June 29th 2025 Acts 12.1-11: Matthew 16.13-19

Yesterday Ana was ordained into the Holy Order of church car park attendants. ‘Should we put a gate across the church carpark entrance?’ is a question to set many a Church Council member on fire. ‘There used to be a gate’ say some. ‘The carpark is always full of people who ignore the no parking signs’ say others. I remember attending a meeting at St Giles’ church Durham and arrived to find a colleague of mine sticking leaflets under car windscreen wipers asking locals not to park. I felt his pain….Yes, locks and keys can solve some issues. But who holds them? ‘Who has the authority to lock the gate? Who is the poor soul expected to respond to Mr Angry when he has found his car locked in the carpark?’
Vicars. Vicars are given keys. Keys are a sign of authority. (hold up big key) A parish like Barnard Castle, you might think deserves a big key like this. ..(hold up key wallet)… but these are mine. There are a lot of them so I must have a lot of authority! Though, as it happens the key to the church is the smallest of them all (hold up) ….so maybe that’s as much authority as you’re happy for me to have! But sometimes we really do need to lock stuff up or lock folk out. That happened to be the case back in 1568 when one of my predecessors drove his churchwardens to distraction by conducting the marriage of a 12 year old girl to a local tinker. The wardens expressed their disquiet by locking the vicar out of his church but, unfortunately, it was they who got into trouble not he as they’d exceeded their authority: he was the legal keyholder, not them. (So Joan and Amanda will have to come up with another plan for me). That said, it was ‘bollards up’ and ‘padlocks on’ when we learned that No 21 down the road is up for sale and the estate agent offers 2 carparking spaces in its back garden with a pleasant drive through the churchyard to access them. Padlocks locked: that’s not going to happen!
There’s a lot of opening and shutting in our bible readings – some of it to do with doors, locks, and keys, and some to do with hearts and minds, with eyes that are closed in sleep or open and awake.
Just like the preacher who dreamed that he was preaching in St Paul’s Cathedral and woke up to find that he was, Peter finds himself dreaming that he is escaping from King Herod’s prison…and wakes up to find that he has! His eyes are closed and then they are opened. The chains are locked and then they are unlocked. The doors are shut…and then they open. If we were to read on in the story we would end up with Peter outside a door that refuses to open – because no one of his friends inside is awake enough to realise that God has answered their prayers for Peter to be freed.
The question is: Who holds the keys: and whose keys are they? …and behind that question about keyholders the deeper question is ‘who is in charge’?
Now notice the conflict in our two passages this morning. Herod, (King Herod to you if you don’t mind!), has it in for the church. He has had James, John’s brother, ‘killed with the sword’. An interesting detail: the manner of James’ death. As we know from the story of Jesus the religious authorities didn’t have the power to kill him – only the Romans. So it seems that Herod can have James executed for ‘political reasons’ despite having arrested James for his faith, (for being a follower of Jesus). For Herod has realised that this Christian faith is a threat to his rule. He sees that you can’t (as Peter does in the Gospel reading) proclaim the Messiah without challenging the authority of all other rulers (himself included). So, with James dead, he moves to arrest Peter, and doing so earns him the approval of the Jews, it wins him some friends amongst those who see the Christian movement as dividing Judaism. From this point it seems that being a Christian is becoming dangerous. Soon, to be a Christian means you are part of a ‘banned organisation’ and should be prepared to take the consequences for this. Herod holds the key to whether Peter will live or die – or so he thinks.
Notice now, how this story has the shape of Good Friday and Easter about it. A ruler. An innocent but courageous man. The time of year: the Feast of Unleavened bread. Judgment to be passed: after the Passover, the prisoner to be presented to the crowd. Notice how Peter is in the dark in prison (as good as dead in the tomb), how he is bound and guarded by soldiers (just as Jesus’ body was), the door is locked – there’s no way out. But the risen Lord has other plans for Peter. For it is He who holds the keys: not Herod. He is Lord, not Herod. Think of the hymn – ‘my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose went forth and followed thee’ – Peter realises that it is the Lord’s angel who has come to him. Whatever we might believe about angels, the story clearly states that it is Jesus’ angel who has delivered him.
So our reading sis showing us that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the keyholder. We sing it during Advent: O come, O come thou key of David, come and open wide our heav’nly home; make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery. And he comes. And sets Peter free. Jesus brings freedom. Don’t get me wrong: many innocent people have died horrible deaths in awful prisons and many of them have died for their Christian faith. But there is a freedom in following Jesus that gives strength and courage to his followers come what may: Psalm 118 – ‘The Lord is on my side, what can flesh do to me’. Peter now has a resurrection faith, a belief that Death can do its worst but that God’s love is stronger than death: He is held by God for all eternity. He had met with the risen Lord, he had been filled with God’s Spirit. From being the impulsive disciple who recognizes Jesus as Messiah, through his utter failure and cowardice on Maundy Thursday when he denied Jesus, the Peter we see here has been restored and empowered to serve his Lord. By this chapter in the book of Acts he has already been imprisoned once: Jesus’ words from John’s gospel that he would be ‘bound and led in ways not of his own choosing’ have already started to be fulfilled – but that’s OK. Why? Because, as this story shows, being a Christian (let alone a church leader or Apostle…or for that matter a newly ordained priest) always means holding death and resurrection together. In the story they follow one after another. In life they are lived at the same time. The Christian life is a baptism into both Jesus’ death and his resurrection.

Jesus holds the keys to the Kingdom. Jesus holds the keys to freedom. These keys bind and constrain evil but most importantly, they open doors. They open to us the gates of heaven but Jesus also has the keys to the gates of hell – not to drive people through them and in to eternal death but to fling the gates open and let people out! The gates of hell will not prevail against Christ’s church. He is the one who gives his church his keys.

Part of me wanted this sermon to be all about our new priest, Ana. But it’s not. It’s about us: the people of God, all of us. You and I have had our eyes opened to who Jesus is: the Son of the living God, the Lord of heaven and earth. This was an act of his grace, not an achievement on our part. You and I have been set free to serve him. He has opened up to us a new way of living, a new way of being. In our baptism we stepped out of a life lived in the shadow of death and into His kingdom where the fruit of His Spirit can grow freely. And you and I – everyone of us, (not just clergy, not just professional Christians)- are charged with holding wide open the gates of hell so that others can walk free. So many peoples’ lives are a living hell. And so, across the world Christians feed the hungry, clothe the naked, offer protection to those who suffer abuse, heal the sick and lift up the poor, the brokenhearted and those who struggle with addiction. We minister to prisoners and refugees, we sit alongside the dying and we bury the dead. We challenge injustice and cruelty. We affirm God’s image in every human being. In Jesus’ name we raise our voices so that people might hear: ‘you are loved, walk this way, follow this light, leave these chains behind you, come through these doors and find freedom’. That is the ministry of the priesthood of all believers, to set free the captives and to open the eyes of those who are blind to a vision of the risen Lord. Christians have the best of jobs don’t they? – through our actions to hold open the gates of hell and to help people enter the Kingdom of heaven, here on earth, as Jesus’ friends and disciples.