“Who Do You Say I Am?”
Matthew 16:13-20
Jesus and His disciples are out on the road, making their way to Caesarea Philippi, a bustling port city the Galilee.
Jesus asks them, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
And they tell Him that people are saying all sorts of things—as people tend to do.
Some say He’s John the Baptist, recently beheaded by Herod, come back from the dead.
Others say He’s the prophet Elijah—who was thought to return before the end times.
Others say Jeremiah—another one of Israel’s prophets who had his own tensions with the authorities and suffered mightily for it.
It seems no one understands exactly what or whom they are witnessing.
They’ve never seen something or someone like Jesus before.
But then Jesus turns the question to His disciples, and asks what seems to be the question He wanted to ask all along: “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”
And praise God, they got it right!
I mean, the disciples rarely get things right in the Gospels, so we need to lift them up when they do.
Peter is the first to speak up, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
But what does it mean to call Jesus “the Messiah, the Son of the living God?”
Even though Jesus seems satisfied with Peter’s response, Peter doesn’t exactly know what it means to call Jesus the Messiah—definitely not at this point, at least.
I mean, Jesus is not going to be the Messiah anyone expects.
The Messiah was not expected to be a healer or a person of wisdom.
The Messiah was one who was going to come like a warrior with a sword, taking down the oppressive powers.
He was going to be one who purifies, burning away the bad and rotten parts of the world.
But instead, Jesus comes as a poor peasant, not a warrior.
And instead of being the One Who purifies and throws out that which is bad and unclean, He sits with the unclean and has meals with the sinners and tax collectors.
He comes near to them, He doesn’t throw them out.
And He certainly doesn’t topple and destroy the oppressive powers of the day.
Instead, He is the One Who is destroyed…
…Killed on a Cross by the Roman regime.
And, of course, Jesus knows He is not the kind of Messiah Peter is expecting.
In fact, in the next couple of verses Jesus is going to call Peter “Satan.”
Jesus tells His disciples that He has to go to die in Jerusalem and Peter tries to tell Jesus that this can’t happen.
Jesus is going to save the world, but not in the way anyone would think.
And so, even though Peter gets it right, he still--sort of--gets it wrong.
I can relate to that, how about you?
How many of us know all there is to know about Jesus?
How many of us have all the answers.
We might have the answer—that is, Jesus is Lord, the Son of the Living God, the Savior, the Messiah…
…but what does that mean?
Remember when Paul said to the Corinthians: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
The Christian Faith is a journey—an exciting journey of getting to know Who God is.
And we learn as we put our faith into practice.
In Acts, Peter has to learn many things as it pertains to following Christ.
For example, at first he thinks only the Jewish people and those who are circumcised and eat the right kind of foods can be saved.
But, he has to learn that Christ died for all, as does the Church, and it takes time.
It also takes listening to the Voice of the Holy Spirit and paying attention to what God is doing in our midst.
Think about it this way, when I met my wife, I liked her—I was attracted to her, but I didn’t know her very well.
But, as time goes on I learn more and more and more about her—every day really.
It’s the same way with our friends or co-workers.
At first, we only know them in a very shallow and superficial way.
But, as we spend time with them, in relationship, we come to know them pretty well.
It’s the same with Jesus.
The more time we spend with Him, the more we are in ministry with and for Him…
…the more we come to learn about Him.
And there is nothing more beautiful nor exciting in all the world.
So, I want us all to ask ourselves the question Jesus asked His disciples so long ago: “Who do YOU say Jesus is?”
And I don’t just mean, “What do the Creeds say about Jesus?”
Or…
“Who have other people told me Jesus is?”
But “Who do YOU say that Jesus is?”
And here’s the thing: I suspect that I am not alone in sensing a disconnect between my public confession and my everyday actions.
So, I want us all to ask ourselves, “Who do I say Jesus is” with my life?
That is, with my relationships—how I treat and look at others…
…with my bank account…
…with my time…
…my energy…
…and all the rest.
“Who do I really say Jesus is?”
Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to give us all a guilt trip.
Rather, I want us to wonder together for a moment or two what we actually mean when we say, with Peter, that Jesus is the Messiah, Son of the Living God.
Or that Jesus is Lord, or that Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity.
What does that mean for us?
How does it or does it affect our lives and if so, how?
Back in Matthew Chapter 7 Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
So, could it be that we profess Who Jesus is by whether or not we seek to do the “will of the Father”?
If so, it might behoove us to find out the will of the Father.
There can be no doubt, Jesus makes it pretty clear, what that will is, throughout the Gospels.
Professing that Jesus is the Christ, our Savior, the Messiah is just the beginning.
What we do with that, is what truly matters.
As James puts it, “We show our faith by what we do.”
And I’ll be the first to admit, more often than not—my faith looks pretty dim.
And Jesus knows this, that’s why He had to come and die.
That’s why we are to confess our sins.
That’s why we are to turn from our sins and turn toward Christ.
And it is a daily, minute by minute, life-long journey.
And we are constantly engaging His question about Who we say He is, and in doing so we not only discover Jesus anew we discover ourselves anew.
As Paul writes in Philippians Chapter 3: “I want to know Christ…Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of me.”
Has Christ taken hold of you?
If so, why?
To save your soul from hell?
Yes.
To conform you into His image in this life?
Yes.
To use you to help save the world?
Yes.
As it did with Peter, the real journey begins when we answer with Peter: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
The journey continues as we learn what that means as we seek to live into what it means to follow Him!
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, the great pastor and theologian, while sitting in the darkness of a prison cell in Nazi Germany, determined that Jesus’ question to the disciples in our Gospel Lesson for this morning, was the central question for the Church in his time and for every generation to come: “Who is Jesus Christ for us today?,” he asked with urgency.
In other words, what does the call to follow Jesus look like for us in this moment?
For instance, what does it mean to follow Jesus when someone is hungry?
What does it mean to follow Jesus when someone is thirsty?
What does it mean to follow Jesus when someone needs clothing or is in prison or sick?
We might add: “What does it mean to follow Jesus during the COVID-19 Pandemic?”
“What does it mean to follow Jesus during this time of racial unrest?”
“What does it mean to follow Jesus when so many are unemployed?”
“Who do we say Jesus is when a loved one dies, the doctor gives news we did not want to hear, or our life seems to be falling apart?”
“Who do we say Jesus is when we are faced with decisions that have no easy answers, when the storms of life seek to overwhelm us, when faithfulness means risking it all and taking a stand against a louder and seemingly more powerful majority?”
“What does it mean to say Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior, my example, my brother and friend?”
“What does it mean to say Jesus is my life, the song I sing, or my teacher?”
Here’s my point, who we say Jesus is has everything to do with who and how we are and will be.
It reveals how we will live and what we will stand up for.
It guides our decisions, and determines the actions we take and the words we speak.
It discloses the depth of our motivation and commitment to following Him, a motivation and commitment that will be challenged by next week’s Gospel Lesson in which Jesus invites us to take up our cross and die with him.
When Jesus asks us who we say He is, I don’t think Jesus is asking us to just parrot back the answers we’ve heard or read.
Maybe that’s why He pushes the disciples to move from what they are hearing around them to what they are hearing within themselves.
And each of us must answer for ourselves.
It is not, however, a theology or Bible exam.
If anything, it is an examination of our own lives.
I love it in 1st Corinthians when Paul says: “think of what you were when you were called.
Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God…”
Think about Peter…
…a fisherman—much more used to mending nets and catching and selling fish—finds himself at a turning point in history—when Jesus is revealed as the Christ.
And Jesus makes it clear that such insight cannot come from human thinking—but it is a revelation from God.
It is a gift from God!!!
Praise God.
And so, this morning, Jesus asks you and Jesus asks me: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
Some say, “He’s was a good teacher.”
“He was a rabbi.”
“Some will even say, He was delusional—out of His mind.”
Then Jesus, looks us in the eye, with the greatest of love and asks: “But what about you?
Who do you say I am?”
What is your answer?
What is mine?
