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And who do people say I am?
And who do you say I am?
Jesus must have judged that his disciples were ready, as he walked with them through the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Ready for the big question. He knows people have been noticing him; that he’s acquired a bit of a reputation, so he starts there. Who do people say I am? but he knows the answer to that question. Much more important it is that his disciples have realised who he is. Because until they do, until they know he is the Messiah, they won’t make sense of what is to come.
Peter it is, as usual, who names him. You are the Messiah. Simply and directly. No ums or ahs. You are the Messiah. And Jesus affirms it by telling them—strictly ordering them—not to tell anyone else. And then his teaching changes gear. No longer a parable, where the truth is made palatable for different appetites. Now it’s strong meat. He’s going to be killed and rise again. Jesus is pulling no punches here—he’s giving them the truth.
I often wonder how it was in the mind of Jesus—yes, he anticipated dying—he knew he couldn’t be as provocative as he was without coming to a sticky end. But I bet it was like you or me: you know and half-know how things will go. You’re full of doubts—and the garden of Gethsemane shows us a Saviour full of doubt. But you also know that this is it—you’re committing yourself come what may. Getting married, for instance. Or taking on a new task that only you can see through. For Jesus he could see the bitter end.
But Peter doesn’t want to, can’t hear it. He takes Jesus aside. You can hear the conversation: Come on, Jesus. You’re exaggerating. There’s no need to frighten the troops. It won’t end like that, don’t worry. We’ll be there for you. You can hear it, can’t you, that conversation in secret. And Jesus must have wanted to believe Peter. Must have wanted to be seduced by these gentle words that spoke of any number of alternative futures. You can see him waver, and then his sinews stiffen. Get behind me Satan. Get behind me Satan.
Satan who wants an easy life. Satan who will sacrifice integrity and truth for safety and security. Satan, who chooses to lose the only life that really counts.
It’s one of those moments of truth, of revelation. You are the messiah. A moment when the truth stands there, undeniable.
It’s a truth with a history.
When Moses is encountered by God in the flaming bush he is commissioned by God to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. But, says Moses, who shall I say you are? What if they ask me ‘What is your name?’ And God answers ‘I am who I am’. I am has sent me to you. This is my name for ever, and this is my title for all generations. I am who I am.
Here in Mark’s gospel Jesus is revealed as the Messiah—a direct connection to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—the great I am.
A truth with a history—a truth also developed in the gospel of St John where Jesus’ discourses pick up the theme. In St John’s gospel he names himself seven times with the words I am …
I am the bread of life
I am the light of the world
I am the door of the sheep
I am the good shepherd
I am the resurrection and the life
I am the way the truth and the life
I am the true vine
So we have here further elaboration of what the Messiah means: each I am a metaphor to help us understand more deeply what Jesus Christ means to us his followers. Worth pondering each in turn—perhaps take one a day for your own personal prayers.
Who do you say that I am?
Because the question behind this for you and me is to put ourselves in the shoes of Peter and the other disciples and hear Jesus speak to us, challenge us today. Who do you say that I am?
How would you answer?
Because how you answer fundamentally frames the answer to the other question that is of crucial importance in our lives. Who am I? Depending on how we respond to Jesus and his presence in our lives, our own being is shaped and formed.
It’s a paradoxical truth that the more central Jesus Christ is to us, the less egocentric we will be. If Christ is bedrock, the backbone, the core of our being, then the me, myself, I that so often dominates begins to recede. We become much less concerned about our own needs and much more able to stretch ourselves to meet the needs of others, to love in self-sacrificial ways. We lose our lives, our selves.
But—and this is the greatest miracle of all—we lose ourselves but find we are much more ourselves as a result.
Those of us who were at the Dean’s daughters wedding Saturday a week ago, will have heard a reading from the Velveteen Rabbit—a classic children’s book—and a wonderful passage where the old skin horse is explaining what reality means to the Velveteen Rabbit. It’s worth hearing again.
‘What is Real?’ asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?’
‘Real isn’t how you are made’, said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.’ ‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit. ‘Sometimes’, said the Skin Horse for he was always truthful. ‘when you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’ ‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’ ‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
We are made real as we are loved; we make others real by our love.
I am because I am loved by God.
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