The 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 27, 2023

Matthew 16, 13–20

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Caesarea Philippi was earlier named Panion by the Greeks during their occupation of the Holy Land a few hundred years before the Birth of Christ.  It was so-called from the worship of the god Pan to whom a local grotto had been dedicated.  When the locality came under Roman control it was ruled by Herod the Great, who built a temple to the Emperor Augustus there.  Later, the Tetrarch Philip enlarged the city and rededicated the temple to the reigning Emperor Tiberius, which entailed the renaming of the city as Caesarea Philippi.  The Lord never entered his pagan place but he chose it as the site in which he would accept the confession of Peter in his divinity, resulting in Peter’s own renaming.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  The Lord Jesus has appropriated the title “the Son of Man” for himself.  The title is found in Daniel 7, 13: “One like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of Days: and they presented him before him.”  In the Book of Enoch, a popular Jewish work of that time but which is not included in the canon of the Scriptures, the Patriarch Enoch is represented as seeing a vision of God, and of the One who was with him. Enoch says,in part, “With [God] was another being, whose countenance had the appearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels. I asked the angel who went with me [...] concerning that one and who he was, and whence he was, and why he went with the One to whom belongs the time before time.  He answered and said to me: 'This is the Son of Man who has righteousness, with whom dwells righteousness, and who reveals all the treasures of that which is hidden, because the Lord of the spirits has chosen him.”  The angel tells Enoch that this Som of Man will raise up kings and punish sinners.  Thus, Jesus of Nazareth makes astonishing claims when he identifies himself as the Son of Man, but he has proven his right to this title through his many and powerful miracles.  But now, at Caesarea Philippi, he asks his Apostles who the people think he — the Son of Man — is.  The Apostles have heard the people talk and they duly report to him: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other Prophets.  

“But who do you say that I am?”  The people may not know that he is the Son of Man, but the Apostles do, and the Lord now asks them to say who this Son of Man is.  Neither the Scriptures nor the Book of Enoch really says.  They describe him and they say what he does, but they do not say who he is or where he is from — whose son he is.  He simply appears.  It is Simon the son of Jonah who answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  We ought not to under-appreciate what happens here.  To this point in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has shown flashes of his divinity through his miracles, but Elijah the Prophet had also performed miracles.  He has spoken of God as his Father, but he has also instructed his disciples to prayer to God as “our Father”.  Only a revelation from God could have made Peter to know that Jesus — the Son of Man — was the Son of God.  And he does not mean it in the sense of an angel, a priest, a king, a judge, or a prophet, all of whom were described as “sons of God” in the Old Testament, but as The Son of God.  No one had ever said to an angel or to a prophet, “You are a (or “the”) son of God.  But Simon Peter does so to Jesus.  This is an act of tremendous faith rooted in a tremendous revelation.  This One whom he could see, talk to, and touch was the Son of the living God.

The Lord Jesus confirms the nature of the revelation and it’s content: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”  That is, Simon does not figure this out on his own, nor has any other Apostle confided this to him.  Only the Father could have told him this.  We can imagine the Apostle, startled by what he has said and it’s import, and at the Lord’s telling him he has received a direct revelation from the Father in heaven.

“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”  The Greek word the Lord calls the Apostle is Petros, a masculinized form of petra, which is in the feminine gender.  The word itself means a massive boulder or outcropping.  Caesarea Philippi, the emperor’s city, was located at the foot of Mount Hermon on what we today call the Golan Heights, and the Apostles would have understood, even if they could hardly believe, what Jesus meant.  Herod may have built a royal city on a rock, but Jesus would build a heavenly one upon Simon son of Jonah.  And it would proceed fearlessly against the gates of hell and prevail against them.  Furthermore, Jesus tells him, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  The Lord Jesus virtually raises up Simon the fisherman to the rank of Son of Man in giving him this power.  He must have reeled.  St. Mark’s account, based on St. Peter’s reminisces, does not include the Lord’s speaking of the Church or of the power of binding and loosing.  In light of Peter’s humble opinion of himself — “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5, 8) — he may have not come to terms with this, even years later.

“Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.”  The Lord had revealed himself to his Apostles through Peter’s inspired words, as the Messiah, the Christ, but also he had revealed what the Messiah was, and it was not the comparatively poor thing that the people had been taught by the Pharisees to hope for.  He would not conquer nations but death and the devil, far greater enemies.  The people were not ready to know the Messiah for who he was until after he had risen from the dead, but the Apostles had a need to know now.  Even so, they managed to hold onto their old beliefs until Jesus rose and explained all things to them, beginning with the Law and the Prophets.