If we were to review all the accounts of St. Peter from Scripture, we could make this generalization: sometimes he is so rock solid, but sometimes he is soft and wavering.

Sometimes, Peter is solid as a rock. And well he should be given that his name "Peter" means "rock." First of all, we have the account from our Gospel lesson this morning. Jesus asks the disciples who people say He is. The words on the street are that he's John the Baptist or Elijah or Jeremiah or some other prophet returned. Not one of them is correct, but that's what people believe. So, he turns to the disciples and asks them, "But who do you say that I am?" "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," Peter confessed. He is correct, and here's why: flesh and blood has not revealed this to him, but the Father who is in heaven.

As if to confirm Peter's solid-as-a-rock confession, Jesus goes on to say, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Some would like you to believe that the rock Jesus spoke of is Peter; that the church is built upon this "first" apostle, so to speak. If that's the case, then Peter was given authority over the church—an authority to say, "Whatever I say goes." Then, when Peter died, whoever took over for Peter received Peter's authority, and so on and so forth. The one who now holds the authority of Peter answers to the name Benedict, the Pope of the Roman Catholic church.

A better explanation is that rock refers to Peter's confession. That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God is a rock-solid confession, and the confession of all of those who are in the Church. You cannot go wrong confessing, "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God." And, as Jesus says and is later corroborated, "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit."

However, the best explanation is that the rock refers to Jesus, himself. The Church will be built on Jesus, the rock that the builders rejected that becomes the chief cornerstone. And the gates of hell NEVER prevail against Him.

The keys of heaven, then, are this: the proclamation of God's Law and Gospel. Peter will tell of Jesus to all who will hear, using the Law to call people to repent of their sin and the Gospel to forgive them of it. When people hear that Gospel and believe, their sins are loosed from them and the gates of heaven are opened, but if they refuse, their sins are bound to them and the gates remain locked.

Backtracking a bit, it's a good thing that Peter is not the rock. After all, as was mentioned, sometimes Peter is rock solid, and sometimes he is not—sometimes, he's anything but rock solid. You may recall what happened to Peter just after Jesus "gives" him the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus tells His disciples that he "must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes Him. Without hesitation, Jesus says to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

One moment, Peter is told that His confession is from God, the next, he's being told that his mind is not on Godly things, but the things of man. One moment, he is to proclaim the free salvation found in Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, the next, he's preventing you and everyone from being forgiven. One moment, Peter is rock solid, the next, he's not.

Or recall the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter tells Jesus that he will defend him at all costs. He points out a swords, and later even hacks off the ear of Malchus, a temple guard—all in defense of his rabbi. But, as the temple guards seize Jesus, he runs away, even denies knowing Jesus three times before the rooster crows. One moment, Peter is rock solid, the next, he's not.

Look also to the first reading for today. Believers belonging to the party of the Pharisees stood up and protested that Gentile believers need to be circumcised to be saved. Peter, however, stood up in their defense, saying, "We believe that we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, just as they will." We will be saved by grace—we circumcised Jewish believers—just as they will—they uncircumcised Gentile believers. But, Peter being Peter, he wavers and starts moving in the other direction, forcing Gentile converts to observe Jewish customs—among them, circumcision. Thankfully, Paul is there to rebuke him, which he recounts just after today's Epistle reading:

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified."

At one time, Peter is rock solid, the next, he's not.

Speaking of Paul, today being Sts. Peter AND Paul, we can also turn our attention to Paul, a great apostle himself, and one of Luther's favorites. Paul, in his rebuke of Peter was, himself, rock solid. But Paul also confesses that there are times when He is not. Listen carefully to these words of his (assuming I don't stumble through them):

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

A man highly respected in the Church throughout the centuries admits to being "weak," for lack of a better term—of being unable to do what he knows to be the right thing.

Now, all of this is not to say that Peter and Paul deserve any less respect than what the Church has rendered to them throughout the years. Here are a couple of men chosen by Christ—despite their weaknesses, insecurities, and failings—to spread word of Him around the world. Peter makes an absolutely amazing confession of faith—may we boldly confess like him. Paul was an extraordinary messenger of the grace of God—may we learn from God through his writings. However, neither of them are the solid rock upon which the Church is built; both of them are soft and wavering at times. Both of them struggle and succumb to sin. Thankfully, both of them knew this.

That is why we do honor and respect them, why we organize congregations under their names (like our own), because they recognized their own sinfulness and knew whom to look to for forgiveness, Jesus Christ, the Rock upon which the Church is built who never wavers. More than that, however, they point people to the Rock of their salvation, too!

Still, it is very easy to prop up these men (and others like them, like the other apostles) and give them honor not due to them. The Church, faith, and the faith is not based or founded upon these men, but on the One to Whom they point. But, looking to these men and those like them as the basis of faith has been a problem in the Church as long as there has been a Church. Paul writs of this:

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

It continued through the years with the Papacy, as was mentioned earlier. And, it continues today as one televangelist after another thumps his chest to proclaim the great works he has done (even non-televised preachers, too, I would assume). Each of these people may say and do some rock-solid things at times, but they are each also human and struggle with sin and waver.

Related to this is the danger of putting stock the personality of the preacher. It goes something like this: If the preacher has a personality you like, then what he has to say must be right; but if he does or says something that you don't like or acts in a manner that you don't like, then what he says must not be true. The danger lies in the fact that false teachers can be very appealing, while faithful pastors may not be; an appealing personality does not equal being solid as a rock and vice versa. As an example, back at my old home congregation, the pastor has stopped announcing when he would miss a Sunday due to vacation because people wouldn't come to church to listen to a man who might not have as like-able a personality as him. If you're going to church or not going to church because of the personality of the preacher, you're going or not going for the wrong reasons.

No one is rock solid all the time—not Peter, not Paul, not any man who has filled this or any other pulpit, nor any of you—only Christ! We all struggle with being anything but rock solid. We each have tempers that we lose. No one is perfectly patient. There's certainly a problem with gossip, leading to false and misleading perceptions of people. We don't keep every promise and make promises we never intend to keep. We shift blame, not taking responsibility for our own actions. And I could go on and on. No, not one of us is rock solid!

But, Jesus Christ is the solid rock of our faith. And He has forgiveness and life and salvation to freely give you! Where we grow impatient and lose our tempers, Jesus gently and patiently leads you to confess your sin and forgives you. Where we gossip and spread rumors and lies, Jesus truthfully tells us of our condition and gives of Himself, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Where we break our promises and make promises we don't intend to keep, Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise to redeem His people, us included. Where we shift blame and take no responsibility for our actions, Jesus quietly received the blame for all of our sins, took responsibility for them in our place, and destroying them in His death on the cross.

What great good news this is. Jesus Christ is the rock Peter and Paul pointed to as the foundation of faith. Jesus Christ is the rock of Peter's confession. Jesus Christ is the rock upon which the Church is built, and no other! He is the only one who lived a perfect life without sin—rock solid all the time. He is the only one who took our sins upon himself—rock solid all the way. He is the only one who died in our place to redeem us from our sin—rock solid like no other. He is the only one who rose again from the dead to give us victory over death—the Rock against which the gates of hell NEVER prevailed.

Jesus gives the keys of the kingdom of heaven so that the proclamation of His Law and His Gospel is made. By that proclamation the gates of heaven are swung wide open to all who receive Christ, His Word, and His forgiveness. The proclamation started with Peter and continues today as faithful, though weak, insecure, and failing, preachers continue to proclaim the Law and Gospel of God's Word—as they continue to proclaim Christ crucified and risen for the forgiveness of sins—just as Peter and Paul did. It is that proclamation that makes them faithful, given to them to say by the Father who is in Heaven.

Dear hearers in Christ, today the gates of heaven are flung wide open for you. The office of the keys is in use in your hearing. Christ is your Rock who has forgiven you for all of your sins.