Who is Jesus Christ?

I have book on my shelf at home with a really good title: Four Gospels, One Jesus. As you might guess, it is a book about how to interpret the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And the book’s author  develops his title in two ways. On the one hand, he stresses that there are four different Gospels. Even the three “synoptic” Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who seem to see things through the same eyes (that’s what synoptic means)—put their material to use in their own unique ways.  

Each Gospel writer has his own style, his own aims, his own sources. And so each one is different. Of course, the difference is especially obvious when we set the Synoptics alongside John. To take but one example, while all four Gospels agree that the Last Supper happened on a Thursday night, Matthew Mark and Luke insist it was a Passover supper while John is just as clear that it happened the night before the Passover. In John, Jesus is crucified at the very same time as the lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple on the Passover. 

Furthermore, we miss important things each writer wants to say if we try to harmonise the four Gospels into one document. It doesn’t work. It actually takes us away from God’s word, which is four Gospels, not one reconstructed one. 

BUT, the book says, the Gospels are united in their desire to disclose the identity of Jesus. They want the readers to come to know who Jesus is, why Jesus came, why his life and death matter. Most of all, they, in their unique ways, want everyone who reads or hears them to grasp that the Jew named Jesus who walked in Galillee or in Jerusalem, who taught and healed and cast out demons, IS the very same Jew named Jesus who was crucified on a Friday afternoon, IS the very same Jesus who was alive again Easter morning. 

Four Gospels, One Jesus.  

And yet, the Gospels don’t do it straightforwardly. They announce it plainly enough. Think about the start of Mark: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.” Or the original ending of John: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” 

In between, however, there’s all sorts of strangeness. One way to ferret around in that strange new world is to take note of who recognizes Jesus. And who doesn’t. 

So who recognizes Jesus in the Gospels? Who knows without being told just who he is? Well, the devil knows who Jesus is—he begins two of the three temptations in Matthew with the words, “If you are the Son of God. . . .” He calls on Jesus to prove publicly what he already knows. 

The demons whom Jesus exorcizes know exactly who he is. “What is there between you and us, Son of God? Have you come to torment us before the time?” So said Legion, the demons who controlled the two demoniacs in Matthew Chapter 8.  

Last week, we read the story of the Canaanite woman. Wrong race. Wrong religion. Rejected by the disciples who implore Jesus to send her away; rejected seemingly by Jesus himself who tells her, his mission does not extend to her. What does she say? “Lord! Son of David! Have mercy on me!” 

Look at the language: “Son of God,” “Son of David.” These are royal titles. Titles that can be rightly given only to the heir of David who would one day come to rescue Israel. The faithless evil ones get it (and tremble). The faithful pagan gets it, and her daughter is healed. 

You know who doesn’t know? The religious leaders. From the beginning when they were troubled with Herod at the wise men’s announcement that a king had been born in Bethlehem all the way through, they were convinced that Jesus was a blasphemer, a crank, in league with the devil. Sure they heard him use the language of Son of Man and Son of God. They saw the miracles. They heard the way in which he claimed the right to interpret the Law as the Law’s very author. But rather than disclosing to them who Jesus was, this was evidence to confirm that he was a liar, a lunatic, a very dangerous man who needed to be eliminated. Their last words in Matthew’s Gospel? “If you are the Son of God, come down from the Cross. . . . He said ‘I am God’s Son….” 

You know who else doesn’t know? The disciples. Those who are closest to Jesus are those who most misunderstand who he is. Remember the Gospel from two weeks ago? Jesus comes to the disciples walking on the water in the midst of a windstorm. “Take courage! I am,” he says, taking the very name of God as his own. And Peter’s reply? “If it is you, command me to come. If. Peter is tied by that little word not only to Jesus religious enemies, but to the devil himself.  

When they do show glimpses into Jesus’ identity, into the reality of his person into the purpose of his mission, they also show that they continue to miss the point of it all. They argued with themselves, says Matthew, about who would be the greatest. James and John even send their mother to Jesus to secure for them prize places in the kingdom. In my career as a College Professor, I sometimes ran into parents who hovered. Who tried to rescue their children from the consequences of unwise decisions and bad behavior. Mrs. Zebedee was a hover-mother. 

While the dimness of the disciples is a theme running through the Gospels, it comes to a head when Jesus himself poses the troubling question, Who do you say that I am? about half-way through both Matthew and Mark and our Gospel today is St. Matthew’s version.  

Matthew tips us off right away to the import of the story by telling us that Jesus went to the district of Caesarea Philippi. How is that a tip off? Well, it’s a tip off geographically. The city and region are well to the North of the Galilee where Jesus concentrated his ministry in the Synoptic Gospels. And for that reason, it sticks out. In Matthew, Jesus’s ministry is around Galillee, and headquartered in Capernaum. Why did Jesus go north from there? It’s out of the way. That’s a detail we need to notice. 

Another tip off is its name. Caesarea-Philippi is a city and a region named after two kings—Herod-Phillip and Augustus Caesar. Herod, one of the sons of Herod the Great, and Idumean, who pretended to be the king of the Jews. And Octavian, who took the name Augustus when he became Caesar. Ruler not simply of Rome, but of the known world. Why did Jesus take his disciples out of the way, to a region named after a king of the Jews and a king of the world? 

And a third tip off is its “industry.” This part of the north-country was a centre for shepherds. Not only was Caesarea-Philippi a city of kings, but it was also a city of shepherds and their god, Pan. In fact, before Herod renamed it after himself, it was known as Caesarea-Panias and we hear an echo of that older name in the region’s modern name, Banias.  

So Jesus takes his disciples to an out-of-the-way place named after two kings where the god of shepherds was venerated. And there, he poses a question. 

“Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 

Again, we have a tip off. A clue. Jesus—as he so often does in the Synoptics—refers to himself as the “Son of Man,” that curious figure from Daniel chapter 7 who would receive from God an everlasting kingdom, but only after all the beastly kingdoms had exhausted themselves. It is another royal, and end-time title. 

The disciples answer honestly, however, and show that the people don’t know who Jesus is. ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ Jesus, in other words, is the continuation of the prophetic voice of the past. Jesus is John continued after John’s death. Or he is Elijah returned, or Jeremiah, the prophet of the exile. These answers are not wrong, but they have not grasped the nugget of Jesus’s identity. He is not the continuation of the past prophetic voice, he IS the prophetic voice come fully and finally.  

Jesus then sharpens the question: “Who do you say that I am?” 

And only Peter speaks. But what he speaks is profound: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ For Peter at least and at last, the light has come on. In the region named after the false King of the Jews, the true King and heir of David is disclosed. You are the Messiah. In the region named after the King of the Word, the REAL King of the World was announced. In the region that worshipped the god of shepherds, the Shepherd of Israel, the son of David the Shepherd King was declared. Peter got it! 

But he did not get it on his own. He didn’t puzzle it out and come to a rational conclusion. Hear Jesus again: ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ 

Peter needed to have his eyes opened to the evidence that was all around him. Peter was blind. The disciples were blind. The religious leaders were blind. And none would grasp the identity of Jesus unless they had their eyes opened. Peter’s eyes were opened. He saw. And because he saw, he would be the rock on which the Church was built. And that’s what happened. Consider the book of Acts: the preacher at Pentecost when the Spirit fell on Jews, the preacher (with John) when the Spirit falls on the baptized Samaritans, the preacher when the Spirit falls on the Gentiles. Later tradition tells us that he was bishop—that is, chief pastor—first in Antioch and then, in Rome, where he was crucified upside down under the reign of Nero.  

But the story still isn’t over. The ending is odd. Matthew tells us, ‘Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.’ Why? Because the disciples needed to un-learn what Messiah meant and come to grasp what it meant for Jesus. So, if we were to continue reading, we would find out that “From that point on, Jesus began to teach that the Son of Man must suffer.” In other words, now that you grasp who I am, you need to grasp why I came. And it’s not why you think. The disciples were now ready to walk with 

Jesus to the Cross, but they were not yet ready to announce the Good News. 

Now, we are in the place of the disciples. We are confronted by the question, “Who do you say that I am?” 

There is no escaping, no evading or avoiding it. We stand in the place of Peter. We are called to answer.  

When the Son of Man comes to us in our Caesarea-Philippi—where our false kings claim to reign, kings with names like money, honour, and power,—when he comes to us with the evidence surrounding us—his mighty acts, his teaching, not simply in the scriptures, but in this community that continues, however imperfectly, to point to him—When he asks us, asks you, “Who do you say that I am?” What will you say? 

We will not be able to say, “My father says you are the Christ.” Or my mother or my aunt or my spouse or my child. To paraphrase the old spiritual, “Ain’t nobody else can answer for you.” This is the question that you must answer on your own.  

We will not be able to say, “You were the Christ.” For this is not a question about a past preacher. This is a question rooted in history, to be sure, rooted in the Scriptures. But it is not limited to history. The question is as fresh as tomorrow’s newspaper, for it is a question posed by a living Lord, about living person, to you. Who do you say, today, that I am? Who is Jesus Christ for you today? 

My prayer for us all is that after our response, we will hear, “Blessed are you. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father.” 

Spirit of God, enlighten us. Open our eyes. That we may see with Peter, the One who is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Amen. 

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