar of unionism—Christians of differing denominations dropping their differences and bellying up to the altar under the banner “the more we get together the happier we'll be”—and syncretism—the assumption that no one has a handle on “truth” and everyone worships the same god anyway, regardless of what they call him (her or it) or of where they heard of him (her or it). Talk about the “dumbing down” of religion! In such a world the point of Jesus' question in this text becomes moot.
And what's the point? The point is that Christ, and him alone, is the world's Redeemer, the font of heav'nly wisdom, our trust and hope secure. Apart from Jesus Christ there is no God. Only faith in Jesus Christ will save and preserve you in the day of final judgment. For only the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin, delivers from death, gives eternal life. And how do we know that for certain?
I always imagine that Peter, when he replied on behalf of all the disciples, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” may have suddenly put his hands over his mouth, his wide eyes betraying his surprise at what he had just said. He was absolutely right, completely correct; even though he didn't fully understand “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” he had just confessed (Rom. 11:33). Where'd Peter get that? “Blessed! Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.” That is, you didn't figure this out by your own insight, wisdom or intuition. It is true, as our little catechism says it, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him.” No, Jesus says, “my Father who is in heaven” revealed this to you. I mean, that's quite a leap compared to everyone else's opinion or estimation of who Jesus was and is: “the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Here in the flesh, head-and-shoulders right in front of them, this dusty Jewish Rabbi is the Christ—the Messiah promised through the ages by the prophets and the psalms. Here in the flesh, the Son of Mary, is also the Son of the living God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, from whom and through whom and to whom are all things (Rom. 11:36), the Creator, the very Face of God whose glory we can behold without threat of death. This knowledge is revealed by God through his Word, “the Holy Spirit calling, gathering, enlightening” through the Word of the Gospel. Faith hears the Word of God, believes the Word of God and confesses the Word of God. And when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, when the Word of scripture points to and is fulfilled only in Jesus of Nazareth, faith cannot but help confessing Jesus as Lord and God.
What's the point? Only this identification of Jesus as the very Christ and Son of God can allow us to accept what Jesus will now announce for the first time, namely, his approaching death on the cross. Unless Jesus is the Christ the Son of God his death will have no more importance than that of any martyr for a noble cause. But if Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, then his cross becomes the standard of his vicarious suffering for the sins of the world, for the life of the world, our trust and hope secure.
As in those days of the Roman empire around Caesarea Philippi, these are not days for fooling around with empty-headed, homemade spirituality or personal opinion. We today are being called by God to stand and make the bold confession of his Word against which the very gates of hell shall not prevail: that Jesus is the promised Christ, the Son of the living God, the world's one and only redeemer. For only in him can a person be loosed from sin and death and given eternal life.
Faith does not just believe. Faith confesses Jesus before the world. We do not talk about faith but about Jesus, the object of faith. So also when we gather here for worship. One can just go through the motions and mouth the words. Or one can use bodily motions and pray the words of the liturgy in faith's awareness of the promised divine presence of the Lord. As St. Peter later wrote in his First Epistle, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” [1 Peter 1:8-9 (ESV)].
Glory to God the Father, The unbegotten One, All honor be to Jesus, His sole-begotten Son; And to the Holy Spirit, The perfect Trinity, Let all the worlds give answer, Amen—so let it be. [LW 271:4]___________________
| |
