“Who do you say that I am?”
If that is not a loaded question I don’t know what is. Jesus asks Peter and the other disciples bluntly. There is no turning to the person beside you or giving in to rumor, but each person must speak for themselves and Peter does, “The Christ of God.” That answer would chance his life forever and our answer will change ours. Once we testify and recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Anointed One, the Word Incarnate there is no going back. In fact, Jesus then points out what kind of Messiah he will be:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
I don’t think this was the Messiah that Peter and the other disciples were counting on, but that is the Messiah they got. Our faith is all about discovering, recognizing, and loving Jesus for who he is, not what we want him to be.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York commented last year that we have forgotten that we are a Church of the cross. We are baptized into Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection, but many times we only want the latter part. If we die then we will rise, if we are willing to lay our lives down then we will be lifted up, in our weakness we find our strength. This is the paschal mystery and the central tenant of our faith. There is no getting around, side stepping or ducking the issue…if we want Jesus, then we have to accept all of him. If we want to be faithful disciples then we need to embrace the entire paschal mystery. With every cross there is resurrection and with every dying there is a rising to new life, but you can’t have one without the other.
It is about time as a Church, a community, a family, a society and a world that we remember and embrace who we are. It is about time that we accept Christ for who he is instead of worshipping the idol that we want. So…”who do you say that I am?” You might want to be careful on how you answer.
