Proclaims Christ Clearly

Who Is The Son of Man?

9.3.23 [Matthew 16:13-20] River of Life (River of Life Lutheran Church)

His popularity was probably at an all-time high. Jesus had already performed some of his grandest miracles. He had fed the 5,000 and also the 4,000. He had healed the blind and the mute. He had raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead and healed a woman who had been suffering for a dozen years. He had calmed storms and exorcised demons. Jesus had done so many miracles that Matthew doesn’t even record every miracle. Instead, he simply says: he (Mt. 4:23) healed every disease and sickness among the people who were brought to him.

But it wasn’t just the miracles that made Jesus popular. When Jesus spoke, people listened. When he sat down to teach, crowds flocked. When he finished teaching—despite the high expectations—the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had deep wisdom and possessed real authority. One of one.

So there was a real buzz about Jesus throughout all of Israel—Galilee & Jerusalem— even in Syria, Samaria, and Roman cities. People were talking. And Jesus expected his disciples to be in the know. So, as they were traveling out of Israel, to the northern Roman city of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples two crucial questions:(Mt. 16:13) Who do people say the Son of Man is? and (Mt. 16:15) What about you?

These questions are crucial even today. It is not an overstatement to say they are a matter of life and death. So who do people say Jesus is?

Today, most feel like they’re pretty familiar with Jesus. He’s the tender-hearted teacher. The man of deep moral convictions. The spiritual sage with profound wisdom and insight. They’ll wink and nod at the miracles people claim he did, but they dismiss those as tall tales, stories that took a life of their own after Jesus died. Yet they still admire his love for the down and out, the marginalized, and those who needed mercy.

There are those who go one step further. They will gladly say Jesus is Lord. He’s the eternal Son of God. But when you dig past surface similarities, you discover those simple words don’t mean what you hoped. They make much of his obedience, much less of his sacrificial death. To them, Gethsemane is where Jesus shines, not Golgotha. They do not believe that Jesus always was the Son of God.

In fact, they believe that, with enough effort and self-discipline, they can become like Jesus, a child our Heavenly Father is pleased with. They believe that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection doesn’t make all the difference, but makes up the difference between a perfect God and sinful man.

There are many today who see Jesus as a good man and a good teacher, but not much more. There are many who see Jesus as the perfect person to pattern your life after, but not much more. These accolades are high praise, but not high enough for who Jesus is.

During Jesus’ ministry, the people had high praise for him, too. Some thought he was John the Baptist, back from the dead to usher in the judgment he warned about. Others figured Elijah—the prophet the Lord swept up to heaven with fiery chariots must have come back to do powerful miracles yet again. Others held out hope that he was Jeremiah and would reveal where the ark of the covenant had been hidden for all those years. All high praise. Not high enough.

(Mt. 16:15) But what about you? Who do you say Jesus is? The very question that Jesus posed to his disciples is one that we must be ready to answer with clarity and confidence. After all, it is a matter of life and death. So, what would you have said? Who is Jesus?

Peter, like the student who blurts out the answer before the teacher can even call on him, nailed it. (Mt. 16:16) You are the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One, the Son of the living God. Jesus nods in approval. Jesus is the cornerstone of the church, the bedrock of our faith, the basis of everything we have and hope for. He has the words of eternal life, he is life, and he gives his life so that we might have life to the full. Peter’s answer is as perfect as it can get. But Jesus doesn’t pat Peter on the back. He doesn’t give him the gold star of the day or even an ‘attaboy'. Instead he says: (Mt. 16:17) Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. Nobody told you this, Peter, because you wouldn’t have believed them. Your brother Andrew told you (Jn. 1:41) I was the Messiah, but early on, you told me to leave you because you were a (Lk. 5:8) sinful man. You didn’t figure this out on your own, Peter. God did it, from start to finish.

In this regard, Peter is not a special case, either. No one ever figured it out for themselves—even John the Baptist. (1 Cor. 2:9) No human mind could conceive the things God has planned and done. God’s grace to sinners is not only unconditional it is unimaginable and unbelievably good. Yet, God wants it to be ours, so he makes it so.

God does all the work of bringing a person to faith. It’s not your sharp mind or your tender heart that brought you to faith. It’s not your spiritual sensitivity or your dogged self-discipline. God showed you (Eph. 2:7) the incomparable riches of his grace. He expressed his kindness to you in his own Son, Christ Jesus. The faith you have today is not your own doing, either. Not only did God create your faith he nurtures your faith through his Word and Sacraments. God strengthens your faith beyond all you can think or ask or imagine. Your faith did not spring out of you. It came from God.

And thank God for that. Because even after we have been brought to believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God, we struggle to live according to our confession. Having faith doesn’t make us faithful. Like Peter, we go back and forth from overconfidence to despair.

Like Peter, we hear warnings from the Son of God and act like he is talking to other people. Think about how many times in his Word God warns us. (Mk. 14:38) The flesh is weak…(Lk. 13:5) Unless you repent, you too will perish… (Mt. 10:31) Don’t be afraid…(Lk. 9:23)If you want to be my disciple, you must deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow me…(Lk. 12:51-53) I have come to bring division, turning family members against one another. We think to ourselves, (Mt. 16:33) never Lord! I’d never commit that sin. I’ll never do that again. I’ll always be bold. I’ll always follow you. And my family will, too!

Then—surprise! surprise!—Jesus turns out to be right in what he said & we’re shocked. We stumble around like we’re spiritually punch-drunk. Then we begin to despair. Because slowly but surely, our faith began to rest in part on our own strength, our own courage, our own self-discipline, or on the company we keep—instead of in Christ alone.

In our despair, let us return to the Son of the living God. He knows how prone we are to sins of pride and sins of weakness. He alone can deal with our guilt and shame when we fall into temptation. He loves to forgive sins—every single time. He knows that, despite our best efforts, we get scared and worried. He knows that the crosses we are called to carry are more than we can bear on our own. He knows the pain, the grief, and the devastation of having your family disown you.

Jesus knows all this because is the eternal Son of the living God who lived among us. Jesus knows all this because these are a few of the very reasons he had to suffer and die. We cannot be perfect as our Heavenly Father is. We struggle to turn from our wicked ways. We struggle to trust in God when things are going wrong. We struggle to follow him. We quickly give up when our cross is heavy. We crumble when loved ones turn against us because of his name. We need Jesus.

In moments of over-confidence and in moments of despair, we need to remember who Jesus is. He is the Son of the living God who lived for us, who died for our sins, and who rose to life for our justification.

Jesus did not come to this earth to grow God’s popularity rating. He did not come to this earth to make people think a little harder about eternal matters. He didn’t come to this earth to show us how to be nice to the social outcasts or even merciful to the hopeless. Jesus is the Christ, God’s Anointed Prophet, Priest, and King.

Jesus came to announce the good news that the kingdom of God had come from heaven to earth. All the promises that God had made throughout the Old Testament were being fulfilled in Jesus’ life and death. Jesus came to be the Word of God in flesh and blood.

Jesus came to do what no priest could do—offer a sacrifice that would actually atone for sins. The blood of bulls, goats, & sheep drove home the reality that mankind racked up a tremendous sin debt. But their blood could not atone for our sins. Only the holy, precious blood of Jesus, fully God and fully man, could redeem us. He is the Word nailed to the wood so that we would be reconciled with God.

Jesus came to do what no king had the power to do—triumph over all our enemies once and for all. He lived the perfect life we could not. He died the death we deserved on the cross. He rose to life to assure us that everything required to redeem us had been paid in full.

This is what the Son of Man did for you. This is who Jesus is. This is what all his miracles confirmed. This is the truth all his teaching was driving home. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus is the Rock of our Salvation. Jesus is the precious Living Stone on whom the Church is founded and flourishes. Jesus is the difference between life and death.

We must not lose sight of that. We have been gifted this faith by God, but there are many today who speak well of Jesus, who earnestly try to imitate him, but that’s not enough. We must not be satisfied when people say nice things about him. Jesus is more than a tender heart and more than a fine example. He is the Son of God who came to set sinners free. He is the the Rock of our Salvation and our Redeemer who lives. This is the Jesus we know and trust in. So we must go to those who do not yet know. As we do, we recognize we cannot argue someone into faith. Flesh and blood cannot force faith—even if we wanted to. But we have real power in the Gospel. The gates of hell and the sting of death could not overpower our Christ. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God gives us life. Amen.