Skip to main content

Sent to Love: To Discover God

When we left off last week, after some convincing, Jesus had offered healing for the daughter of a Canaanite woman. Through this woman’s persistence, Jesus came to realize that God had sent him to bring the Gospel to all people, not just the Jews. From there, Matthew tells us that Jesus went on to heal even more people, and out of compassion for those in need that Jesus fed over 4000 people with just seven loaves of bread and a few fish. But, as Jesus continued on with his ministry, the religious leadership continued to deny Jesus and challenge what he was doing because they did not believe he was from God, so they demanded a “sign,” as proof. But Jesus told them, if you can’t see God at work in what I have been doing already, no other “sign” will offer any more proof.

Jesus knew what the religious leadership thought of him, but it is at this point that Jesus decided he wanted to know what other people were saying about him. So, when they came to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus stopped and decided to have a conversation with his disciples. Now, before we take a look at the beginning of this conversation, it is important to take note of where Jesus has decided to have this conversation with his disciples. Caesarea Philippi was a Roman city that was home to the Temple of Pan, which contained a deep cave, a cave so deep that many believed it went all the way to hell. Pan was the Greek and Roman god who was half human and half goat. Pan was the god of the wild, and his cave was believed to be the Gate of Hades.

Jill and I visited this place a few years ago, and this is what it looks like today (show picture #1). But in Jesus' day it was quite the place (show picture #2). For the Greeks and Romans, this was a place to worship their gods. In addition to Pan, there were temples for Caesar, Zeus, Baal, and others. For the Jews, this place represented evil; it was a place that was the gateway to hell, and it is here Jesus stops at the base of this temple with his disciples, probably at a spot that looked something like this (show picture #3) to ask his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (16:13). In response, they report that on the street people are saying he is John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or another one of the prophets. But Jesus wants to know something even more important, he wants to know what the disciples think, so then he asks, “But who do you say that I am?”. Here at the foot of the entrance to the Gate of Hades, Jesus says, who do you think I am. Imagine the disciples sitting at the foot of this temple, looking up at it when Jesus asks this question, when Simon Peter finally says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16). It is as if in this moment, looking at the temples of all of these other gods, Peter says no to Caesar, Pan, Baal, and other gods to say yes to Jesus and the God of all Creation.

In the very face of the most evil place of their day, Peter rejected that evil and placed his faith in God through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Now, don’t get me wrong, Peter will go on to screw this up and he will falter, as we will hear next week, but in this moment, Peter manages to do something that many of us often fail to do, and that is to profess our faith.

In the heat of the moment, Peter trusted his instincts and he took a shot in the dark. He took a leap of faith even though he did not, yet, have clarity about Jesus and who he was and what his actual mission was. In fact, Peter won’t have this clarity until after Jesus' Resurrection, but he will still profess his faith. In this midst of his own uncertainty and uncertain times, he proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah.

Now, let's be honest, Jesus knew Peter didn’t have the courage to do this all by himself. In fact, Jesus said, “my Father in heaven” revealed this to you, but Peter did recognize God at work in and through him and he made the profession of faith, and it is on this faith that Jesus would build his church, and not even the Gate of Hades, the very evil in front of Peter and the others, will prevail. In today’s world, I could imagine Jesus taking a group of his followers to stand before hate groups like we have seen over the past few weeks and saying, “my church will not fail even against this evil if it built on a rock-solid faith in me.”

Last Saturday, I attended an open house at the Islamic Center of Kansas in Olathe. While I was there I met a man who I will call “Joe.” Now, Joe made it clear to me that he did not like organized religion. He told me he liked to learn about different faith traditions, but he wanted nothing to do with them. He felt all of us -- Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others -- allowed dogma to creep in and control us. He felt we were all just a little too hypocritical, and for these reasons, he really struggled with being part of any of us. Now, I do empathize with Joe’s concerns. We are hypocritical. We can be dogmatic. We often worry more about ourselves and our personal desires than we should, but to say that these are reasons not to be part of a faith community is wrong. In our brokenness God gives us faith, and in our brokenness Jesus built his church, and through Christ’s church God offers salvation to the world.

The church is still made up of human beings. The church is the gathering of the people -- that is, you and me -- and we will make mistakes. We will act wrongly at times, but if Jesus can say that he will build his church on the faith of a man who will deny him in his greatest hour of need, then we surly can work through our failures to be part of the church. We surely can overlook our shortcomings so that Jesus’ church can continue to feed the hungry, heal the sick, care for the poor, offer sight to those who cannot see the truth, and share the Gospel of love and forgiveness to all who will listen.

Brothers and sisters, instead of condemning the church, we ought to seek God at work in and through it. Instead of condemning our brothers and sisters, whether in the church or not, we need to seek God at work through them

We live in rocky times, with plenty of ugly debates, uncertainty, and confusion. But a rock-sold commitment and faith in Christ Jesus can make a huge difference in the way we approach the challenges of life. Peter’s faith was uncertain, but strong. When, like Peter, we can say yes to Jesus and no to the idols of today -- money, power, greed, self-centeredness, bigotry, racism, and all those things that divide us -- then Christ’s church is at its best and we can do the work we have been called to do. By committing ourselves to Christ, we are given his acceptance, forgiveness, and assistance. Today, in the midst of all the evil around us, Jesus comes to us and says, “who do you say that I am?”. I pray that we can be like Peter and live our lives, even with all of our failures by our faith that say, “Jesus, you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” and in you I will place my trust and my life. Amen.

Tags: Sermons