27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 They told Him, saying, “John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.” 29 And He continued by questioning them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”
The time was growing very near for Jesus to accomplish His departure at Jerusalem. That’s the way Luke put it in chapter nine of his Gospel. On the mountain when Jesus met with Moses and Elijah they were there to discuss the departure He was about to accomplish.
So if anyone ever challenges you concerning who killed Jesus and whose fault it was; whether it was the Jews or the Romans or Judas; you can tell them that He went to Jerusalem to accomplish His departure because He had faithfully completed all that the Father had given Him to do.
As to blame, you can tell them that it was their fault. Then as the look of shock crosses their face you can add that we were all to blame, but He went there willingly to carry the blame away for us.
It was time to return to the Father; it was necessary, according to what Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:26). So He went there and accomplished His departure.
But for now here we are in Mark 8 and Jesus has gone with His disciples to the region of Caesarea Philippi.
About six days later He’ll take them up the mountain where they will witness His glory and His chat with Moses and Elijah, and then coming down from there He will set His face like flint for Jerusalem where He will be handed over to cruel men and be tortured and crucified. So the time is close.
That is important for you to know, because as His earthly ministry began to draw to an end everything intensified. The Pharisees grew more and more intent on murdering Him, the crowds grew larger and larger, until He started talking about unpleasant things like eating His body and drinking His blood, then suddenly they weren’t so interested anymore.
You know, it is a very interesting study to go through the Gospels and pay attention to all the attitudes people had about Jesus.
Some had the attitude that He should be made King so He might destroy the Romans and free Israel and the world from their oppression.
Some had the attitude that whenever He comes around He should feed them miraculously, heal their diseases and so forth.
Some, the ones closest to Him, had the attitude that He should assign them a special place in Heaven at His right hand.
Some, like Herod, just had the attitude that He should do miracles like magic tricks for their entertainment.
And perhaps you are now beginning to understand why the Gospel writers tell us that Jesus was followed by ‘multi-‘tudes’.
Things haven’t really changed, have they? If you were to go out on the street with a clip board and a microphone and ask people their own attitude about Jesus you’d get just as many and just as varied responses, even today.
But for now here we are in Mark 8 and Jesus has gone with His disciples to the region of Caesarea Philippi.
SOME HISTORY
To get the full impact of the significance of where they are and the topic of their discussion there we need to understand some things about Caesarea Philippi.
If you check the maps in the back of your Bible you can see Bethsaida on the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee. You’d probably find it on the map designated as ‘Palestine in the time of Christ’.
Once you’ve located the north end of the Sea of Galilee, let your eyes drift almost directly north from there and you will see Caesarea Philippi and you may see the word Panias in more bold print.
A beautiful temple was built there by Herod the Great in honor of the Caesar, then later his grandson Philip changed the name from Panias to Caesarea Philippi, adding his own name, Philip, to the end to distinguish it from the town of Caesarea located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
The region itself, there on the southern slopes of Mt Hermon, continued to be called Panias, named for the Greek god of all nature, Pan. There were altars to Pan there, probably visible from where they were when they had this discussion.
On the side of Hermon there was a cave from which water flowed that marked the beginnings of the Jordan and fed both the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. In that cave was a shrine to Pan and worshipers went there to pay him homage.
I’d like to read an excerpt from William Barclay’s commentary on Matthew in reference to this same occasion in this same place.
“The area was scattered with temples of the ancient Syrian Baal worship. Thomson in The Land and the Book enumerates no fewer than fourteen such temples in the near neighborhood. Here was an area where the breath of ancient religion was in the very atmosphere. Here was a place beneath the shadow of the ancient gods.
“Not only the Syrian gods had their worship here. Hard by Caesarea Philippi there rose a great hill, in which was a deep cavern; and that cavern was said to be the birthplace of the great god Pan, the god of nature. So much was Caesarea Philippi identified with that god that its original name was Panias, and to this day the place is known as Banias. The legends of the gods of Greece gathered around Caesarea Philippi.”
“The Gospel of Matthew, vol 2, William Barclay, Westminster Press, 1975 revised edition, pg 134, 135
We can only imagine the spiritual darkness of this place. We can hardly fathom the host of demonic spirits that must have used this region as their cavorting ground.
Who can know how many children were murdered upon the altars of Baal there (Jer 19:5) and how many animal sacrifices had been made to Baal and Pan himself in these numerous temples that dotted the landscape?
This is the only account we have in the Gospel record of Jesus traveling any farther north than Chorazin or Bethsaida (Matt 11:21); yet He takes His chosen twelve all the way to the base of Mt Hermon, a full 25 miles north of Bethsaida, presumably for the sole purpose of asking them a question that will extract from them a declaration of His deity.
Now I hope I’m not reading something into this occasion that I should not, but it just does my heart some good to think of the utter anguish and turmoil that must have been wreaked in the spirit realm of this devil-filled region when the Light of the world walked boldly in, turned to this ragtag band of followers, asked, “Who do you say that I am?” and this big, burly, uneducated fisherman burst out with “You are the Christ”!
Hallelujah!
THE FIRST QUESTION
Now let’s back up about a step and a half and sharpen our focus a little.
The first question Jesus asked His disciples is a revealing one if we pause to consider its implications.
“Who do people say that I am?”
I would be difficult to convince that Jesus was unaware of what people were saying about Him. He knew what was in the hearts and minds of men, didn’t He?
We see evidence of this time and again throughout the Gospels. He knew what the Pharisees were thinking. He knew what the disciples were discussing among themselves as they went along the way. He did not trust Himself to men, we’re told, because He knew what was in the hearts of men.
He didn’t need to read Jeremiah to know that the heart of a man is deceitful and desperately wicked.
Yet He asks this question. “Who do people say that I am?”
“Well, we don’t know, Lord, we just stick close by your side and listen to your teaching and watch you do miracles, and when you go off to pray we take naps because quite frankly, you wear us out.”
“Actually, Jesus, we feel that now that we know you we should pretty much stay away from those who don’t know you because they’re very sinful, you know, and we want to keep ourselves pure. So we go to church and we listen to music about you and we go to an occasional gospel concert and get all of our reading materials from the Christian book store, so we don’t really have time to pay much attention to what people say in their ignorance. Anyway, we don’t want to subject our minds to worldly ideas and philosophies or worldly entertainment so we just try to avoid those things altogether.”
Listen, church, you’d better know what people say about Jesus. How can you help them if you don’t know them? How can you communicate with them if you don’t even know what they think?
Years ago, not too long after I surrendered to Christ, a young man and his wife came to our church for a week long revival. They sang and he preached, and it’s been so long that I don’t remember much beyond that. But one thing he said in the course of that week has always stayed with me.
He said that he became a believer in Christ at a very young age and could not even remember not being a Christian. He had been preaching since he was in his early teens.
So, he said, one day it occurred to him that he didn’t really understand non-Christians at all. So he went to a local bar at night, ordered a soft drink, and sat by himself in the corner just watching the crowd and observing their behaviors.
He said that he sat there until closing time and noted that when the bartender announced last call and started to collect up empty bottles and glasses and move people toward the door it amazed him that people seemed reluctant to go.
He said, “I’ve never seen people reluctant to leave the church. So I thought about it on the way home, and I realized that the reason they were reluctant to leave was because they felt comfortable with one another. They felt accepted and they enjoyed each other’s company and they didn’t want it to end.”
Oh, that it could be so in the church.
The point is he was willing to go outside of his comfort zone to get some idea about people who weren’t like him, who didn’t believe the same way he believes, so he might more effectively reach out to them.
And friends and family y’know what? I don’t believe Jesus is nearly so concerned with what goes on here, or what type of building we meet in, or what our rituals are, as He is with how we relate to those outside of our walls and outside of Christ.
What do people say about Jesus? Who do they say He is in Montrose, Colorado? Or Pomona or Merced or Valencia, California? Or Plano or McKinney, Texas? Or wherever you happen to be?
Do you know?
Well the disciples weren’t ignorant. They had been listening and probably chatting with the people. Some think John the Baptist. Some say Elijah. Matthew adds Jeremiah to the list and then there is just the general supposition that He is one of the other prophets.
What does that tell us? People believed generally in the idea of a resurrection. They thought one of the long-dead prophets had come back and was teaching about the Kingdom and doing miracles in their midst.
So if the disciples had some special insight and realized what was going to happen in the near future, they might have latched onto that generally accepted belief in resurrection and when Jesus rose they might have been emboldened to say, “Hey, remember when you thought Jesus was a risen Old Testament prophet? Well, He is risen from the dead, but He was Jesus before and He’s Jesus now.”
Well I guess after the Holy Spirit came they pretty much did preach that message, didn’t they? We should take our cue from that. If you find out what people are saying you’ll find out what they believe in.
But the people had an opinion, didn’t they?
Folks these days have opinions too. They’re wrong. Jesus was a great teacher. He was like Muhammad. He was like Gandhi. He was like Buddha. He was a spirit being. He didn’t really exist, He’s just a story someone made up.
Do you talk with these people? Have you heard these things?
Christian, you who have the Holy Spirit who leads you into all truth; you who have the Word of God in your hand and hopefully in your heart; do you chat with them?
In your own experience, who do people say Jesus is? If you don’t know, why don’t you know?
THE SECOND QUESTION
I do believe Jesus asked them the first question, not because He didn’t know the answer, but to prime their thinking. What have you been hearing?
What’s the scoop on the streets? Have you been paying attention?
The second question is even more challenging and, if you think about it, may have been a little shocking.
“We’ve been with you about three years now, Lord. Day and night, around the table, sitting at your feet, talking along the way, watching in amazement as you heal lepers and raise the dead. Why, just before we came up here, back there in verses 22 through 25, you gave sight to a blind man! Why would you ask who we think you are?”
Think about it. Wouldn’t that question sound a little silly coming from anyone else you know? Search your mind and think of someone you’ve known for about 3 to 4 years and had pretty regular contact with.
A pastor, your dentist, someone you chat with several times a week at the grocery store, some neighbor who moved in next door or across the street and you talk with them going to and from the mailbox or while out working on your lawn. Have you thought of someone while I ramble?
Now picture them in your mind, suddenly turning to you and asking, “Who do you say I am?”
Peter might have said, “Well, you’re Jesus of Nazareth, of course.” And then winked at his fellow disciples with an expression that said ‘we’d better keep an eye on this guy’.
Well we only need go over to Matthew 16 where he gives a fuller account of the story to see that Peter was inspired by the Holy Spirit in his response. “You are the Christ”. The Messiah. The Promised One sent from the Father.
But Peter didn’t really understand, did he? Just a few minutes later he is rebuking Jesus for talking about going to the cross and Jesus is rebuking him in turn for thinking with the mind of the world.
So can someone speak under the unction of the Holy Spirit and not fully know what they’re talking about? Sure! We preachers do it all the time!
Now that shouldn’t come as a shock. If God can speak His truth through an ignorant donkey it’s not too much of a stretch from that to speaking through us, is it?
That’s why it’s such a shame when people exalt their pastor to some great height in their thinking and when he stumbles a little and shows his human side they reject him.
Why does he sound so eloquent and all together in the pulpit, and then seem to be so lacking sometimes in the social graces?
Because when he studies and prays and meditates over God’s Word the Holy Spirit meets with him in the preaching of it and with you in the hearing of it and God’s voice is heard. That doesn’t mean he is some super being the rest of the week and it doesn’t mean he cannot fall or fail like anyone in his church.
Peter was the spokesman for the group. You hear that all the time. It was always Peter giving the answers but it’s understood that he was usually speaking for the rest when he did.
And Jesus blessed him for his accurate declaration. But the worst days of Peter’s life were still on the horizon, and the simple fact behind his failure was that he really didn’t understand Jesus and he didn’t understand His mission.
Christian, who do you say Jesus is? It’s an important question to consider because you might give a seemingly accurate and even eloquent response, but does your life demonstrate that you really know?
In your family relationships and your business practices and your behavior among the brethren and your attitudes toward the lost do you manifest a clear understanding of who Jesus is? Why He came? What He did? The significance of His commands to the church and therefore to you?
It’s kind of a scary question, if you really think about it. Do I know who Jesus is? I’ve been a Christian for years. You might say ‘many years’. Could it be that I am still in the dark in relation to who He really is?
How many people in the church, if they were to suddenly find themselves in a group of thoughtful unbelievers all sharing their thoughts on who this man Jesus was, could give an intelligent and thought-provoking description of the One they call ‘Christ’ that would challenge the thinking of the doubter and bring light into their darkened minds and hearts?
Could you declare Jesus in the dark in such a way as to bring in light?
THE RIGHT ANSWER
Charles Spurgeon recounted the story of a group of missionaries who went in the early 1700’s to Greenland desiring to convert the indigenous people there.
He quoted them as going with this determination on their tongues, “These people are in such darkness that it cannot be of any use to preach Jesus Christ to them at first. They do not even know that there is a God, so let us begin by teaching them the nature of the Deity, showing them right and wrong, proving to them the need of the atonement for sin, and setting before them the rewards of the righteous and the penalties of the wicked.”
Spurgeon said they went on for years without a single convert to Christianity. Here is Spurgeon’s account of what came next.
“One day, one of the missionaries happened to read to a poor Greenlander the story of Jesus bleeding on the cross and how God had sent His Son to die, ‘that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life’. The Greenlander said, ‘Would you read that to me again? What wonderful words! Did the Son of God die for us poor Greenlanders that we may live?’ The missionary answered that it was so, and clapping his hands, the simple native cried, ‘Why did you not tell us that before?’”
(from “The Marvelous Magnet”, C.H. Spurgeon)
Indeed; why do we not?
Why do we seem anxious to take every other message into the darkness except the only one that will dispel it?
Force them to stop having abortions. Force them to post the Ten Commandments in public places. Legislate when they can and cannot sell alcohol. Boycott them if they support the civil rights of homosexuals.
Then smile and bring on the clowns and the River Dancers and the BBQ and the Gospel Rock musicians and invite them to come on in to ‘OUR’ church and be like us!
Christians, Jesus leads us to the dark places. He takes us there so we can declare Him in the dark and bring in light. And when we do, what an embarrassing indictment will it be upon us if they ask, “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
We don’t have all the answers my fellow believers in Christ. Sometimes we just flounder and flop around like pre-Pentecost Peter. But the Father has sent the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to our hearts and He calls us to declare Him in the very face of darkness.
Not in here.
Out there.
Where we live. Where we play. Where we work. It’s not a party. It’s dark out there.
Declare Him.
Now just in case I’ve left anyone confused about what this light is that we are supposed to be bringing, let me make it clear and with this I close.
The Bible says that sin is the common condition of mankind. Sin is rebellion against a Holy God and once it was introduced into this world by the disobedience of the first man spiritual death came to him and therefore to all.
In order to satisfy God’s justice and yet administer His mercy His Son Jesus came and He who had no sin took the penalty of sin to Himself for us all by shedding His blood and dying on the cross. Now, all who admit that they have this sin condition and believe in their heart that Jesus died for them can have eternal life and will never come under God’s judgment because Jesus paid it all. Then because death could not hold Him, He rose bodily from the grave just as He said He would, and now lives to give us eternal life.
Folks, that is the message and the only message that dispels the spiritual darkness in the hearts of men. Sounds like something the preacher says just before an altar call, doesn’t it? Carry it with you like a torch, Christians. Find out what people are saying about Jesus, and after you’ve heard them out, light their path with truth.
Declare Christ in the dark
