Matthew 16:13-20
The other day I was getting restless and realised what I needed was a good sit down and a novel. So I looked on my bookshelf and pulled out a Richard Bolitho story. If you don’t recognise that name, he’s like Hornblower: a captain in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, sailing for months on a little frigate to the other side of the world, leading his men on adventures of daring victory.
As I read about Bolitho’s plans to take his little frigate into a battle of impossible odds and capture a fortress island in the Caribbean, I realised I had already read this story: it is today’s Gospel reading.
Look at where our Lord is. He is in the region of Caesarea Philippi. This stands out immediately. The thing about Jesus is that he does not really concern himself with big cities. He is more interested in the regional and rural areas, and with people who are honest and relatable. So why is he here? And what is the importance?
Caesarea Philippi is known, and has been known for centuries, as the place with the gate to the underworld. Hell – Hades – Pan’s labyrinth – the place of the dead – has a front door, and its front door is a big pit at the base of the mountain around which the city of Caesarea Philippi has been built.
The Lord Jesus walks up to this gate, like Captain Bolitho sailing up to the island fortress (or maybe Aragorn at the Black Gate of Mordor), and begins preparing his men. “Who do people say I am?” he asks his disciples. Several answers are offered; perhaps one of the prophets? “But you – who do you say I am?” he presses the issue. St Peter declares, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Our Lord could not have done a better job of rousing the spirits of his men. Like Henry V at Agincourt and his “band of brothers” and the “greater share of honour”, he brings their minds to higher things: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” You do not have the feeble weapons of steel and gritted teeth, but the blessing of the Almighty Father upon you.
Having raised their attention to whom they are speaking, and by whose power they do so, our Lord moves to their mission: “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. 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.”
Last week we heard how Jesus has gathered a people who find their common link not through heritage, or language, or culture, but by faith in him. Now that he has gathered us into his company, he is telling us our mission. This is who we are; this is who we are to be.
First, we are gathered together under Christ. This is the most important part. Without him, we have nothing; we are nothing. It is in him and through him and to him that we have our union with one another. This is how he began his rousing speech: Who do you say that I am? We are a people continually answering this question. We sing his praises, we offer our prayers through his intercession, we feed on him at his table. He is our all in all. We cannot lift Christ up too high. His supremacy in all things can never be overdone. Who do you say that he is?
Having established this as our foundation and our essence of being, he moves on to the next step: we are a church. He builds his church on this: a group of people who proclaim Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. We must gather. We must come together. He is a personal saviour, but he is not a private saviour. He draws all people to himself through the blood of his cross; his people are gathered from the four winds from the ends of the earth. It begins with the individual under the tree with their Bible, and it is completed when that individual gathers with all the other individuals who have been personally called by the same Lord to gather as his body, the church.
To this church, to his body, to his gathering, he gives a mission, and authority to complete it. For he has marched up to the gates of hell, declared war upon it, and condemned its defeat by the victory of his church. This is the mission, and the authority is what he has given to St Peter, and therefore to his entire church: “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.” We are the gathering of people who proclaim Christ as Lord, and he has given us the mission and the means to defeat hell.
Where are the gates of hell here on the Redcliffe peninsula? I mean, I look out the window and the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we are going to sing some songs of our own and have a cup of tea afterwards out on the deck. But is this not the opposite of hell? Is this not the kingdom of heaven being loosed upon the earth through the church built on Christ himself?
The darkness is anywhere the light is not. A cruel word; a stern look; a snatching when there should have been a giving. But the gates of hell can not prevail against the church. When we gather, whether it be today at Sunday worship, or during the week over a social visit, or a phone call to someone going through tough times, the gates of hell are battered down and evil is put to flight. We are the body of Christ going into the darkness, and the darkness cannot withstand the light of Christ we shine into those places when we get together.
Our Captain is Christ, the Lord, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. He draws us together in himself, and leads the charge into the dark places. We are called to follow; but we are called to follow side by side, supporting one another, supported by him. And we know that we will succeed, because it is in his name and by his power that we do so. So let us look for those dark places, gather the troops, call upon our Lord, and batter down those gates.