Who Do You Say I Am

You are the Christ

Confession is said to be good for the soul. We must, at some point confess our beliefs. Jesus, on his way through the village of Caesarea Philippi, asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They begin to give him the answers of different people. (NRSV)

28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” Now here is an important difference in the questionMark 8:29 (ESV)

29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” Peter finally gives Jesus the answer he is looking for. You could spend your whole life living out your faith through other Christians.

The Messianic Secret

Jesus seemed to continually be demanding that no one reveal who he really was. Some would say it was simply because his time had not yet come. Perhaps Jesus was concerned that the knowledge of who he was would speed things up too quickly.

Another point was obvious, and that was that people had the wrong thing in mind when it came to the savior or messiah. They saw him as a soldier, military conquerer to set the page right.

What Jesus then begins to teach them was that he must suffer and be rejected. This can be difficult to understand, because people know what victory looks like, and suffering is for the loser. (NRSV)

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

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31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

We must all answer the question concerning who Jesus is. This is not easy to answer because we must be disciplined in learning about Jesus. People should know Jesus by the signs but we all get caught up in the world and signs become difficult to translate. Notice Jesus is thought to be Elijah, or another prophet.

In verse 32, we see Peter rebuking the claims of Jesus. I find this to be the human factor. We all want our religious leaders to fulfil our desires, and not their own. In this case, the people wanted to be saved from the cruel world that oppressed them. In their eyes this looked like a military take over; an overthrow of the government. Jesus, in many ways, was trying to control the narrative.

Jesus then turns to his disciples and rebukes Peter. This is difficult for any religious leader because it speaks to the direction to which we are going. Now I do not feel the desire to say to people here at Trinity UMC, “get behind me Satan” But what we can conclude from this passage, is that, you are either part of the solution or part of the problem. Jesus lets Peter know that he is part of the problem, if he does not change his stance.