Sermon Text for the Thirteen Sunday after Pentecost

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16) 

Isaiah 51:1-6  
Romans 11:33-12:8 
Matthew 16:13-20

“Blessed are you”

O Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Two Sundays ago, we reflected on Matthew 14, where Jesus walks on water and Peter does too, until he takes his focus away from Jesus. When Jesus takes hold of Peter and pulls him up, Jesus scolds Peter, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Today, we have the privilege of witnessing Jesus praise Peter with rich words. Jesus declares, “Blessed are you!”

The word “bless” and its cognates “blessed and blessing” occur regularly in the Bible. In fact, the word is used already in Genesis 1 on the fifth and sixth days of creation week. God blesses his creation to be fruitful and multiply. 

In the 2009 Lutheran Study Bible, page 842, there is a helpful threefold definition of the word bless. When God blesses his creation on the fifth and sixth day of creation, he is bestowing the ability for success. The greater is bestowing a gift, an ability, upon the lesser entities. God’s blessing is for those who are the lesser, created beings. God’s blessing is the bestowal of the ability for success.

Blessing is not only about reproduction and survival. The words may also convey a “pronouncement of inheritance” such as when Father Isaac blesses his son Jacob. In the pronouncement of inheritance, the elder blesses the younger with material wealth and the position of leadership over family and nations. 

A third use of the word bless is when the lesser blesses the greater. It is a greeting that expresses thanks and praise. In faith, praise is the greatest gift we can offer to our Lord. What do you give the God who has or can have everything? You give your thanks, your praise, your attention, and your life. Psalm 145:1, 10 serve as a fine example: “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever. … All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you.” 

When Peter gives the correct confession of who Jesus truly is, the greater blesses the lesser. Jesus blesses Peter. What a relief to Peter to receive our Lord’s blessing. Peter stumbles, falls, sinks, says the wrong thing, and fails so often. Peter’s heart must have swelled to finally have gotten it right. Yes, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Peter is blessed because he has heard Jesus’ words. He has received the revelation of the Father through the Holy Spirit. He believed what is revealed to him. His eyes see the human man, he hears the human voice, yet his eyes also see miracle after miracle and after miracle. His ears hear authoritative teaching. The faith created within him trusts the revelation that the Father gave him and his companions. His faith has matured into a clear, sober, confession of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. 

Peter is further blessed with the responsibility of the keys of the kingdom of God. We know this is a significant responsibility because our Lord uses the imagery of keys. Keys are used to lock and unlock places of importance and high value. You don’t give keys to someone who is not responsible enough to bear them. Keys have a specific purpose: to open or keep closed entrances. They are not to be shared with the unworthy, played with, or lost through carelessness. 

In this passage, Jesus talks about binding and loosing. What happens on earth happens in heaven. By itself, this can be a bit confusing. In Matthew 18, Jesus addresses all the disciples. They come to him with a question that leads Jesus into a teaching that they were not expecting. One part of that teaching has to do with one Christian sinning against another. Jesus explains the process of confronting the sinner. First, one on one. If that does not lead to reconciliation, then bring one or two others. If that does not work, then you involve the whole church. In verse 18, Jesus repeats verbatim what he said in Matthew 16. “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”   

What finally gives us the full picture of what Jesus is talking about when he talks about keys, binding, and loosing, is John 20. The resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples in their closed, locked residence. Jesus breaths on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”  

The key of the kingdom is the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus dies on the cross for all the world. For those who have faith in Him as the Christ, forgiveness is granted. The sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the cross is the source of the forgiveness that we receive. Faith in Christ compels us to see that the reason Jesus went to the cross in the first place is because of our corrupt human nature, in other words, our sin. Our faith grasps the truth of the situation that the only way we can be redeemed from the ultimate end of our sin is through the forgiveness that Christ gives to us because of His sacrifice on the cross.  In Christ’s sacrifice, He atones for our sins. We cannot atone for our sins. Only a righteous man can do that. Our sinful state precludes any hope of taking our salvation into our own hands. Christ says to you and me, “you are forgiven.”

We understand that all three of these passages from Matthew 16, 18, and John 20 must be taken together. The blessing and the responsibility of stewarding the keys of the kingdom lay with the whole church, not just with Peter. Martin Luther says as much in his explanation of the Keys in the Small Catechism: What is the office of the keys? “The office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.” 

Jesus says to Peter, “Blessed are you!” Peter is blessed because he has faith in Jesus as the Christ. He is blessed because Jesus will die on the cross for all of his sins. Peter will personally receive forgiveness from Jesus for some significant failures yet to come. Peter is further blessed because he, along with the church, is entrusted after the resurrection with the joy of sharing Christ’s forgiveness with the repentant. 

Through Peter’s experience here, Jesus speaks to you. He says to you, “Blessed are you!” You confess Jesus as the Christ. You received forgiveness when you were baptized. You continue to return to the Church to confess your sins and receive Christ’s assurance of your forgiveness through absolution and through reception of the Sacrament of the Altar. 

The gates of hell shall not prevail against the faith that clings to Jesus, our Christ, our Lord and our God.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.