"Who are you?" A rather different question from the one we ask when someone wellknown to us does or says something unusual, unexpected or totally outrageous, "Who do you think you are?" We are not very impressed!
The closer we live to a person the more we learn about him or her yet do we really know them? We come to know their likes and dislikes, the various moods their personalities express, their talents and their weaknesses, their motives and goals...
The disciples had been with Jesus for about three years. What had they learnt about him in this time?
In some ways they had understood the most basic secret of his identity. Peter was a spokesman for the whole group when he said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt. 16.16).
But in other ways they failed to grasp the purpose of his mission within this world. To their first response Jesus says, "this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven" (v. 17). To the second. Jesus replies, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men" (v. 23).
On the one hand, they had grasped the very revelation from God, but on the other they had missed the boat altogether.
We need to note carefully their mistake and be sure not to fall into it ourselves!
Jesus lived in our world a fully human life. He required food, exercise and sleep. He was limited to one place at a time. We are inclined to look at the miracles he performed and to miss his humanity. The crowds who saw him and heard his teaching knew he was someone special "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets" (v. 14). All special people all human beings.
It was the disciples who had discovered that the one they saw, whose teaching had authority, whose person was outstanding... was in fact "the Son of the living God."
What a tremendous revelation! God has visited his people, come into human history. The promised Time has come, the promised Messiah has arrived, the Lord is with his people!
This truth and the people who receive it are foundational to the Church of Jesus Christ. Let me reemphasise this This truth (that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God) and the people who receive it are foundational to the Church of Jesus Christ.
Where do you and I stand in this?
The Church isn't a name we take for ourselves or an organisation which will automatically be always right. It is constituted, built, by Jesus Christ as people affirm him as the Son of the living God, as people truly acknowledge that Jesus was not just a great man, a great teacher, a great healer... but that in him God himself was personally visiting this planet!
So far so good! But...
Just supposing that, at this point in our service, we heard the purr of a Rolls Royce pulling up in our church grounds and we saw that familiar face from our coins appear at the front door... What would we do? Where would we find her a seat? Should we, perhaps, change the last hymn to the National Anthem (the Royal Anthem) and form a respectful queue to shake hands with her Majesty?
But why would Queen Elizabeth come to Giru, to this church? Now that's a very basic question, isn't it? And it isn't belittling the importance of this place to ask it. We assume she would have some reason for coming here and not just because it seemed a nice thing to do!
Why did Jesus come? Why would God send his own Son into our human history? What special reason was there for his coming?
The disciples had grasped the revelation that he was the Son of the living God, but couldn't grasp his mission. The act that would be the focal point of his mission - namely his crucifixion completely eluded them. In this it was their own thoughts, inspired by the evil one, that came to the fore.
What a strange mixture! They were his people, attentive to the divine revelation one minute. They were Satan, an obstacle in his way, not listening to God, the next.
They couldn't grasp the necessity of the cross. They couldn't see the seriousness of their sin. They couldn't understand the redemptive love of God.
And where do you and I stand in this?
We may take our place among the body of people who believe wholeheartedly that Jesus was truly the Son of God. We may feel a real sense of wellbeing and security that God truly cares for us enough to send us his only Son. But perhaps we then make Peter's mistake we want Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God and that's it! God forbid that there should be any of this suffering and death bit! We want to know that God loves us and that he sent his Son...
BUT why did he come? God didn't send his only Son into the world because he thought it would be nice to do. In fact the focus of his coming was a Cross - rejection by the human race, which shows the seriousness of human sin, met by the redemptive love of God which accepted the serious, heavy cost of sin.
Knowing that Jesus is the Son of the living God is the foundation of the Church. Knowing why he came is critical for the mission of the Church. Jesus didn't say we wouldn't face death, but that "the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (v. 18).
The emperor Diocletian set up a stone pillar on which were inscribed these words: For Having Exterminated The Name Christian From the Earth. If he could see that monument today, how embarrassed he would be! Another Roman leader made a coffin,, symbolising his intention "to bury the Galilean" by killing his followers. He soon learned that he could not "put the Master in it". He finally surrendered his heart to the Saviour, realising that the corporate body of Christ and its living Head, the Lord Jesus, cannot be destroyed by the onslaught of mortal men.
The history of the church has been represented by the Waldensians in a picture of an anvil with many wornout hammers lying all around it. Beneath this scene are the words: One Anvil Many Hammers. Organised religion may fail; but the living organism composed of those who truly believe will stand forever.
For we are people of the Cross called to receive and proclaim Christ crucified, the Saviour of the world and called to carry our own cross, counting our faith in Christ more precious than gaining the whole world, more precious than life itself.
Where do you and I stand in this? Have we received, welcomed the Christ the Son of the living God, who was crucified for our sins and rose again? Is the passion of our life and the passion of our Church to make him known in this community? Do we accept carrying our own cross, for the sake of Christ and the Gospel?
Crucified and risen, the Lord Jesus said to his disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go... And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Mt 18.18-20).
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