Confession Time – What Does This Mean?

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The salvation of the Lord has gone out. He is walking from village to village announcing the time of the Lord’s Jubilee. Comfort and peace, making the waterless places an oasis, making the wilderness and the desolate places like Eden, that is paradise. Listen. Look at Him, and know Who He is by what He says, and confess Him.

We have learned by reading Matthew now for a little bit that his book is written like a catechism of sorts. He has set the goal for you, the reader, to be taught the truth of Jesus by hearing the words of Jesus, Himself. Matthew desires you like John to know that these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing you will have life in His Name. So far this summer you have gotten to listen to the teaching of Jesus, some of his parables, and throughout it all you were being given lessons about who Jesus is and what He has come to do. Remember the parables of the sower, the weeds, and the treasure. Those three parables lay down the work of Jesus in great imagery. Jesus is the sower of the seed which is His Word, which enlightens you to know Him and know Him as your Lord and Savior. The parable of the weeds speaks to the condition of the current world, after the fall of Adam and Eve into sin in the garden of Eden, everything that had been declared good went bad. Nothing good was in the world and all the fruit of the people were like sour grapes unsuitable for anything. But in the same parable we learned that the Lord of the field had planted the good seed, the seed which corresponds to the Sons of the Kingdom. The very Son of the Kingdom was sent into the world, and planted into the heart of the ground when He was buried in order that He bear a harvest of many brothers and sisters.

The parable of the treasure tells us how much your Lord cares for you. He takes his time searching for you, and once he finds you, He gives everything He has in order to have you forevermore. He purchases you, paying for you with his own body and blood at the cross.

So, you the catechumen, like the disciples, have been hearing the Son of the Kingdom’s Word, and it has been transforming you into a Son of the Kingdom. By the preaching of the only begotten Son you are being conformed to His image. Being made new, you actually desire to pursue righteousness, actually seeking to walk in the Way of the Lord. So now in our Gospel Lesson after a number of lessons learning the cost of our Redemption, God paying with his very own blood, Jesus has a midterm exam for the disciples and us.

Jesus hardly ever speaks of himself as anything but the Son of Man in the book of Matthew. This should always make you recall the image from Daniel chapter 7. There, Daniel the prophet who was in Babylon, saw at the end of days, coming on the clouds of heaven one like a son of man, taking the place on the seat of judgement. All authority was given to one who looked like a Son of Man, in other words human. When Jesus speaks about the Son of Man, He is really speaking of himself. And this is confirmed at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. “All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me.”

So, the first question of the confirmation midterm if you will, is this question: Who do the people say the Son of Man is? The disciples answer with the answers of the people: People say the Son of Man is John the Baptist, Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. All the answers they had gathered from the people were partially right in that each one of these men mentioned embodied some aspect of the Son of Man in one way or another. They all served as types and shadows of the one who was to come. But being partially correct means you are totally wrong, as some people as in Acts made John the Baptist into the person deserving worship and not the Son to whom John pointed and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Thankfully these men were corrected by the Apostle Paul, but yet still there are some people who hold to John being the Messiah even to this day. And in the Jewish Religion they still await Elijah’s return and have an empty seat for him when it comes to the Passover.

The first question was an objective question; it did not involve saying the disciples own thoughts or at least outright. But Jesus does not let them off so easily. They had been walking with him for a good while now. They had been called to be his disciples and bear witness to what they had seen. So, Jesus asks them that personal question: Who do you say that I am? Yeah, what do you believe? What do you believe about me?

And Peter gives the answer: You are the Christ the son of the Living God. Bingo! Winner winner chicken dinner! But note that Jesus does not commend his answer but commends the one through whom Peter has been brought to this confession. The confession of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the Living God is not something that a person finds on their own. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

So who do you say that Jesus is? Yes, who do you say He is? The world might still call him a good teacher. But if you watched some news outlets you might have seen a bible or two burning at one of the many riots across our country. Jesus is just another teacher, just another man, who was probably overall good, but is no longer right with the times. Certainly not confessed to be the son of the living God. But who do you say that Jesus is?

Friends in Christ Jesus, you, like Peter, have been granted this knowledge to know the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of the Living God by the grace of your Heavenly Father. For God the Father has called you to be his own child in the waters of Holy Baptism. You have been brought to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, who has died and risen for you and your eternal salvation. And via Holy Baptism you enjoy the rights of being united to Christ’s death and resurrection: forgiveness, eternal life. The Son of Man comes into the world to accomplish your redemption. The Christ, as we will learn as we read Matthew just verses after where our reading ends today, has a mission to accomplish. He is to suffer and die and then rise from the dead. It must be that way. He does it in order that the weeds of this world be made new and produce the fruit that is right in the eyes of the Heavenly Father. Fruit produced in you, which really is his own.

Confessing Christ as the Son of the Living God is a confession that will come with a cost. You will not be liked in this world. You will be persecuted for it. You will likely have a difficult time coming to church. Look to a few particular states, and you will see how the church is treated. Look to the Middle East and the faithful are being led like sheep to the slaughter, dying for the sake of confessing the truth of Jesus Christ. “The world will hate you because it first hated me” says Jesus. And this confession will also have an enemy in your own flesh. Yes, your sinful flesh will fight against the desires of the new man created in you in the waters of holy baptism. That is why we are called to daily put to death the Old Adam in us by contrition and repentance.

Things are getting a bit dicey out there even in our neck of the world. Covid-19 has only made hatred towards the Church and her confession more visible. Being a confessor of Christ is more difficult now than ever before for us in America. But don’t lose a grip on this confession. It is the only solid ground you have. Everything else is sinking sand. For by this confession you have the keys of the kingdom of heaven along with St. Peter and the rest of the faithful who confessed Christ until their own deaths. And they are not really dead but alive with the Living God, The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know Christ by the preaching of his Word which has been proclaimed to you. By that Word the Holy Spirit has worked faith into your heart. The good seed has been planted and has sprouted forth. Feed it. Feed it. Feed it. Be where Christ promises to be so that you might be nourished in the trying days ahead. Our days will likely only get more hostile. There will be days when you will be attacked for this confession of Christ. Stand steadfast. For the battle has already been won, Christ has done what he set out to do when He came from the right hand of His Father. He accomplished your salvation by taking your sin, the sin of the world to the cross, and died with it all there. He broke the stranglehold that sin, death, and Satan had on you. And having now beaten death by being raised from the dead on the 3^rd day, we can stand steadfast on the Rock, Jesus Christ, knowing that whatever happens, whatever befalls us in this body and life, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church of Christ and those who take refuge therein.

The true Church confesses the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God. May we never walk away from the confession of our namesake, St. Peter, but now more boldly than ever confess Christ as the only way, the only truth, the only life, knowing that this has been made known to us by the grace of our Heavenly Father. That grace of our Lord was shown to you likely in the form of your parents, grandparents, and your pastors of yesteryear. That grace of God came via hearing the word of Christ. May we all be the vehicles which God uses to extend his grace to another generation, another family, and neighbor, so that all may come to right confession of Jesus Christ and be receive adoptions as Sons, having been adopted unto to life everlasting with the ever living God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we ever be ready to stand and confess.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO