Matthew 16: 13-20, offered to the Mine Hill Presbyterian Church, Mine Hill, NJ, August 23, 2026
Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder, PCUSA
There are a couple of things going on in today’s Gospel story that I would like to get into with you today.
First, Matthew tells us in verse 13 that Jesus had gone to the district of Caesarea Philippi. This is the second time that Jesus and his disciples had traveled away from Jerusalem to very pagan areas of the Roman Empire.
In chapter 15, Matthew tells us that Jesus went to those two wicked and sinful towns of Tyre and Sidon. There he had a very revealing encounter with a Canaanite Woman.
This was an unusual time in Jesus’ ministry when he was avoiding the towns in Judah where he would be crowded by the people and harassed by the religious leaders.
The reason that Jesus traveled to these Gentile and pagan areas was that he needed time alone with his disciples so that he could instruct them about God’s Salvation plan, his role in it – but more importantly what their role in God’s Salvation plan would be. And he was running out of time.
Jesus was aware that his time to return to Jerusalem and go to the Cross was coming – sooner than he might have desired. And the result was, he was running out of the time he needed to teach his disciples why it was he had called them to follow him and what their role in God’s Salvation plan was to be.
Whenever Jesus traveled close to Judah, Pharisees and Scribes would accost him demanding signs to prove who he was. If not that, they were seeking to entrap him in one of their legal arguments and perhaps convince the people that he was a fraud. Jesus needed to avoid these types of engagements if he was going to be able to teach his disciples what God’s plan was. These encounters with the Pharisees and Scribes were just too time consuming and a waste of his most valuable commodity – time.
Also, Jesus needed to be in a place where he was not known so that the people would not come running, pressing in on him demanding healing miracles. Those encounters consumed valuable time. Jesus needed time to recharge his spirit and bolster his own courage in the face of what he was being called to do.
So, he traveled to Tyre and Sidon where he had hoped that he would not be recognized. That didn’t work out so well. The Canaanite Woman recognized him and beseeched him to make her daughter well. That meant the gig was up there. His identity had been revealed even in a place where gods like Baal were worshiped.
Now he took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi where he hoped he would get some quite time with them.
So now, once there, once Jesus could sit alone and quietly with his disciples, Jesus begins by asking them right there in verse 13, “Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?”
This was an important question because Jesus was probing to see if his message, his ministry was getting across to the people. He had been teaching the people for three years, curing them, performing miracles. How was that all being received? How was he being received? Did the people believe that the miracles he was preforming were signs pointing to his relationship with the Lord, their God? Or did the people see him as something less than or other than the Messiah?
The responses he gets from his disciples are all over the spectrum. They tell him that the people say that you are John the Baptist – risen form the dead. Others say that you are Elijah or Jeremiah, or some other prophet. None of these responses were what Jesus wanted to hear.
Now Bible scholar William Barclay has some interesting thoughts on these responses. First, it is that the people believed that John the Baptist was so great a prophet that it might be possible that he had come back from the dead to continue to challenge and torment Herod. They thought perhaps Jesus was the resurrected John.
But the other responses were that the people thought that he could be either Elijah or Jeremiah. These were revealing more of how the people viewed Jesus.
First, Elijah. You will recall that Jewish tradition held that Elijah would return to announce the coming of God’s Messiah. It would be Elijah’s role to announce to the people that they should make straight the way of the Lord. It is the reason that even today, Jews leave and empty seat at their Passover Table for the prophet. They, who are still waiting for the Messiah, leave an empty seat for Elijah at the Table. Some believed Jesus was that predecessor coming to announce and make ready the coming of the Messiah but not that Jesus was the Messiah.
Second, Jeremiah. Barclay explains that Jeremiah had a curious role in the expectations of the people. It was believed that before the people went into exile to Babylon, Jeremiah had taken the Ark of the Covenant and the altar incense from the Temple and hid them in a cave on Mount Nebo.
These people believed that it would be Jeremiah who – before the coming of the Anointed One – would return and produce these relics from their hiding place and restore the Glory of God to the people. By restoring the arc, God’s place would once again be seated in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Some believed that Jesus was Jeremiah and that he was returning with the Arc of the covenant bringing the Glory of God with it. They didn’t see Jesus as the Anointed One and that it would be he who would free them from their sin and establish a new Covenant relationship with God.
Now these characterizations by the people were in their minds great compliments being paid to Jesus. They were setting him in a high place of regard since Elijah and Jeremiah were highly revered prophets and expected forerunners to the arrival of God’s Anointed One. When they arrived, the Kingdom of God would indeed be near. But they were only getting it partially right. The Kingdom of God was indeed near. It was just that Jesus was not the forerunner. John the Baptist was the forerunner. Jesus had pronounced it to the people: telling them that John was Elijah.
All of this was to show what the whirlwind around Jesus was like. There was no clear perception among the people or the religious authorities of who Jesus was. Their opinions were all over the place. Some people held him in high regard potentially leading to their being set free from Captivity; yet others, like the Scribes and Pharisees saw him as a potential threat to the peace they had negotiated with the Romans – a Peace that assured their survival as the religious authorities in Jerusalem.
Jesus asked what the people were saying about him and the disciples told him. In truth, the people did not understand who Jesus was. There was a lot of hysteria spinning around Jesus but there was very little understanding. That had to be disappointing. It pointed to how much work still had to be done in the little time left to him.
But now Jesus gets personal. Now he asks his disciples directly, “And you – who do you say that I am?”
This is the question that cuts to the quick with the disciples. And it is something that we have to think about, too.
This is a key question that Barclay focuses on. What is it we have heard about Jesus and what is it we KNOW about Jesus?
It is one thing to have heard stories about what other people think and say about Jesus – to have second-hand knowledge of who Jesus is. No matter how credible it may be. You can read all of Paul’s letters and come away saying, “This guy really nails it.” That sounds like something I could believe in. But it is quite another to know Jesus in your own heart.
Some people think of him as a great teacher, a great thinker, or even as a theologian. People will acknowledge him as the founder of a great religion. But none of these ways of thinking about Jesus makes you a believer in Jesus.
Barclay makes this comment, “Christianity never consists in (merely) knowing ABOUT Jesus; it … consists of – knowing Jesus” – on an intimate and personal level.
So, Jesus asks his disciples a very personal question. He is asking them, “How do you know me?”
With this question, the room goes silent. The air – so to speak – is sucked out of the room. Because many of them are just as confused as the people outside their group are. Time and again we have heard in the gospel stories when the disciples turn to one another asking, “Who is this guy?” You remember the time Jesus was asleep in the back of a boat when a storm came up, and his disciples roused him and he calmed the winds and the seas. They asked, “Who is he who commands the seas and the winds?”
If after three years, Jesus’ closest followers were still unsure of who he was, then his ministry would be in danger of collapse after the Cross. He had to know if there was a glimmer of light behind those dull, dimly lit eyes. The silence is deafening. If you were there, you could probably have heard their hearts beating in their chests.
Matthew tells us that it is Simon Peter who answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
AH! Finally, There is the glimmer of light behind the dim eyes of his disciples that Jesus was searching for. Finally, someone is getting it. The Pharisees and Scribes don’t get it. The people didn’t see it. And for most of the time – up to that point, his disciples didn’t understand it, either. But finally, Peter gets it and says it aloud.
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus responds, “Blessed are you, Simon, … For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” In other words, you could not have gotten to this conclusion on your own. But now I know that my Father in heaven has opened your eyes and revealed this to you.
In a devotional this week in These Days, Kirk Louis of Decatur Georgia characterizes their exchange this way. He says, “Peter did not arrive at this confession on his own. It was God who opened his eyes, stirred his heart, and enabled him to see Jesus for who he truly is.
He goes on, “This is the wonder of salvation: God acts first. God awakens understanding, softens hearts, and invites people close [in] to witness God’s revelation for all.”
So, if any of the disciples still thought that Jesus was John, or Elijah, or Jeremiah a predecessor to the Messiah, Peter was put it all that to rest. Peter states with certainty “– the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
This was a very personal answer to a very personal question. Peter is finally saying aloud what Jesus needs to know is in his heart. Peter is saying you are not a prophet. You are not a forerunner to the Messiah. You are the Anointed One. Peter is saying aloud what he knows in his heart as it was revealed to him by the Father.
Barclay makes this point. You cannot be a Christian if you only know about what other people say about Jesus. You can be well read. You can know what the theologians say about Jesus. You can listen to great preachers and hear stories about his outstanding presence and abilities, his healing powers, and his compassion for people.
But knowing the stories is not enough. Being a follower of Jesus means knowing who Jesus is personally in your heart. Being a Christian means knowing that Jesus IS the Messiah, the Son of the living God as Peter says it for us. It means accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, not just knowing the stories about him.
Jesus asked Peter but he also asks each of us, “Who do you say that I am?” This is a personal question, and Jesus expects a very personal response about what is on our hearts.
My friends, the only way you can know who Jesus is, is if you have sat quietly listening for the wee small voice of God and allowed God to enter into your hearts, to reveal the salvation that God has planned for you through Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.
God will act first. God will soften your hearts, open your eyes to see and your ears to hear the Word of God so that you can KNOW God’s anointed one – truly KNOW him in your hearts.
Then when Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” You can respond, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
May it be so.
