Sung Eucharist, Christchurch Priory, 23 August 2020. Live streamed.
Isaiah 51.1-6
Romans 12.1-8
Matthew 16.13-20
So they’d shut down our primary place of worship. No longer were we able to gather and be in the presence of God. In fact, not only that, we were turfed out. Forced to live in a strange new world, one that was deeply disorientating. This is the new normal, some said.
The months turned into years. And it was hard. But eventually we were able to return, to come back from our time of exile, exile in Babylon. And on our return we had to figure it all out afresh. And the question behind everything was this: amidst all the upset, the turmoil and the isolation, the confusion, the grief, and the loss, the insistent question was, are we on are own or is God with us?
The years rolled by. Whilst we had returned, in many ways it didn’t feel like it. Things had changed. Empires came and went, and across the generations we’d tell the stories of God. If God is who God is, the one who raised us out of Egypt, out of slavery to freedom, then God will not abandon us now. Will He?
Such was the hope that even after all those years, by which time the Romans were in charge, many would call their sons Jesus, because the name means ‘The Lord saves’. God will do it. He won’t abandon us. Somehow God will save us. And there were many who said that they were the one and that we were to follow them. But the Romans would deal with them as they always did and that was that. And we’d go back to wondering, is this how the world is meant to be if God is God? Are we on our own or is God with us?
And then, after all these years, yes, literally centuries, this Galilean rocks up. From Nazareth of all places. Thick accent, mind. And he’s healing people in the most extraordinary way. And his teaching is just beguiling. On the one hand, everything he says fulfils the law but intensifies it at the same time. And on the other hand, he’s turning everything upside down as he announces the Kingdom of God—or the Kingdom of heaven, if you’re being respectful. It’s in our midst, he says. But it’s a topsy-turvy kingdom, that’s for sure. With the first last and the last first. Lots of people don’t like it.
And then one day, we’re up north of Galilee, about 20 miles or so, in Gentile land. And that’s when he turns and ask us, ‘Who do people say I am?’ And so we tell him. Some say John the Baptist, who’s just recently been executed by Herod. Others are saying Elijah, who all those centuries ago was whisked off to heaven without dying. Is he back? Others Jeremiah, who’d had a right go at the people running the temple. Look where that got him. But all of them, prophets, basically.
Then it goes quiet. Really quiet. Everything’s still. Like it was just after he calmed the storm out on the lake. And in the stillness, He looks at us. ‘Who do you say I am?’ For a moment, it’s as if no one’s going to say anything. But then Peter blurts it out. Out of nowhere! Like it was given! You’re the messiah,’ he says, ‘the Son of God.’
Now in Hebrew, we say ‘the Messiah’. In Greek, they say ‘the Christ’. Just different languages. But the meaning’s the same. Messiah/Christ, they both mean the Anointed One. And that means the King has returned. The king, you see, would be anointed. Just as the prophet Samuel anointed King David all those centuries ago. The Messiah, the anointed one means that the true line going back to David has been restored, in Jesus.
And it makes sense when you think about it. Jesus was announcing the kingdom of God and as much as some might not like it, you don’t get the Kingdom without the King.
Some say it happened when he was baptised in the river Jordan by John, when the Spirit of God descended on Him. That’s when he was anointed.
Mind you, we all of us have to go through a lot before we understand what kind of Messiah, what kind of Anointed One he is. Because like everybody else, we’d been expecting a sort of political leader, a military leader, strong and powerful — very much a ruler in the style of King David. But as our brother Paul is fond of telling us, we’ve all got to let the Spirit transform our minds and not have the way we think shaped by the way the world around us thinks. Let them go after the strong and powerful leaders. God has a habit of doing things differently to what we expect.
And in that moment, when Peter says ‘You’re the messiah/the Christ/the Anointed One’ it’s revealed to Peter and so to us that God is where God has always been: with us. That we were and remain his people. And that our calling, in many numbers, just like the many descendants of Abraham and Sarah, was and is secure and that the salvation of God, again just like that promised to Abraham, was and is lock solid.
Wars, famines and diseases come and go. But as Jesus says to Peter, the gates of death will not prevail against us, us being the people of God, the people that God calls out — that’s what church means, the assembly of people called out by God, with the task of proclaiming the good news of Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. In other words, the good news of the King and his kingdom.
And whilst Jesus didn’t want us to tell anybody back then because he knew that everyone would get the wrong idea, about what his being the Messiah meant — that they, like us would be expecting some kind of political military saviour— now of course, the situation’s totally changed. We get to tell everybody. Why?
Well, those in charge tried to do him in like all the others but they didn’t realise that the anointed one’s execution was his enthronement. By killing him, they were enthroning him. And once enthroned as the rightful King, he rose victoriously from the dead, His death defeating death. And in his dying and rising, he save us. Just like his name said he would. Christ Jesus — the anointed one of God who saves.
So where is God in all of this? Where God always is and always will be: with us, all of us. And the gates of death have not and will not prevail. For the Messiah is risen. The Christ is risen. The Anointed One, the King of the Kingdom of God, is risen. He is risen indeed.
Alleluia!