Scripture for today:
“Who do you say that I am?” This is the question that Jesus directs to his followers. They must have been unnerved by the question. In the end, it is Peter, typically leaping in where others fear to tread, but this time with a moment of divine inspiration, who offers the answer: “The messiah –the son of the living God.” Jesus commends him for this answer.
This is the hardest question in the Bible. To answer it, we have to decide not only who Jesus is, but who we are, because we have to be willing to stand before him and look as deeply within our selves as he looks within us. Our answers reveal as much about ourselves as they do about Jesus.
In essence, our lives are like pilgrimages, journeys of discovery about who we can be and how we can live our lives as followers of Christ. And we can only do that by striving to understand who he is to us.
As we baptise a new member of the Church on this Sunday, we should be reminded of our own baptismal obligation to walk as pilgrims through life, following Christ to the best of our ability. Who do we say that he is?
[…] at Peter – only shortly after a commendation for divine inspiration about who Jesus really is (see last week). Yet it’s worth asking what is really happening here, and who, or what accuser (the root of […]