“But you,” He asked them, “who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!” — Matthew 16:15-16 (HCSB)
Jesus has been spending significant time with his disciples at this point. They knew him well. They’d watched him work. So he starts with a broader question ‘what are people saying about me out there?’ The answer is interesting. People are paying attention. They’re comparing him to the great prophets and to John the Baptist. They recognize that something significant is happening. They just haven’t quite landed on what it is.
Then Jesus narrows it down. Not what everyone else thinks, ‘and what about you?’ Peter, always the first one to jump in, says it plainly. “You are the Messiah. The Son of the living God.” Jesus immediately points out that Peter didn’t arrive at that on his own. Human nature alone can’t discern who Jesus really is. That recognition only comes from somewhere else entirely.
Then comes the part that has been debated and misunderstood for a long time, largely because we’re reading it in English rather than Greek. Peter’s name Petros, referred to a small rock, something like a chip that has broken off from a larger stone. In America, we actually refer to this in English. If someone is very similar in looks and actions to his father, we might say “he’s a chip of the old block.”
When Jesus says “on this rock I will build my church,” he switches to a different word Petra, which refers to a massive, foundational bedrock. He’s making a point, and a bit of a wordplay at the same time. The Church isn’t being built on Peter the person. It’s being built on the declaration Peter just made, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. That is the foundation. And against that foundation, Jesus says, not even the gates of hell can stand.
That’s not a small statement. It means that the most powerful force of darkness in all of human history is less than the Church built on the identity of Jesus Christ. Not a denomination or an institution. Not a famous leader or a mantra. Not a political paradigm, but the declaration that Jesus is who he said he is. That’s what really matters.
So here’s the question I keep coming back to, if we actually believe that, then what are we doing with that? What would you do if you knew that nothing could ultimately stop you? What would happen if you knew that you could walk on water, or move mountains? What if the stories that you read in the Bible weren’t fables of an ancient history, and that God could part the sea through you. It doesn’t matter how uneducated, or poor, or not famous you are. It only matters what you do with the question, “who do you say that Jesus is?”