Matthew 16:13-17
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
August 23, 2026
Many of us have a limited, conditional commitment to Christ. For example, we know He asks us to provide life’s necessities for the poor even if it takes sacrificing some niceties for ourselves. But we’re willing to do that only up to a point – that is, only if He doesn’t exceed the limits we have set – say, in sacrificing some of our favorite foods, clothing or entertainments.
But what if Jesus is who Peter says He is: “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” – and thus the source of our deepest meaning, strength and joy in life? What if He is so great and good, so splendid and spectacular, so worthy and wonderful, that He’s worth sacrificing anything for? How could there be any restrictions or conditions in our commitment to Someone like that? If Peter has got Jesus’ identity right, Jesus can’t be just a supplement to our status quo, but has every right to reorder our priorities and living even if it involves our denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following His example of sacrificing in order to fulfill the call to love – as Jesus, right after Peter’s confession, says it does.
It’s rather remarkable that Caesarea Philippi is where the disciples, as never before, face up to the reality of Jesus’ identity. They end up there after being repeatedly thwarted in finding a place where they can be free of ministry demands and have extended alone time with Jesus to take in more of His crucial teachings before time runs out.
Caesarea Philippi holds promise of being such a place. It’s about 25 miles from Galilee, with a mostly Gentile population whose people are unlikely to have heard much about Jesus and thus unlikely to bother or interrupt them.
Yet, Caesarea Philippi is a place pervaded by pagan spirituality. It is the location of over a dozen temples for the worship of the Syrian god Baal, of a pilgrimage site for the birthplace of the Greek god Pan (the half-goat/half-human, flute-playing god of wild nature), and of a huge gleaming white marble temple dedicated to the worship of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. How ironic that, in a place of so much idolatry, Peter declares Jesus the God above all gods!
Peter’s confession is a major turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. With His identity clarified and embraced, Jesus starts to emphasize His self-sacrificial destiny on the cross and the disciples’ call to sacrifice so as to carry on His works of love. The disciples will only deem those sacrifices worth their while if they recognize how worthy and wonderful He is – if, like the merchant of gems who in Jesus’ recent parable sold all his other gems to buy a pearl he deemed of supreme value, they treasure Jesus as the supremely valuable Pearl of a different and higher kind.
Jesus does not first inquire about the disciples’ thoughts about His identity, but about the public’s thoughts. In posing the question, Jesus refers to Himself, as He often does, as “the Son of Man”: a title that conveys both a humble identification with humanity and a bold identification with the god-like, exalted figure in Daniel 7 to whom God entrusts His authority.
The disciples reply to Jesus’ public opinion inquiry by noting that some say Jesus is John the Baptist come back after being killed by Herod, and that others say Jesus is the prophet Elijah or the prophet Jeremiah (both of whom are seen as the Messiah’s forerunners announcing His near arrival). As soon as the disciples finish their report, Jesus puts them on the spot and demands that they say what’s their personal verdict about Him. One can imagine most of them suddenly staring at the ground and shuffling their feet; but bold Peter barges forth, assumes the right to speak for the group and exclaims, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”
The term “Messiah” in Hebrew means “the anointed”. It is a metaphor derived from the practice of priests to put oil on the head of someone whom God has set apart for a special purpose. Beyond that, there’s little agreement then or now about how to fill out the details of the Messiah’s purpose and identity.
The phrase, “the Son of the living God”, might strike some as blasphemous; but the disciples had already cried out to Jesus, “Truly you are the Son of God”, after He’d walked on water to rescue them in a sea storm.
People often say more than they know; and that’s the case with Peter here. There’s no way he grasps Jesus’ identity in the way we do after 2,000 years of theologizing about it. But Peter does surmise that Jesus is much more than a mere prophet, has a unique relationship with God, shares in God’s identity to a degree unlike anyone else, and is so great and good that there are no other words by which to accurately address Him. Jesus is to Peter just that splendid and spectacular.
What is crucial to note is that, while Peter doesn’t yet know all he’s saying and couldn’t give a philosophical explication of his words, Jesus is pleased with his declaration and affirms him for it, saying, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” Jesus is saying there that Peter is speaking a truth he didn’t obtain by human deduction but by divine disclosure. In other words, while Peter hasn’t yet fully grasped Jesus’ identity, Jesus has sure grasped Peter’s soul – and inspired him to speak the truth.
What is fundamental to a life with Jesus is not so much our getting our heads around who He is as His getting His arms around us and drawing us, even in our ignorance and inadequacy, into His love and light. Peter remains a limited, imperfect man. In fact, a short while after his great confession, he acts so badly that Jesus calls him “Satan”. But, for all that, and to the extent he then can, Peter “gets” Jesus by having let Him get under his skin, and into his heart and head.
And that’s true for all of us. What makes a life with Jesus is not our holding on to Him, but His holding on to us!
A man – I’ll call him Greg – left the church and his faith because the attitude and conduct of the believers he knew depicted Jesus as distant and disapproving of people as imperfect as Greg himself. Greg tried other spiritual paths; but, when a friend told him how he was experiencing Jesus loving him just as he is but loving him too much to leave him that way, Greg was intrigued and decided to give Jesus a second look. Reading the Bible anew and continuing to talk with his friend, Greg discovered a Jesus who had never given up on him, not even when he’d given up on Jesus. Greg today identifies Jesus as the embodiment of perfect grace and mercy, and is living out a friendship with Him. Greg today knows Jesus as a Person of pure love who’s so worthy and wonderful that walking with Him is worth any price, even that of denying oneself and taking up one’s cross to follow Him in the way of self-sacrificing love.
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