Keys of the Kingdom

“He must become greater; I must become less.”  —John the Baptizer

Every religion begins with the same basic assumptions.

1. God is not happy with us.

2. If we play our cards right, we can change that.

Every religious creed provides a different strategy to make God smile again, but they all boil down to the same tactical objective. “We got ourselves into this mess—and we can get ourselves out.”

It’s amazing how incurably religious Humankind so quickly became, once Adam and Eve were evicted from Eden. And now, thousands of years later, nothing has changed. In fact, there are now over 10,000 religions in the world with a few new ones being added every day. And each of them has a strategy to create some kind of divine détente, to somehow smooth God’s ruffled feathers.

But not one of them does.

That’s why, when you hear about what’s going on around the world, or even what’s going on around the corner, you can see that humanity is still stuck in a losing battle. We cannot outlast an eternal God, or out-think an omniscient God, or out-muscle an omnipotent God, or outrun an omnipresent God. We just can’t. Religion simply cannot work.

One of Jesus’ most celebrated moments is recorded in Matthew 16.

“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  (Matthew 16:18-19)

For centuries, people have held varying interpretations of what He said in Caesarea Philippi that day. I don’t pretend to have the inside scoop about His intent, but one thing’s for sure. Somewhere in there, He was explaining that His mission would finally put an end to religion.

Peter himself is not the rock (“you are petros”) on which Jesus would build His Church. The Roman Church has gotten a lot of other things wrong just because they got this one thing wrong. Jesus would be building His Church on a different kind of “rock” (“on this petra”). To the Greeks, a petros was a small stone, while petra refers to a larger mountain-esque type of rock. Jesus had been calling Simon petros for a while, but even Peter would have understood that he wasn’t the petra of this conversation.

In Caesarea Philippi, the landscape is dominated by a huge rock feature. Jesus and the disciples couldn’t have not been in proximity to it during this entire exchange. You could say it was a very “religious” rock, because all around it and even carved into it were statues and shrines built to honor other gods.

Caesarea Philippi was one of the most pagan communities in Israel. It was located near the last outpost of Israel, the northern most boundary of what is considered the original Promised Land. The nearer you traveled to those border regions, the greater the pagan influence. Generally, for that reason, the Jewish leaders didn’t venture that far north. So, Caesarea Philippi offered Jesus and His disciples the chance to take a break from the ongoing tension they shared with those guys down in Judea.

When He declared that He would build His Church on “this really big rock” I believe He was referring to the Gospel and what a relief that news would be for a very tired world. Jesus came to drive a stake into the ground, a stake into a huge rock pile of religious belief systems. That stake, His Church, would bring hope to a very religious, but still very lost world.

I see four takeaways in that passage.

1. In order for Peter (or any of us) to receive salvation, we need to be very clear about who He is.

Everything in our lives, both temporal and eternal, depends on who we believe Jesus to be. A person can only dance around that question for so long. At some point, we all have to make a decision.

2. If we make the right call, we not only receive eternal life, we also get a new set of keys.

Verse 19 is a weird verse. (Not that some of the others around it aren’t.) The more I read what others say about this entire passage, the more I notice that those who try to interpret it are generally unimpressed with their own interpretations. But whatever these keys are, they’re not just given to the Twelve. A few chapters later, they’re given to the entire Church.

Call me Captain Obvious if you want to, but I’m compelled to say it. “Keys open things up for people.”

Evidently, Jesus gave all believers authority, the keys to tie some things up and to set some things free. And then He said He’d have our backs whenever and wherever we’re willing to use them.

I believe that every Jesus-follower has been given keys of influence that can open the door to Heaven for other people (since they’re “the keys to the kingdom of Heaven”). And since He gave those keys to all of us, He evidently wants to use all of us to bring others to the door to Heaven. A door that had been locked since Eden. A door no religion could open. But a door that Jesus opened a few days after He died.

Remember, we’re not the keys ourselves. We’re just the ones who get to use them.

But that’s not all Jesus had to say to Peter.

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ’Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”  (Matthew 16:21-23)  

3. Jesus predicted the successful fulfillment of His mission, one that would culminate in His death and bodily Resurrection.

Turning to someone He dearly loved, yet addressing Satan himself? That must have been awkward. But Jesus knows that, if He doesn’t die or, even if He does and can’t find His way out of the tomb, the door to Heaven would remain locked.

The disciples were still rather ignorant about the endgame of Jesus’ mission. The comment Peter made, which provoked such a tense response from Jesus, was clearly aimed at trying to protect someone He loved. But Peter had it backwards. His job wasn’t to save Jesus. Jesus came to save him.

4. Jesus predicted the successful fulfillment of our mission, but it would require personal sacrifice.

Jesus had always known He would have to put His human desires and concerns aside, if His divine mission was to succeed. For us, the rules remain the same.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” (Matthew 16:24)

There is only one thing people do on a cross, and that’s die. Because Jesus was willing to die on His cross, He accomplished something no one else could do. He provided atonement for our sin. When we’re willing to die on our cross, opportunities emerge to share the benefits His atonement provided.

We can live to elevate ourselves and our ministries, so that people would be impressed by what we do. Or we can deny ourselves and elevate Jesus.

We can design ministries to put our name on the map or we can design ministries that align with the Great Commission.

We can prepare places where Christians can just mingle with the like-minded, or prepare people to also share the good news of salvation with the lost.

You can use the gifts and resources within your church family to build your church, or you can let Jesus use them to build His. You just can’t do both at the same time.

John the Baptist figured that out. Before Herod killed him, John had actually become something of a celebrity pastor himself. People throughout the entire region went out of their way to hear him preach. (Mark 1:5) It wasn’t that John sought popularity, but he certainly had it. So later, when Jesus began His own ministry, it was important for John to make a strategic personal decision.

“He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:30)

And therein lies a simple formula for discipleship. Consider yourself (your career, your agenda, your comfort, your whatever other human concerns you might have) less often and consider the mission Jesus gave us more often.