The Confession of St. Peter – What Does This Mean?

Encore Post: In Northeast Israel, at the base of Mount Hermon, a giant spring gushed water out of a cave that flowed into Huela Marsh, the headwaters of the Jordan River. During the centuries following the death of Alexander the Great, Syria’s Greek rulers built a shrine there to the god Pan. During the earthly ministry of Jesus, Herod the Great’s son, Philip, built a town nearby and named it after Tiberius Caesar and himself. His father had added a temple to Caesar Augustus to the previous shrine to Pan. A major trade road, “The Way to the Sea” ran through the town on its way to the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea. At the end of his ministry in Galilee, Jesus took his disciples to this location to prepare them for his final year of ministry, suffering, death and resurrection. (Matthew 16:13-28)

At this place Jesus asked his disciples who people thought he was. They replied that people said he was a prophet, maybe even John the Baptist or Elijah. Jesus then followed up. “Who you say I am?” St. Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” God the Father had revealed this to Peter, but it became clear very quickly that he really did not know what a Messiah was to do. Jesus explained to the disciples that he would soon suffer, die for the sins of the world and rise from the dead in three days. Peter tried to scold him. It could not happen to him — he was the Messiah, after all. Jesus replied by calling Peter Satan. Anyone that would be his disciple, would need to take up his own cross and follow Jesus.

Even though Peter was badly mistaken, Jesus praised his confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The confession was so important that Jesus gave him the name Peter — little rock. The confession itself is the rock on which Jesus builds his church. Even hell itself cannot destroy that church. So, since the early years of the Twentieth Century, the Lutheran Church has celebrated this confession on January 18th, a day always in the season of Epiphany, when it meditates on the ways that God the Son reveals himself to us.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

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