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There is so much desire to explain these verses away. For the record, I would like to comment on the linguistic aspect of verse 18.

This is the literal word-by-word for the Latin:

tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam
you are Peter and on this rock I-shall-build church my

To see the Greek original, go to

http://unbound.biola.edu/

, and select Greek NT: Byzantine/Majority Text (2000) as the first version and any English translation for the second version. Select Matthew as book and chapter 16 verse 18. Leave other controls as by default. You will see the Greek original and the translation in a separate window. The Greek will be in Greek letters, but this is, roughly, what they would be transliterated into English alphabet letter-by-letter:

kago de soi lego oti su es petros kai epi taute te petra oikonomeso mou ten ekklesian kai pulai adou ou katischusousin autes

and-I to you say that you are Petros and upon this the rock I-shall-build my the church and doors of-hell not prevail against-her

Greek words have "gender". Words ending in "os" are masculine. Words ending in "a" are feminine (they also inflect, and there are other endings beside these two, but these two are sufficient for our purpose here). "Petra" is "rock"; it is a feminine noun. Accordingly, "taute" and "te" are feminine prepositions that together mean "this [feminine thing]". "epi taute te petra" means "upon this rock", straight up, -- no wordplay.

Then there is this word, "petros". It is a masculine form of "petra". You can take any Greek word ending in "-a", and make up a similar masculine word out of it replacing "-a" with "-os". We can't do so in English because we don't have gender for inanimate nouns. We have a similar effect with some names, e.g. "Brenda" and "Brendan". But in Greek we can do so systematically. Usually, if we take a regular Greek feminine word and form a masculine counterpart, we get a non-word. "Petros" is a non-word. It suggests "petra" but is wrong, masculine, gender. How can we use such non-word? We can give a man a nickname. The nickname, e.g. Petros, will follow the proper grammar for men, but will still suggest "petra", -- Rock.

There is no record of the proper name Petros used prior to the spread of Christianity. It might have been a rarely used name, or it might have been a non-word till Christ invented it. In any event, there is nothing in the text to indicate any desire on the part of Christ to make Peter a "stone" (the word for that would be "lithos") or a "pebble". There is nothing that suggests pointing away from Peter at some rock far off.

It is possible that the actual words were uttered in Aramaic, and indeed Peter is called Cephas, Aramaic for Rock, elsewhere. In this case the Greek word formation, "petros" is how Matthew rendered the renaming while making the Greek grammar still work.

Nor, of course, is there anything in the broader context to suggest irony on the part of Christ. Simon alone recognized Jesus as the messiah; Jesus indicates that Peter has a divine revelation about that, renames him (in the tradition of Old Testament patriarchs) and promises to Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. He also explains that the "keys" will hold the power to legislate on earth in such way that Christ Himself will enforce these laws in heaven.