Jesus is not interested in public opinion, or chatter,
theories or ideas. It comes down to this: Who am I to you? What am I to you? St Peter replies, “You are the Anointed One”.
This is a vast statement. We, of course, filter his answer
through centuries of speaking of Christ, as if it were a surname, or even of
the Messiah, by which we can tend to think of an emissary from heaven to bring
our times to their fulfilment and their end.
But Peter knew he was saying far more. He rejected the idea
that Jesus was a Prophet, even the greatest like Elijah. Nor was he a prophet
like the much loved and inspiring John, even though they were cousins from
related families. He did not say that Jesus was a king, because the monarchy in
Israel at the time was a foreign dynasty and a puppet government of the Roman
Empire. Nor did he say that Jesus was a priestly figure, because, while the
Temple was the Temple and the law required the People to go there and offer
sacrifice and the priests had sacred duties to perform, the functionaries there
had long since lost touch with the people’s life and faith, as Jesus’ satire,
the Parable of the Good Samaritan, with its unflattering portrait of Temple
priests and Levites of people with neither purpose nor respect, powers to be
worked around rather than powers that manifested the Kingdom of God.
Peter simply says, “You are the Anointed One from God” (cf.
St Luke’s account). He is expressing the ancient faith of the Hebrews, long
discarded by the priests and the kings in Jerusalem, that God not only visits
His people but dwells in their midst with power and wisdom and brilliance. He
does not speak to them only in texts and Scriptures, or govern them with laws
and authorities. He is present to them, He stands before them and they stand
before Him. They worship Him with both love and recognising insight; while He
bestows on them light and joy, and help and blessing. Most of all, He bonds
with them.
This is how St Paul will soon be writing, “Nothing can
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus,” (Romans 8.39) and
also, “It is not I who live but Christ Who lives within me.”(Galatians 2.20) It
is how Jeremiah wrote, “They will be My people and I will be their
God.”(Jeremiah 32.38) It is how Job was able to reflect, “I know that my
Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. In my flesh, I
shall see God … Him and no other.” (Job 19. 25f.)
To Peter, Jesus stands on the earth, close to the springs of
Caesarea Philippi. He sees no priest, king or prophet but God His Redeemer, the
one the country and the desert people had been expecting for centuries, the living
manifestation of God With Us. In the ancient first Temple on the mountain in
Jerusalem, it used to be that the successors of King David were bathed in fresh
water, anointed head to foot in perfumed oil, and clothed in white array,
before entering the Holy of Holies as the highest and greatest embodiment of
all God’s People, taking them with him on his heart, and conscience and his
very life into the very place of God’s Presence. There he was enthroned in
light, and acclaimed as God’s own adopted son, united with Him in the Spirit
and the exaltation of heaven. He would then descend, not bringing his own majesty,
but bestowing blessing, forgiveness, healing and the power – as Jesus would
later put it in His own prayer – the power to live in God’s Kingdom on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Ancient kings were looked on as somehow embodying the coming
of God into the world. But here it was for real in what St Peter saw before his
eyes in that moment of truth beside the clear waters: “God’s Presence and His
very Self, and Essence all divine.” (Cardinal Newman, Praise to the Holiest in the height, from The Dream of Gerontius)
The question, “But you, who do you say that I am?”, is one
that will not go away. To people who think themselves modern and developed, He
is just the founder of another world faith. We have heard it all in this week’s
debate in Parliament on whether it is right and moral to assist someone in the
termination of their lives. We are hearing it echo in our national dilemma over
how to allow immigration manageably and yet also respond to the desperation of
our fellow human beings who are fleeing towards us for their lives. We hear in
the exchanges of the markets, where humanity is not only the customer, but a
commodity and in some cases a loss.
If Jesus is just a great human spiritual leader, we are free
to form our judgment and follow him or not accordingly. But if He is God, God
with Us, then there are consequences, because what we are saying is that this
is not just a pious belief, but the way the universe is actually arranged. God
is everything. We stand in order before Him, the One from God Who has brought
to us the principles of how the Kingdom of heaven is arranged, not the realms
of this world.
In the end, as so often with how Jesus speaks, the question
and the story is not actually about Himself, but about us. He is in fact asking
us, “Well, now you know Who I am, what does that make of you? Who do you say
that YOU are?” The word Christian does not just mean a follower of Christ. It
also means someone who has been christened: someone who, like Christ, is an
Anointed One, someone from God.
In other words, can I be what Peter saw in Jesus so clearly
in that moment of truth beside the waters? Am I a door for the sheep or a block
to the Kingdom? Am I one who comes into church, washed in baptism, anointed in
chrism and united with the Lord on His throne of brilliance, consumed with His
own Body and Blood, only to come out somehow without being the living
embodiment of His joy, His blessing, His reconciliation, His peace, His truth,
His forgiveness, or the hope of His Kingdom? Am I Light of the World, or one
who just wants the light shining on me to turn away, while I prefer to carry on
untroubled in the dark? This is not just
about doing good, or better, deeds. It is about a state of being: “Who do you
say that You are? If I am Christ, so too are you.” What would happen if we
could recast that verse of Cardinal Newman’s hymn:
O, that a higher gift than grace – to
me!Should flesh and blood refine – mine!
God’s presence and His very Self – in
me!And Essence all divine – that God may be seen through me!
The prophet
Micah tells us to “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”
(Micah 6.8). This truly is the way to the Kingdom and we keep the path clear
and well lit by treading it. But ours is not a meek and mild faith, and nor is
our following after Christ. The Kingdom is awkward. It does not fit the world,
and the world does not fit the Kingdom. That is why Christ came to it with
light, with truth, with love to reconcile what has gone wrong to what puts it
right. The Lord Who healed, inspired, revealed and transformed water into wine,
and death into life, is also the Lord Who opposes what he encounters, Who
turned over the tables in the Temple, Who rebuked Peter, cursed the fig tree,
and was such a figure of contradiction that He was put to death on the Cross.
So, when the
Lord asks us, “Who are you saying that you are?” and we reply, “Christians,
Anointed Ones, the ones who follow You, People from God”, we remember His
answer: “Well that means renouncing yourself and taking up your own cross too.”
Then if, like St Paul, we get to the point of saying, “It is not I who live,
but Christ who lives within me,” it is not because we have shed some light and joy,
hope and reconciliation, and blessing in the world. It is because what shines
through is a person who is Christlike not by virtue or religious prowess, but because
everything has been penetrated by the cross of self-giving sacrifice and
unconditional love toward God and to all. If that is Who I say Jesus Christ is,
then that is what I say I am to be.
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