On this Rock: A Meditation on Matthew 16

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, 

he asked his disciples, saying, 

Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: 

some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said, 

Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, 

Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:

 for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, 

but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, 

That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; 

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: 

and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: 

and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Few passages of Scripture have given the Church more fits and controversy over the centuries than this text.  Used as a proof-text, taken alone and apart from the rest of Matthew’s Gospel, the New Testament, or the canon of Scripture as a whole, it can seem to offer up several controversies, not least of which is the role that St. Peter would play among the Apostles, and by extension throughout the history of the Church.  On one side of this controversy, Roman Catholic theologians have used it to claim power and authority (both ecclesiastical and political) over the entire Christian world— a innovation of doctrine which began several centuries after the death of St. Peter, and which eventually caused the Great Schism between Rome and the Eastern Patriarchs in 1054, then later the western Reformation of the 16th century.  This political application of Jesus’ Word toward power and coercion has brought over a thousand years of conflict, schism, division, bitter polemics, and generational feuds sometimes emerging as open war.

Of course, reading this text together with the rest of St. Matthew’s Gospel and the other three Evangelists, it is plain that Jesus intended no such application of His Word.  Church Fathers such as St. John Chrysostom of the late 4th century, bishop of Constantinople who died a persecuted martyr, revered by the Church both East and West as a universal doctor (teacher) and one of the greatest preachers who ever lived, wrote of this text in his homilies on Matthew that while Peter was indeed a receiver of great blessings, a leader of the Apostolic choir, and sent as a witness to the west with the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, the power given to Peter and every other Apostle with their successors was founded on their faithful confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  Specifically not contained in this text is any mention of an earthly political structure, or the intrigues of bureaucrats angling for the control of money and power.  Nowhere does Jesus tell His disciples to establish an earthly kingdom through which every bishop, priest, deacon, or layperson must swear fealty from every corner of the globe, nor for kings of every nation to seek confirmation of their political rule through the successor of St. Peter.  The Keys promised to Peter in Matthew 16 are the same which are given to the rest of the Apostles after Jesus’ resurrection (recorded clearly in John 20), came with the same commands and promises attendant with abiding in Jesus’ Word by grace through faith in Him, and are carried by all those who have succeeded the Apostles as the Church has ordained them through every age and place.

Together with St. Peter and his successors, every legitimate pastor who has received faith in Christ through His Word, and who by the Church has been sent into the world to carry that Word as a witness and living icon of Jesus, carries the Keys of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to every sick and dying sinner, that just as Jesus breathed out His healing and saving Word among His disciples, so too He would breath it out forever through His servants who continue to abide in Him.  Nowhere is there a sign of contention or prestige among the Apostles, but rather a Spirit of common fellowship in the same Savior, whose same Word was life and hope to all who would repent and believe in Him.  Far from what His sinful people would at times try later to contrive for the sake of their own opulence, the gifts and calling of Jesus founded on His living Word, secured for them through His divine authority and by His sacrifice for the world upon His Cross, forever and continually given to them by the power of His Holy Spirit working through His Law and Gospel, was a trove of riches beyond earthly imagining.  This gift of pure grace was reconciliation with God the Father through the Crucified and Risen Son in the communion of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever— a gift of life which transcends death, and a peace which knows no fear in this world or the next.  It is a gift of faith, hope, and love which flows forth from God’s love and forgiveness to the world, calling everyone everywhere to turn from the paths of death and hell, and walk with Him in the path of light and life.

While political kingdoms either secular or religious will always be susceptible to the overthrow of wicked and manipulative men, the Word of God which works faith, conversion, and eternal life is immune from such human or demonic contrivance.  There is no army which can stomp out the forgiving love of God, no terrorist blade or flame which can abolish it.  There is no intrigue of any city or time or place which can crush it, nor any prison cell which can contain it.  And beyond even the crass tools of wicked men, there is no force of hell strong enough to withstand it, no demonic horde which can abide it.  The devil and Hell itself is plundered of its spoil of souls, as the Word of Christ binds the evil one, and breathes eternal life and forgiveness to everyone who will hear and believe in Him.  Jesus’ Kingdom, founded and built by Him upon His Word, multiplied in every generation by the living stones who believe, confess, and live in Him, is an eternal Kingdom which knows no end, and suffers no defeat.  

This eternal Kingdom of Jesus Christ is open to you this day, as His Word comes to you, calling you to repentance and faith in Him.  He has sent His servants forth with His Keys to absolve the sins of those who repent in faith, while also declaring to those who refuse to repent and believe that they are still bound in their deadly sins.  Hear the Word of Christ as He comes to you, calling you into His eternal Kingdom, that you might never need fear the scourges of sin, death, or hell forever more.  Allow the Word of Christ to craft you into a living stone of witness to Him and His saving love for the world, and be built into His Kingdom which has no end.  Amen.

Beloved: A Meditation on Romas 11

And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, 

being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, 

and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, 

thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.

Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, 

and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:

For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: 

on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, 

if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, 

shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.

For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, 

and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: 

how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, 

be graffed into their own olive tree?

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, 

lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; 

that blindness in part is happened to Israel, 

until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, 

There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, 

and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes:

 but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sakes.

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

For as ye in times past have not believed God, 

yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:

Even so have these also now not believed, 

that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, 

that he might have mercy upon all.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! 

how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.

Given the rise of racism and nazism in our recent times, it is worth dwelling a bit longer upon St. Paul’s words from chapter 11of Romans, which is our appointed epistle reading for this week.  Paul is culminating this section of his letter to the church at Rome by elucidating a few points which the people needed to remember, lest they become arrogant in their ignorance.  Of central significance to Paul has been the doctrine of Justification by grace through faith in Christ alone— that all the world has been shown to be under the wages of sin and death, and that only through Jesus is the world forgiven and reconciled to God the Father.  Paul makes clear that this reconciliation was prophesied centuries before Jesus came in His incarnation, and that as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the only begotten Son of God, only Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross could exchange our eternal condemnation with His eternal life.  Jesus, fully a human Jew according to His human nature received from His blessed mother Mary, and fully God according to His divine nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit, was and is singularly able to reconcile the fallen world to its Creator.

In the practical life of the Church, however, this produced a tension.  While many Jews became Christians in the first century, receiving the grace of their Jewish Savior by faith as a fulfillment of the centuries of Prophets who foretold His coming, many Jewish leaders rejected Jesus and persecuted the Church as they had Him.  Similarly to the way the Sanhedrin handed Jesus over to Pontius Pilot with false charges and vitriol demanding His death, these Jewish leaders also wound up the Jewish and pagan crowds to murder and persecute those who believed in Jesus.  Naturally this created a tension between Christians (who were devoted to peace and compassion, and by Jesus’ command refused to try and impose His Kingdom on the world by violence and compulsion, since faith, hope, and love can never be compelled in the first place,) and the Jewish leaders who cooperated with the pagans to either directly or indirectly murder and imprison Christians whenever they could.  

In parts of the Church, this tension began to produce hostility of mind between Christians and Jews.  Many of the early Church Fathers refused even to read the Old Testament Scriptures in their native Hebrew, since they distrusted the Jews to have manipulated them after the time of Christ, and preferred old Greek translations which pre-dated the 1st century (and which also were in the more native language of the converted pagans, as was the Greek New Testament).  When Christians finally found general favor in the Roman Empire after several hundred years of brutal persecution, some Christian leaders fell into turning the tables on their Jewish neighbors, using secular power to get vengeance on their previous persecutors.  This was, of course, still contrary to the teaching of Jesus, and as evidenced in all times of history down to our present today, power and wealth has a tremendous propensity for corruption and evil in the hands of fallen men.  The Word of Christ never changed, but people and empires often did.  And so, even in our time, there are people with power and hatred attempting to persecute and murder each other, some who even claim the name of Christ, whose Word they so obviously ignore.

But what of the Jews?  St. Paul is clear that even if the ones who did not and do not yet believe in Jesus are enemies of the Church concerning the Gospel, they are still beloved of God for the sake of the promises made to their Fathers.  Just as God so loved the entire world that He sent His Son to save every tribe and nation under heaven, even so He loves the Jewish people, too— just as much as He loves Germans, Finns, Ethiopians, Nigerians, Polynesians, Peruvians, Koreans, Mongolians, and every other people of the world.  Since all the world is enslaved by the evil one through their fall into sin and death, God’s love for the whole world goes out to all for conversion of heart, for repentance and faith in the Savior He sent to redeem and liberate them.  The Jews indeed are a peculiar people, because through them God breathed out His Word which we have recorded by the Old Testament Prophets, and through them His Word Incarnate came to suffer and die for the sins of the whole world.  Through the Jews the world continues to receive the testimonies of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and all those of ancient times who heard His voice, believed and lived in Him.  Through the Jews the world received the Messiah, the Son of David, Son of Mary, and yet the very Son of God.  Through the Jews the world receives the testimony of the Apostles written down in the New Testament, and the histories of the first several centuries after Jesus’ Ascension.  And as mysterious as it sounds, somehow, at the end of the age, St. Paul tells us the remainder of the Jewish nation will be reconciled to Christ, which will result in the final Day of resurrection and judgment for the world.

So how ought we now live, in light of this knowledge?  In repentance, faith, and humility before God.  For if God was and is willing to let the ancient Jewish people through whom His Law and Gospel have come into the world be broken off from His fellowship through their unbelief, that the world of Gentiles and pagans might be grafted into Him by grace through faith in Jesus, then we must remember the goodness and severity of God:  upon those who reject Him in unbelief, severity in their own condemnation, but upon all who turn from evil and trust in His Word, compassion and restoration in Jesus.  And so today, as in Paul’s day, the Church is called not to coerce or condemn, nor to seek retribution or oppression of any people, but rather in love and compassion to call all people to their Savior.  Jesus did not give His people torches and clubs to beat and murder in His Name— rather, He gave them the Word of His forgiveness, life, and salvation to heal the nations, and to salve every fevered and wounded soul.

This Word of Life is the Word by which the people of God are sustained in every age, and so too in our own.  Today, may the Word of God call you to humble faith and repentance in Jesus, to love of your neighbor no matter their tribe or race, that our eyes may see the reconciliation of the world, and the turning of death into eternal life.  Amen.

You give them something to eat: A Meditation on Matthew 14

And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, 

and was moved with compassion toward them, 

and he healed their sick.

And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, 

This is a desert place, and the time is now past; 

send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, 

and buy themselves victuals.

But Jesus said unto them, 

They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

The story of Jesus feeding the multitude in Matthew 14 reveals a number of things that might go unnoticed in too quick a read of a familiar passage.  It could first be noted that Jesus retreated to the wilderness to be alone after hearing that His cousin, John the Baptist, had been unjustly beheaded in prison by the wicked King Herod.  Being fully human like all of us, except without sin, Jesus was impacted by the murderous death of his kinsman, and perhaps like many of us, desired time to be alone in His mourning.  Regardless of his grief, thousands of people followed Him into the wilderness to receive from Him wisdom and healing.  Like mobs in our own day, they tend to be somewhat careless in pursuing what they desire, inconsiderate of the sufferings or struggles of others around them, or perhaps even of the sorrows they inflict upon those from whom they demand their interests.  Such was the mob— 5000 men, plus women and children— who flocked to Jesus in His grief over the loss of His cousin, begging of Him the healing of their bodies and souls.

Despite His own pain, Jesus looked on the crowd with compassion, and healed their sick.  He embraced them, taught them, cared for them, and made them whole.  When the day was far spent, and Jesus’ disciples realized how remote they all were (and perhaps how tired they themselves had become,) the disciples urged Jesus to send the multitude away, ostensibly so the people could buy themselves food.  Surrounded by thousands of demanding, insensitive, selfish, and needful people, far from the comforts and resources of a local village, likely exhausted both physically and emotionally, Jesus took the opportunity to teach His disciples something about the way they would be called to serve both God and their neighbor.

To get their attention, Jesus told His disciples that they need not send the people away for want of food, but rather that they should give the people food.  In shocked disbelief, the disciples responded that they could identifying no more than a little bread and fish which wouldn’t even begin to address the people’s needs, and He directed them to bring the food to Him.  While the people’s resources were woefully insufficient for the task of feeding thousands of hungry people, Jesus took the small offering, multiplied it exponentially, and distributed the gifts back to the people through His disciples.  What the people had to offer could not save or nourish them, and the disciples were powerless in themselves to redistribute their resources in a way that could save or nourish the people.  However, when it was Jesus giving His gifts, the resources were boundless for every soul’s need, with abundance and excess filling baskets of reserve.  Learning a point that Jesus would later make clear to His disciples before His Passion, apart from Him, the disciples could do nothing— they could not save, nourish, teach, feed, cloth, heal, or otherwise care for the people apart from Him.  The offerings and works of people are laughably insufficient for the needs of even an individual soul, let alone the souls of the whole world; but the gifts of God’s mercy, forgiveness, grace, and life are of super-abundance beyond the imaginations of every mortal mind.  Those who would seek to save or serve themselves are destined to ruin, but those who receive the good gifts of God by His hand are nourished and preserved, no matter where they may be.

It is also important to note that Jesus provides all these riches of grace and mercy through His own appointed means, and according to His own divine terms.  He doesn’t tell the crowd to create a communal body politic and establish utopia through a secular government.  He doesn’t direct the people to wander around in the wilderness and try to find God behind the beauty and severity of nature.  He doesn’t tell the people to work harder at their own salvation, and bring better gifts to the table.  He doesn’t tell people to become self-feeding entities who solve their hunger before approaching Him.  He doesn’t tell the people to clean themselves up and make themselves presentable or worthy for the feast.  Rather, Jesus directs the people to hear Him, to obey Him, and the receive by faith and repentance the good gifts He pours out through the hands and mouths of His servants.  What the people needed was not in their power to earn or manipulate out of God, but rather it was the free gift of grace which could only be received by faith.  What they disciples had to offer was nothing more than what Jesus would give to them to distribute in His Name, according to His own design and institution.

And so Jesus comes to His people today.  He has established His Word as the foundation of the world, and the fundamental Means of His grace.  To every soul He offers the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation by repentance and faith in Him, carried out into all the world through the servants He raises up to declare His Law and Gospel, and administer His Sacraments as He established and ordained them.  While Jesus comes to give His gifts to all mankind, He does not leave such gifts to human imagination or machination.  Instead, He works through people according to His Word and Sacraments, to give the super-abundance of grace, mercy, and life which everyone of every time and place so desperately needs.  Thus we learn, with the disciples who labored with Him in the wilderness and disciples of every age, that we ought not waste our lives looking for Jesus apart from where He has declared Himself always to be, and we ought never doubt that He is always at work for our salvation in His Word and Sacraments which He ordained and established for us in His divine love and compassion.

Hear the Word of the Lord come to you this day, that you might turn from the empty pursuits of human works to save your weary soul, and rather rest before the crucified and risen Jesus, who pours out to you freely by His grace the salve which you so desperately need, which is the very medicine of immortality and the bread of eternal life.  Amen.