0827 Reflection -- Matthew 16:13-20

Upcoming Sunday Gospel Readings

Sunday 27 August 2017

Matthew 16:13-20

When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

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This Gospel presents us a question that we and all the baptized in every generation must all answer.  No other human being who walked the face of the earth has ever been discussed more or had more written of that one than Jesus, son of Mary, the carpenter of Nazareth.  The viewpoints expressed in all of these descriptions vary as much as the responses of the disciples who shared the many and various differing views of those who witnessed Jesus walking in their midst.  And when all of this was shared, Jesus posed this question: “But who do you say that I am?”  Jesus still asks this question today and of us.  And how do we respond?  Peter gives us the answer to embrace and to claim as our own.  It is a response that ultimately points forward to Thomas’ confession of faith in Jesus.  Who is this Jesus?  As Christians, our response is “My Lord and My God.”  Jesus is not our parent’s Lord.  He is my Lord and my God.  It is he in whom we place our hope and to home we commit ourselves to such a degree that he is first in our hearts, first in our lives.  No one else comes before him.  And nothing can hold us captive, for Jesus has delivered us, each of us by name, from all that binds us.  He is our life and our salvation.  When Peter first uttered this confession, he did not fully understand what he was saying.  A lifetime of discipleship would refine this commitment until his work was complete and the time for his passing from life to life eternal in death would come.  Today we may not fully understand our own confession.  But if we walk with Christ daily, we will come to grow in the knowledge of Christ and his love day by day until at last we stand before him and acknowledge him no longer by faith but with sight restored and made whole in ways that we cannot yet imagine.

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Father Timothy Alleman