Trinity 2 (2025) (Feast of St. Peter)

The celebration of Saints can often feel odd to many protestants in our day and in our age.

It was not odd in the early life of Protestant life. Think of our local city Greenville. The Lutheran, UCC, and TEC church are all St. Paul churches. There is St. John. I have often joked we should be called St. John the Baptist. I have even seen Methodist churches that are Saint Matthew and so on. But then I think in the later part of the 1900s we wanted to reduce church to its absolute esentials.

Liturgies were stripped down. Pastors started to not wear vestments. Feast days set aside and we would only talk about God, and Christ, usually not from OT, or Psalms but almost exclusivly from the Gospels or the sometimes the epistles. .

Luckily we are not so trapped by those instincts. We can celebrate feast says especilly to the churches first temporal leader, St. Peter.

What does his life teach us about following Christ.

There is this cliche about Peter’s often messing things up. Its funny and can add levity to a sermon. Yet as oft as Peter gets it wrong he does also get it right sometimes, and by the end of the book of acts, he is seen as somewhat heroic. So lets look at today’s text.

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

Location, on the edge of where Israel meets the rest of the world

Son of Man…

14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, other prophet…

15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

We these are Jesus guys they follow him everywhere. They have more data than anyone else what do they say?

16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

You are THE Christ, The Messiah, of the line of David

You are the Son of the living God: What does it mean to be God’s Son.

17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Blessed: A fortunate statues leaving one happy.

This confession of faith is not the coaching of a human, It is a revelation of God. The revelation of God as two who his son is, is a sign of God placing his salvation on ehis kids.

If you understand who Jesus is, it is bc God is at work.

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Not Jesus will play with the language…you are Rocky and on this Rock I will build my church,

A little of the interprative contraversy bc…why not.

The Church shall not fail to conquer even hell.

19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Heys to the kingdom: the church built on Rocky is the means by which the church binds and loses what is needed for salvation.

20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

His oft used warning…

So the question, who is Jesus.

John the Baptist was a modern character for them, do we think of Jesus as some kind of modern philosopher? Probably not, but we mistake hime for some kind of Eastern Guru.

What about one of the great prophets, either like Elijah who does not taste death, or like Jeremiah who does.

But there is only one right answer: The Christ, the Son of God. And knowing that answer is a work of God. ..flesh and blood did not.

You cannot know about Jesus unless God allows it, and you cannot be right with God except that Jesus accomplished it.

We hear want to be included in the church, the ecclesia that Jesus will establish on Peter. Let us remember that the church is his chosen ones, we are the way in which Jesus gather the church, but the choice is his.

A chosen one of God, brought to the waters of baptism, and then the work of Jesus on the cross is given to them. That is, Jesus Christ Dying four our sins, and giving us his righteousness. That work which applied at Baptism then is given us as a medicine for our souls in communion.

So this morning reach your hands out and let the be a declaration of your heart, let is say with your hand, you are the Christ the son of the living God, and when I give you communion it will be as though I am Saying blessed are you.