8-21-17 - Identity Check

It’s a mid-course check-in. Jesus had collected a community of followers. He had healed hundreds, fed thousands, forgiven, blessed, released and taught. But did anyone know who he really was?

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” (Next Sunday's gospel reading is here.) 

Jesus used the title “Son of Man” to refer to himself. This mystery has given biblical scholars plenty to chew on through the millennia. It is a title that appears often in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where it does not suggest divine identity. It might be a title of humility, as well as humanity. In effect he was asking his closest associates, “Who do people say that I am?”

Their answers reflected the recent or distant past. Jesus was regarded as a prophet in the mold of, or even as a personification of the great Elijah or Jeremiah or another. Some thought he had taken on the mantle of John the Baptist. Then Jesus probed a bit deeper. “Never mind what other people think – who do you say that I am, you who have lived with me and walked with me trained with me and prayed with me. Do you recognize the fullness of who I am?”

Peter gives an answer that pleases Jesus, which we'll explore tomorrow. Today let’s take the question as directed at us: Who do you say that Jesus is? A role model? A great teacher? A healer? Savior? Prophet? God incarnate? Try to separate your answer from what you’ve been taught all your life.

We could go deeper, ask the question another way:
How have you experienced Jesus? Who is he to you?

If he’s just a character in a book, a figure from a painting or stained glass window with a bubble around his head, I invite you to explore his “living-ness.” It’s a big claim we make as Christians, that our Lord who died over 2000 years ago rose again and is accessible to us through His Spirit. We can know him in prayer and in action and in worship and in sacraments. How do you know him? How would you like to?

Talk to him. Who does he say he is when you ask him?