Matthew 16:13-20

When I look at today’s scripture lesson, I think it can be best be broken up into two parts who is Christ and what does that have to do with my daily life.
On the surface it looks pretty simple doesn’t it. Christ asks his disciples who he is and through our 21st century eyes we just want to say, “No, duh, Peter, Christ is the Messiah.” But really it wasn’t that simple of a conclusion to draw. Each of Christ’s activities could be traced back to another person, in other words, what he was doing wasn’t exactly unique. Like John the Baptist, Christ has followers meeting the needs of the downtrodden. He also preached a similar gospel of repentance, or turning from their old way of life in order to fully experience the reality of what God made earth to be. Recall that Elijah preformed miracles and it was passed down orally from generation to generation that Elijah would return before the coming of the Messiah. Jesus could have also been identified with a prophet because of the radical things that he was saying, like Jeremiah people rebelled and tried to kill him over his message.
So here in the midst of all of their travels the disciples have been hearing who Christ is and maybe they even share the same opinions as those listed for some of the similarities that we just discussed. But then Peter, always the bold one, puts in his two sense. “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” Remember that up to this point in the gospels, Jesus hasn’t been too forth coming with the fact that he is the Messiah. In fact if we look at this gospel story in Mark we would find Jesus’ response to be a tad different, essentially, yes you are correct but I don’t want you to tell anyone. It is not time. A command similar to what we find at the end of this lesson, but without the blessing in between.
What exactly was Peter saying when he proclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah. Essentially you are the one that we have been waiting for! Finally, the people of Israel who had been in captivity for so long would be redeemed. The Christmas hymn, O Come O Come Emmanuel coveys the spirit of longing and desperation for a savior when it says “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. And ransom captive Israel. That mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appears.” The people of Israel are getting desperate. They want someone to come and free them from their current imprisonment by Rome. But that isn’t what Jesus came to be. He came not to save people from an earthly prison, but to free them from the captivity of Satan. He is freeing them from the bondage that Satan brought about in the Garden of Eden so that people could fully become who they were intended to be.
And quite frankly, if this is what Peter was referring to then that is why Jesus exclaims, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven.” Peter was speaking the utterance of God because there is no way that he even understood all of the implications of calling Jesus the Messiah. Or how far being a Messiah extended past his Jewish expectations.
So who is Christ? Do we even know today? Are we like the other disciples spitting off second hand accounts of knowledge of who Chris could be? Or are we standing with Peter beaming with excitement as we shout, “You are the Son of the Living God!” In order to answer this question like Peter, we cannot rely on secondhand knowledge. We can only say this if Christ dwells in us, if we have a relationship with him. There is a difference between knowing something about someone and knowing someone. When I know something about a person I know a random fact that may or may not reflect who they are. But if I know someone, I have a relationship with him or her. I know their character, beliefs, values, and life experiences. I know them well enough to say not I recognize this person, but that this person and I are intimate. And I don’t know about you, but I want to say that I intimately know Christ and not just recognize him, because if I only recognize a person, there is no guarantee that they will be able to equally recognize me.
For example: When I was at a wedding a few weeks ago, I had a women pull me aside after the service and address me by name saying something to the effect of “I was wondering who was singing in front of me so beautifully, and then I saw that it was Michelle Bodle.” I literally had no idea who this woman was or how she knew me. I in fact was a tad freaked out that she knew my name and I didn’t even recognize her face. It later turned out that she is the mother of one of the kids I graduated high school with. She recognized me from the yearbook, I had never met her.
But at that same wedding, I knew the bride. She has been one of the people I have been close to since high school, keeping in contact the whole way through college. She is one of the only people whom I made sure to see every time I was home on break. I could tell you her story, and why this wedding was so special to me as she had battled cancer just a few years prior. Because I knew her and she is so dear to me, her dad ushered me into where she was getting into her gown, as soon as I arrived. He knew that his daughter and I were close friends and he wanted me to share with her all of the excitement of her special day.
Which story better describes your relationship with Christ? Would he know you deeply enough, because of your relationship, to share in all of the joy of your wedding day, or would he just stare at you blankly saying that he didn’t know you, if you pulled him aside to chat. May we know who Christ is intimately and personally.
After Christ blessed Peter for this deep knowledge of who he is, he went on to saying, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven.” Here is Peter, the same Peter who has screwed up and will still screw up in the future, and Jesus is giving him a huge responsibility, to bind and loose things in Heaven. Here’s the scary part, as Christ’s disciples, and part of the Church, we have the same command today. When we exclaim with Peter “You are the MESSIAH!” we have a task before us. But what does this binding and loosing look like in daily life? Essentially this means that we decide how the teachings of Christ apply to our every day lives and giving those teachings in such a way that we don’t judge people. The best example Biblically of binding and loosing can be found in Christ’s teaching from the Sermon on the Mount in the phrases that say, “You have heard it said… but I say unto you.” For example in Matthew 5 verse 21 says “You have heard that it was said to those on ancient times, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be in judgment, but I say unto you if you are angry with a brother or a sister you will be liable to judgment and if you insult a brother or sister you will be liable to the council and if you say ‘You fool’ you will be liable to the fires of Hell.” This is an example of binding, or making something tighter, an example of loosing would be when he allowed healing to take place on the Sabbath, something the rulers of the law looked down upon because he was redefining the restraints in order to make them less stringent.
So what does all of this binding and loosing mean for us? Well as the church it means that we need to apply scripture to people’s daily lives starting with our own. Let’s go back to the text for a moment: “I give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” In the Greek the word bind actually means “whatever I have already bound you will bind on earth.” So how are we going to know what Christ has bound or loosened? By reading the scriptures through the eyes of the Spirit. But be forewarned, the Bible is not meant to be bent to reach our agenda. It is meant to be preached with grace and love. And we cannot decide on our own how the Bible should be applied. That is meant for the Body of Christ, the collective church, to decide. I for one, don’t want to be falsely binding and loosing things on earth, that result in people being judged or looked down upon, when God is inviting them to Him.
We as the church need to get our priorities straight. We are meant to bind and loose in order to bring glory to Christ and not to just make rules to make ourselves into an elitist organization that looks better. We don’t exist to make it harder for people to get into Heaven. We exist to shine Christ into the lives of people. And, no, this won’t be done by ignoring the sins of others, but it will also not be done by bringing needless guilt upon them time and time again after Christ has forgiven their sins. Do you catch the drift here? We should exist to help people find answers to the questions that plague them, about how to apply the Bible to daily life, because sometimes the teachings a vague. And this helping and leading people is best done through discipleship, or collectively coming along side one another to discuss how the Bible intersects with our lives. The Bible is not just meant for Sundays, brothers and sisters. It is meant to be our guiding tool lived out every day.
When John Wesley was alive and in the many years following his death people following the Methodist tradition would gather several times a week for different celebrations and small groups. At least once a week, in these small group settings, people would be asked tough question to assess if it was well with their soul. And people honestly answered. And when they had questions about living out the faith others would surround them and lead them on. This is discipleship. We need to get back to asking the hard question, is it well with my soul, and then guide others as they answer this same question, giving them encouragement and rebuke.
I have a friend who knows me very well and I know him. Because we are so close, we are able to see points of sin or places that need to be improved in each others lives. More then once we have told each other “you are not living very biblically” and have explained why. More often then rebuke we are there for each other when we question what something in the Bible looks like practically. We are binding and loosing the scripture for each other, but it is always done in love. And we never say anything to each other without praying for the Spirit’s guidance. Because we care so much about one another we want to lead each other to blossom into our full beauty that God intended.
May we seek to lovingly disciple each other, making the scriptures be lived out first in our own lives and then the lives of those close to us, as a response to proclaiming Christ to the Messiah, the liberator of our lives.