We’ve all seen them before, those cartoons where Peter stands in front of the pearly gates of heaven behind a podium, deciding who gets to enter. The idea behind that is loaded with biblical imagery, including the gates of pearl from Revelation. It’s also loaded with all sorts of things that are not biblical, the clouds, halos, and wings among them.
Humor is one of my love languages, so let’s enjoy just a few of these together. There’s Sean Connery showing standing in front of Peter’s podium, and it turns out that Peter’s a fan of Connery’s work, urging him to say his catch phrase one more time. “The name’s Bond, James Bond.” These words presumably are Connery’s ticket through the gates of heaven.
The next has Peter ushering Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, through the gates and introducing him to Moses. “Moses, meet Steve,” he says. “He’s gonna upgrade your tablets.”
The next is for all the pastors and particularly for Dr. Matt Bruce, our Theologian-in-Residence. “Theologian? You guys are always fun,” says Peter with a smile.
I’ll do one more. A random man is standing before Peter’s podium. Peter is heading to the gates with his hands reaching into his pocket. “Well shoot,” Peter says. “I’d let you in, but I forgot my keys.”
The keys are another way these cartoons are rooted in an idea coming from scripture. It comes form Matthew 16. Jesus is traveling in the district of Caesarea Philippi with his disciples when he poses this question to them. “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They respond with various things they’ve heard. The Son of Man is John the Baptist. He was Elijah or Jeremiah or another prophet.
Then Jesus’ question moves from the theoretical to the personal. “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, ever the bold one, is the first to answer. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” It’s quite a bold statement on a number of levels. Within Judaism, believing that Jesus was the Messiah meant that he was the rightful heir to King David’s throne and that he would be the one to restore the fortunes of the Jews, who were living under the thumb of Rome. Adding “the Son of the Living God” to this had an even greater edge to it, going beyond this small corner of the Mediterranean all the way to the ends of the greatest empire on earth. I’ll get back to that thought a little later.
Jesus is pleased in how Peter answers because he’s right. He has correctly identified that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. It’s such a great answer, that Jesus says Peter got it by God’s revelation to him, not by putting two and two together. But then Jesus goes further.
“I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock” — Jesus liked nicknames, and this is fitting because Peter’s name means “rock” — “and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
This is why Peter is often depicted holding keys in sculptures and stained glass and paintings. It’s also why the home of the Roman Catholic church is called St. Peter’s, because they believe this ministry of Jesus has carried on down through the years in the spiritual descendants of Peter. This is also why the cartoons have Peter standing at the gates of heaven with the power to lock or unlock those gates. And while I think this, theologically speaking, is a misinterpretation of Peter’s role — he doesn’t decide who’s saved or not, that’s God’s work — it does make for some good cartoons and food for thought.
Our focus today is on the “Son of God” window. It sits in front of the chancel on the east side of the sanctuary. It’s one of most easily viewed windows in the building, so I hope you’ll take time after service to give it a good look. In its lower left corner, we see Jesus handing keys to a kneeling Peter. Why does this image appear here? Because Peter has identified Jesus as the Son of God, the theme found in each story in the window.
Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” is one we should all keep asking ourselves. Our faith says that Jesus is the very Son of God, not merely an important thinker and not simply a nice guy. If someone were to ask you, “Who is Jesus to you?” would you have an answer ready? Would you find yourself merely falling back on Christian words you’ve been steeped in, or would the reality of your relationship with Jesus come alive in your answer? I believe that one of the core parts of my ministry among you is helping you dig deeper and deeper into that answer for yourself. It’s a major part of worship. It’s why we have faith formation classes for all ages. In each phase of life, it’s imperative that we seek to answer who Jesus is to us now and how that impacts our living.
Every scene in this window comes with the declaration that Jesus is the Son of God. There, in the upper left, is Joseph awakened from sleep by an angel visitor. This is from Matthew 1, and Joseph is understandably troubled. His fiancée is pregnant, and it’s not his. This angel tells him to go forward with his marriage. Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. This son is God’s son.
The upper right jumps to the end of the story. Jesus has been crucified. The crowds surrounded him. The centurions, those soldiers of Rome, are gathered maintaining an uneasy peace. Jesus has called out to his Father in his suffering, given out a final cry, and stopped breathing. Mark 15 recounts that when the centurion witnessed this he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son.”
We’ve had a story from Matthew and Mark, so why not get one from John? In the final sign that is a precursor to Jesus’ death and resurrection, we encounter the amazing story of Lazarus, dead four days, coming out of the tomb, still bound in his burial clothes. This is in the lower right of our window. There we see Lazarus emerging, with his sisters, Mary and Martha, astonished and in awe with this healing. Before raising Lazarus, Jesus has a conversation with Martha that is similar to the one he had with Peter. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” And Martha replies, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
The claim that Jesus is God’s Son is a major one in Christianity, and this window is entirely focused on it. At the center of the window is the story of the Transfiguration, which we heard from Luke’s gospel, giving us stories from all four gospels in this window. It’s a story of such great importance, that one Sunday each Christian year is dedicated to it. Transfiguration Sunday is always the week before Lent begins, which is fitting in terms of the gospel narrative — it happens shortly before Jesus’ ministry comes to a gruesome close — and in terms of preparing for Lent — we follow Jesus, the Son of God, who suffered on his way to defeating death. Our faith is one of both suffering and glory, and we cannot possibly live hoping only for glory and not expect the other.
In a scene that clearly puts Jesus in the steps of Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him up a mountain. What do they do there? They pray. Don’t skip over that part. I know I’m tempted to look at all the other glories in it and skip over the prayer. Prayer can feel so small sometimes. We bow our head, thanking God for our meal. We find ourselves in a sticky situation and ask God for help. But prayer is a posture that connects us in mind and spirit with our Creator. It’s a lifeline between heaven and earth. It’s this inexplicable space where the unexpected and miraculous happen.
I think this is on my mind right now having just returned from my sixth trip to Belize. That church prays. They have prayer gatherings. Did you know they pray for us? They live their belief that they can only do something if God permits it, that they have to trust God to provide for their needs. We have so much more at our fingertips, that we rarely worry about having the resources to do something. It becomes so easy for the church to operate like a Christian business, as though worship and classes and programming are simply something we offer because we have the resources to do so. I wonder what would happen if our church prayed expecting to meet God in a surprising way. I wonder how we would be changed.
Anyway, this whole remarkable scene happens in the context of Jesus, James, John, and Peter praying. God does the miraculous. Jesus changes before their eyes. His appearance changes. His clothes become dazzling white. Then there are Moses and Elijah with him. In our window, they’re there. Elijah is over Jesus’ right shoulder, his clothes fiery like the chariot that took him at his end and a raven over his shoulder, reminding us of how God provided for Elijah in the wilderness. Moses is over Jesus’ left shoulder. In all our windows, Moses has yellow light rays — like lightning — coming from his head, reminding us of the storms on Sinai as God gave the Ten Commandments. There is Moses representing the Law, and there is Elijah representing the Prophets.
Peter, James, and John do not know what to do with this. In our window, they’re tucked behind Jesus, their eyes looking to him but unsure. Peter suggests building three dwellings for them because he really does not know what else to say. But before he can even finish the thought, a cloud surrounds them and a voice says, “This is my Son, my Beloved, listen to him!”
This is an awesome scene, in the true meaning of the word. I’m a child of the ‘90s, and we used the word “awesome” for almost everything. We’d get a new Nintendo game and say it was awesome. We’d watch the Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video and say, “Yeah, that’s awesome.” We’d watch Barry Sanders run circles around an NFL defense and tell everyone that Barry Sanders is “awesome.” My dad didn’t love the abuse of the word “awesome,” however. I remember saying that a friend’s new hat was “awesome,” and my dad, sick of it, said, “Oh really, Troy. Did your friend’s hat inspire awe? Did it cause you to shake in your boots? Did you stand there, staring at it with your jaw hanging open.” (This, by the way, explains why I’m finicky about language to this day.)
The Transfiguration is awesome is the truest meaning of the word. The idea that Jesus is the Son of God is awesome. How amazing is it that God would send his Son to walk among us, teach us, heal us, die for us, and rise for us? That is awesome.
But this title of Son of God is also terrifying. In Jesus’ day, there were contenders for this title. Caesar Augustus, who was reigning when Jesus was born is a prime example of this. John Dominic Crossan writes, “Maybe we are too jaded with [the Christmas story’s] annual appearance along with the tinsel, mistletoe, and Christmas decorations. But ‘Savior’ and ‘Lord’ were titles of Caesar Augustus because he had brought ‘peace’ to this earth.”
Saying Jesus is God’s Son was not merely a theological statement. It had massive and dangerous political connotations. Rome believed that God already sat on Caesar’s throne, and his name was Augustus and any emperor that would follow. “Remember that Caesar’s coins said we has divi f, that is, divi filius, or son of god; how could one distinguish politics from religion in that title? For Jesus, ‘the Kingdom of God’ raised [this] question: to whom did the world belong, and how, depending on the answer, should it be run?”
What do we do with this Jesus, the Son of God? Can we take the revelation from the mountaintop, where we stood in awe and wonder at who he is, and live this reality that Jesus is Lord of our lives and over everything in our world?
Who do you say that Jesus is? The answer to that question has profound implications for every step we take, for every decision we make, and for how we view everything.