“Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do men/people say that I am?’” From the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 8, verse 27.
In the Name etc..
A list of the teachings, miracles, healings, and events of the Gospel, preceding the declaration of Peter in today’s Gospel, is a stunning array of revelations and occurrences, challenges and dangers. The disciples frequently question Jesus about the meaning of what he is doing, since they evidently don’t really understand fully, and can’t reach what, to Jesus, would be the obvious meaning. Jesus, in this chapter, reaches a point in his work in which he must make it clear who he is and what he is doing, since the disciples are evidently not able to put it together themselves. Let us look at what has just preceded Jesus’s question, and Peter’s answer.
At the beginning of the chapter, we have the Feeding of the Four Thousand, which is essentially a repeat of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in chapter 6. It is as though Jesus really has to hammer the point home, that his compassion, and their compassion even, make the feeding possible, that there is no limit to what they can do when they free themselves from their fear of scarcity, from their everyday sense of limitation and commonsense understanding of how the world works. This event is a prelude, a precondition almost, to Jesus’s question and Peter’s declaration. It is part of Jesus’s long preparation of the disciples, to pry them loose from traditional understandings and to open them up to his, and their, real nature and vocation.
Right after this event, the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign from Heaven. The Pharisees, at this moment, really show us how to miss the point, how not to see what is right in front of us. They don’t see a sign from Heaven in the Feeding of the Four Thousand. If that isn't a sign from Heaven, what is? What’s it going to take? Jesus says, “no sign will be given to this generation”. Not true, actually. This whole chapter, indeed the whole Gospel, is about the sign he will give to “this generation” and every generation. Jesus tells his disciples to “beware the leaven of the Pharisees” (as the old translation says); that is, beware the desire, conscious or unconscious, to avoid a real answer to our questions, to avoid an answer that leads us beyond what we expect, an answer outside our comforting routines, a sign, indeed, from Heaven.
Jesus, just after the Feeding of the Four Thousand, asks the disciples more questions: Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you...fail to see? Do you...fail to hear? Do you not remember? Do you not yet understand? The point of these questions is not to elicit literal, yes or no, factual statements, like answers to a pop quiz. Rather, Jesus is shaking the disciples loose from the routines of conventional thinking and habit that lead them, and us, away from reality. He is preparing them, and us, for the two-part question to which he has been leading them all along; the first of which is, as the old translation says, “Who do men say that I am?” Jesus has prepared them for this question, and he perceives that they are ready for Part 2 of the question, and to hear an answer, to experience reality in greater depth and openness. The rest of the Gospel turns on answers to this two-part question.
“And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist, and others, Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets.’” This is the answer, the first answer, that Jesus expects. Only when the disciples get to this level, are they ready for the next question, Part 2: “But who do you say that I am?” The striking thing about this question is, only Peter answers him. “You are the Messiah.” According to the Gospel at least, no one else says a word. Perhaps there was more to the conversation. Apparently the disciples are in agreement with Peter, that Jesus is more than John the Baptist, more than Elijah, more than the prophets.
Now, as we remember, the people of the time thought that the Messiah would restore an earthly kingdom to Israel, that the messianic, Davidic king would drive the Romans from their land. As we hear, this is the expectation that Peter has, and likely the other disciples too. But Jesus wastes no time in saying to Peter that there is more to the Messiah, to the Son of Man as our reading titles him, than a mere earthly king. He must suffer, and be rejected, and killed, and rise again. Peter is appalled, and says so. So are we appalled, when we are honest with ourselves. Suffering, rejection, death, these are not things that are attractive to us. But Jesus says to Peter and to us, “you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Jesus goes on to spell out what this can mean: “take up your cross and follow me”, “lose [your] life for my sake” and so on. Teachings like these remind me of what C S Lewis said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
Jesus is talking like this to shock his disciples, and us, into awareness. We know that many Christians are called to physical suffering, even martyrdom, if we are called to it. But since suffering in one form or another comes to all of us, we may understand it as an opportunity to let go of our desire for comfort, safety, an easy life, and to open ourselves to identify physically as well as spiritually with God in Christ. I realize that it is easy to say this, and hard to live it. But Our Lord’s Messiahship is about this, about experiencing his life in ours, and our lives in his. As Paul the Apostle says, “Not I live, but Christ lives in me.” And our suffering is a gateway to that living experience. When the priest is preparing the chalice at the offertory, as he pours a little water into the chalice he prays, “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” That is what the Messiahship of Jesus is about, our participation in his divinity, his participation in our humanity, his bringing us to awareness of his, and our, true nature. That is what the kingdom of the Messiah is.
“[Jesus] asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him ‘You are the Messiah’”.
In the Name etc..
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