WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?
Filed under: Messages |
Dear Jesus,
I noticed something today that surprised me. During my prayer time this morning I was reflecting on the question you asked your disciples about what others say about you. After you had listened to their digest of others’ opinions, I heard you ask: Who do I say that I say that you are? I’ve grown used to what others have said. I struggle with my own opinion as my faith is challenged and continues to grow.
I know that the Gospel is your living word, new in every age. So, I wonder how much my comfort with earlier opinions is dictated by hearing the word as an historical document. In other words, if I hear the question asked of your disciples then, I can hear some of their historical expectations in their responses as they glean from the gossip the judgments their neighbors are making about you in what they hoped was a dawning messianic age. Something in the air told them that this was the time and this was the place for long-cherished promises to be fulfilled. The people needed a hero, but one that fit within the comforts of their constraints. It’s easier to speak of the familiar.
Then you ask the important question for the individual: Who do you say that I am? It was bold of Peter to make his declaration about your being the Messiah, the Christ of God. He must have been surprised by the sternness of your response to him as you rebuked him and told him not to pass this information on to anyone else till much more had happened. Weren’t you warning Peter and the others not to be too glib with their decisions? Their conclusions must be refined by what was coming. They still thought of the Messiah as a mighty warrior, someone who would wreak vengeance on all those that had oppressed the people down through the ages. In that revolution, wouldn’t it be natural to assume they would have places of favor when you began your reign?
I can only imagine the shock that must have gone through them when you spoke for the first time of what I have grown used to hearing. The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Whether they heard the last phrase about your being raised on the third day, they certainly heard about the impending suffering, rejection, and execution. How could these ideas be reconciled with their understanding of Messiah? That’s the point, isn’t it? Their presuppositions had to yield to things unimaginable. I come to think that so must the suppositions of believers in every age.
The church lives this cycle of your dying and rising each year and renews your dying and rising in each Eucharist. Those first disciples had yet to be confronted with your dying and could not have imagined what your rising from the dead might mean. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not back there with them, clinging to what I want your lordship to mean in my life without having to deal with the dying. Sovereignty is much more comforting than subservience.
You know that I love you and want to walk with you every day. But what do I understand the Christ to be? Who do I say that you are by the way that I live? I think that is the question that must be asked and answered in every age and by every individual. The collective answer of the Church is not enough.
What I have to deal with is what you challenged then and what you challenge now. Pick up your cross every day if you are going to follow me! How many lifetimes does it take to learn what that is all about and then to embrace it? You see, sometimes I think I want the old understanding of Messiah to be fulfilled in you. I want the mighty warrior. I want the power and prestige of an empire. And if I am honest, sometimes I think a position of power and influence wouldn’t be such a bad thing. When I see terrible injustices that happen in our world and the sufferings of the little ones, I’d like to see you come as the mighty deliverer and see that reign of justice and peace. And then, too, I have to admit that some of the temporal rewards of powerful reigns wouldn’t be too hard to take.
You say: Take up your cross each day if I am to follow you. I have to pick up my cross every day if I want to follow you. I see clearly that is not just a suggestion; it is an absolute condition of discipleship. Where is the glory and where the hoped for rewards in that? Are you telling me that I could be in danger of misunderstanding what you are all about? I like to think of you in glory now, with the gold crown on your head and the scepter in your hand. If I do cling to those kinds of images and because of them worship you from afar, I have it wrong, don’t I? You did not come as one who wanted to be served, to have people cower in your presence. You are the servant Christ who, in another version of the story, came to wash feet and make foot-washers of your followers.
I won’t get it right until I see you pouring yourself out through your intimate involvement in human lives, in my life. Until I can embrace that concept and accept the consequences that all to which I can aspire is being a servant to the rest of my sisters and brothers, I won’t be able to utter the answer you are looking for when you ask: Who do you say that I am?
You invite your church, your Body, to gather at your table and with you to exercise our baptismal priesthood as we co-celebrate with the ordained priesthood the Eucharist you want us to share and to imitate. I wonder if the stranger who wandered into the celebration for the first time would experience that. Would that ideal of a servant church be obvious? Is that the spirit that exudes from me?
Power has nothing to do with it. Is that what you are saying? If I am about exhibiting power and its trappings instead of being about empowering the powerless, I haven’t understood the core message of your messiahship, have I?
Could you get back to me on this matter? No hurry. Just when you have time.
Sincerely,
Didymus
