Maundy Thursday, March 29, 2018
What is the difference between Peter and the others? Does he have such a heroic nature that he rises head and shoulders above them? He does not. Does he have unmatched strength of character? He does not. Does he have such unshakable loyalty? He does not. Peter is nobody really, nobody but a person who confesses, a person who has met Christ standing in his path and has recognized him, and who now confesses his faith in Christ. And this Peter, this confessing person, is now named as the rock on which Christ will build his church.
The church of Peter–that means the church on the rock, the church of confessing Christ. The church of Peter is not the church of opinions and views but rather the church of revelation; not the church that talks about “what people say” but the church in which Peter’s confession is always being made and spoken anew, the church that does nothing else but always and only make this confession, whether in singing, praying, preaching, or action. It is the church that only stands on the rock as long as it keeps doing this, but becomes the house built on sand (Matthew 7:26-27) that the wind blows down if it dares to think of going another way, for whatever reason, or even to look away for a moment.
-from The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Volume 1, pg. 84
