The King's Questions: Who Do you Say I am?

Notes:

Questions:

You’ve heard the phrase, “Jesus is the Answer.”

As I was working on my dissertation, I came across the book “Jesus is the Question,” by Martin Copenhaver

Interesting insights:

Jesus asks 307 questions

Asked only 183 questions

Jesus only answers roughly 8 questions out of that 183

Point: “Jesus prefers to ask questions rather than to provide direct answers. Jesus chooses to ask a question 307 times in the Gospel accounts. Even if Jesus gives direct answers to as many as 8 questions, that still means that Jesus is almost 40 times more likely to ask a question than he is to give a direct answer.”

The King’s Questions: How Jesus’ questions form faith:

“What are you looking for?”

“But who do you say that I am?”

“Why do you not understand what I am saying?”

“Where is your faith?”

“Why could you not watch with me one hour?”

Probing questions, aren’t they?

307: Not spending the next 4 years or so focusing on another question… Some of the big ones over the next few months:

This morning: “Who do people say I am?”

Epiphany!

Celebrates the revelation that the Baby born was indeed the Son of God, God incarnate

Questions and Answers

Examples:

FIRST QUESTION: Who do people say I am?

Bit by bit, the first 8 chapters of Mark’s Gospel unpacks the answer to the question, Who is Jesus? For example...

Mark 1, no one yet knows who Jesus is, but interestingly enough, the demons do. One demon says: I know who you are- The Holy One of God! Jesus promptly tells the demon to shut his trap and he heals the man. The crowd goes crazy and asks: “What is this?!!” Like, “What is this that this guys can speak with such authority?”

Mark 2: 7: Healing of the Paralytic, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” It’s a good question, right!?

Mark 3:11: More “unclean spirits” announcing Jesus’ arrival: “And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.’”

Mark 4:31: After Jesus tells the storm to shut its trap, the disciples shake in their wet sandals at what they just saw and said: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Jesus’ has been rightly revealed over and over and again, but Jesus finally turns the question around:

“Who do people say that I am?”

Jesus turns to his own disciples:

v. 28: Question: Who Do people say I am?

John the Baptist and Elijah?

Two very rational answers:

At this point in Jesus’ ministry, rumors are swirling about Jesus. John the Baptist was a popular prophet- like a local celebrity preacher- and so the public nature of John’s death led some to believe that Jesus is back as John the Baptist incarnate. Back from the dead for payback! Others believed Jesus was more like the return of Elijah, which refers to the imminent arrival of Judgment Day! That’s no small event- and so rumors are swirling in Galilee and beyond about who Jesus is. Jesus is fully aware of this Galilean rumor mill. All the while, Jesus repeatedly rebukes demons for revealing who he truly was...

But these two answers aren’t accurate. Jesus was not John the Baptist or Elijah incarnate...

What I love about this passage is how Jesus asks the question again...

The question is almost exactly the same, but the answer makes all the difference in the world:

“The Christ”

v. 28: BUT… who do you say that I am?

Ok, so answers are swirling around there, but are clearly wrong, but what say you Peter?

Peter shocks us by giving us that right response!

I wonder if all the other disciples were even surprised:

“Wow, Peter you said that without spitting out your sandal. Well done!”

States it so Emphatically:

“You are the Christ!”

BUT, just like Jesus told the demons to keep their mouths shut, Jesus tells Peter to keep his mouth shut.

NO ONE MUST KNOW…

Defining the Christ

This second question and answer is extremely important for us to decipher:

What Peter said as “Christ” is totally different than what Jesus understood as “Christ.”

Sort of like when Mormans talk about ATONEMENT, or Seventh Day Adventists talk about GRACE, or Jehovah Witnesses talk about Jesus being GOD, the WORDS are the same, but their definitions aren’t.

When Peter said CHRIST, he mean something very specific...

About 50 years before Jesus was born, a concept of the Messiah or Christ really started ramping up, expressed in a popular book called the “Psalms of Solomon:”

O Lord, raise up their king, the son of David,

that he may reign over Israel thy servant.

Gird him with strength that he might shatter unrighteous rulers,

that he may purge Jerusalem from nations

that trample her to destruction.

Blessed be they that shall be in those days, In that they shall see the good fortune of Israel which God shall bring to pass in the gathering together of the tribes. May the Lord hasten His mercy upon Israel! May He deliver us from the uncleanness of unholy enemies! The Lord Himself is our king for ever and ever.

These verses go on and on, painting a picture of the coming Christ as, what? A military leader. It promoted hardline Israeli Nationalism: The expectant Messiah would look like a warrior- not a weakling- one who would forcefully drive out Rome and declare freedom for the sovereign state of God’s Country.

Definitions are important. Words matter. What we mean by the words we speak, matter...

We have strong internal evidence from our text that Peter’s definition of Christ was wrong:

v. 31: The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after thee days rise again.

Peter rebukes him…

[Pretend to pull Jesus aside]

“Jesus! What are you saying? You’re nuts. Stop this. I’m not following you so you’ll be rejected by the powers that be”

Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t respond privately. v. 33: But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebukes Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

The Father’s Answer

God Answers the question for us later on in our passage:

2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

High Mountain with Jesus, Peter, James and John

Transfigured, lit. metamorphasized

ONLY 2x do the gospels record this word

Clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them...

Other wordly white!

Mr. Clean, Tide, Oxy Clean, Borox, Gain, 100% bleach: no earthly laundry detergent could get Jesus’ clothes this white…

Peter opens his mouth, clearly making room to insert his sandel into his mouth again… He blows it again:

Peter: Mark 9:5 “5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.””

A cloud overshadowed them...

A voice came out of the cloud...

“This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

Jesus isn’t John the Baptist.

Jesus isn’t Moses.

Jesus isn’t Elijah.

Some other type of being: “Supraterrestial”

“Tertium Quid”

“Third thing”

Take two concepts like God, and Man, and squish them together, and voila, you have Jesus!

Chalcedonian Definition (AD 451)

Hypostatic union

“Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures”

Jesus: GOD and MAN

The Right Response

James Edwards reflect “A wrong view of Messiahship leads to a wrong view of discipleship.”

34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

We are those who would come after Jesus:

Defines our Calling:

Deny himself and take up his cross and follow me...

POWERFUL QUESTIONS:

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

“What can a man give in return for his soul?”

Powerful questions with a simple answer:

Answer is simple: NOTHING

But the question, that’s what’s so difficult to process through…

THIS Christ requires sacrifice.

THIS Christ demands absolute devotion.

THIS Christ asks for his followers away from things thing that we naturally desire!

Can you say to yourself that you’ve completely died with Christ? Can you say that you have completely died to worldly pursuits?

Is your old self truly dead?

Because that’s the way of the Christian Christ: Fully God. Fully Human. Who fully died. Yet who fully reigns. He reigns in a Kingdom that expects its citizens to die upon entrance!

This is hard stuff to think about about because we don’t always know how to die to everything...

We can put a sin in to a comma, but to put it 6 feet under, that’s difficult.

It’s hard to declare your old self dead!

The struggle is real because we don’t know how to die to everything. Recently, I heard a seasoned doctor tell a story of a time when she was a resident years ago. She recalls working the night shift after only 2 weeks on the job. One night she was called into a room of an elderly patient who was experiencing internal bleeding. She runs into the hospital room filled family. She politely asks the family to leave so that she can deal with this serious situation. One family member asked to stick around because he was a nurse and could help. The doctor runs and gets some supplies and after only being away for a few moments, the family member said, “I think that Abolita is no longer with us…” The doctor’s thinking, “Mrs. Rodriquez is no longer with us? She’s dead?”

Grandson Nurse then says, You just have to declare the patient dead.

Now for the doctor, in this intense moment, she’s realizing that she never learned how to declare a the patient dead.

What do you do? Check the eyes. Check pulse. An ekg test.

I was struck by that story when I think about the challenge following the Christ into the Kingdom by dying and rising…

This resident never learned how to declare death, and I think we have the same problem. We really don’t know how to declare death to our dead self. Every week we proclaim Christ’s death, but what about ours?

Goes back to the question Jesus asks of us: WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?

You are the Christ, but I won’t give up my desire to please others.

You are the Christ, but I don’t give up control over my children.

You are the Christ, but I am the King of my home.

You are the Christ, but I will just put this issue into a weekly coma.

You are the Christ, but I will compartmentalize this addition in my life.

You are the Christ, but I won’t give up my need to be seen academically, or physically.

You are the Christ, but I will turn a blind eye towards your Word.

You are the Christ, but it won’t effect my desire to be comfortable.

You are the Christ, but I will blame you when I suffer.

You are the Christ, but I won’t give up my [you fill in the blank].

Take that something, and put it in the ground...

Conclusion:

Metamorphasis