Reading: Mark 1.1-13; Matthew 16.13-28
Two weeks ago we were celebrating Christmas – the birth of Jesus. Last Sunday a New Year began – 2012 AD (anno domini, in the year of the Lord).
Towards the end of last year I happened to hear on ABC radio some of the closing of the Australian Senate. All the plethora of people whose assistance is vital for the smooth running of the Senate were thanked and members were wished “a happy festive season”. A Senator asked “leave to make a short statement”. Leave was granted and, amidst other pleasantries, he wished all Senators “a happy holiday”. Another offered “season’s greetings”. And so it went on with several others. Just one of the senators – “We are approaching the time when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.” The rest seemed to be dodging around, avoiding the very word, “Christmas”.
The History section of the Australian National Curriculum at present divides human history into BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (the Common Era). We are told, “It is the same dating system as the traditionally used BC (before Christ) and AD (anno domini, in the year of the Lord)”, but... why the change? Why the pressure to remove the direct reference to the coming of Christ?
Mark doesn’t tell the story of Jesus’ birth. He starts with the strong statement, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1.1).
Who is this Jesus? That was the question in the days of his flesh. It is still the question today. People may want to ignore him, but his presence is stamped into human history. He was a person of history.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia – a massive 31 large tomes – was regarded as a universal reference work for the Soviet intelligentsia. There is a copy of it in the National Library in Canberra. The original, issued in 1952, said that Jesus is “the name of the mythological founder of Christianity”. It was happy to identify Jesus as a revolutionary, but gave no credence to any written accounts of his life and teaching. Much later, however, the Brisbane Courier-Mail carried a news item in which a Soviet academic stated that they had reconsidered all the evidence for Jesus and concluded that he had said and done all the things recorded of him. The academic reflected final uncertainty of where to go next.
Jesus came all right. In 116AD the Roman historian Tacitus wrote that “Christus … suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus” (Annals, 15.44).
Another historian, Suetonius, wrote in 121AD that “As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them [the Jews] from Rome” (Vita Claudii, 25.4) – an incident mentioned in Acts 18.2 as the reason Aquila and Priscilla had moved from Rome to Corinth.
The Jewish historian, Josephus, writing in Antiquities around 90AD, recorded, “About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day” (18.3.3).
The Jewish Babylonian Talmud (written down somewhere between 70 and 200AD) stated that “On the eve of Passover they hung Yeshu charged with practising witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray”.
The second-century satirist, Lucian, wrote, “The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day – the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account” (The Death of Peregrine, 11–13).
Jesus and his disciples were “in the region of Caesarea Philippi”. That’s in the far north of the country at the base of Mount Hermon and at one of the headwaters of the Jordan River.
So, away from the pressures of the Scribes and Pharisees – and the curious onlookers – Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (Mt 16.13)
“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (v. 14). These were comments from people who had heard about Jesus, heard him, seen him...
John the Baptist had caused quite a stir. He called people to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (3.2). He had been put in prison when Jesus began his public ministry with the same theme (4.12,17). John’s approach was very stern and confronting. He was, as he said, baptising “with water for repentance”, but someone far greater is coming who “will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (3.11-12).
When John, in prison, heard about the ministry of Jesus, he sent his disciples with the question, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (11.3) Was he expecting the one whose coming he had announced to be sterner, even more confrontational than he had been?
In chapter 14 we read of the death of John the Baptist – and Herod’s reaction to the reports about Jesus, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him” (v. 2). Perhaps others besides Herod were wondering if this was a risen John the Baptist.
The last two verses of our Old Testament read, “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse” (Mal. 4.5,6). John had denied that he was Elijah (Jn 1.21). However, Jesus identified him as the fulfilment of this prophecy (Mt. 11.14).
But there were miracles associated with the ministry of Elijah – the extended provision of adequate flour and oil for the widow of Zarephath and the raising of her son to life (1 Kings 17). Perhaps, some were suggesting, Jesus is Elijah returned.
But then both John the Baptist and Elijah were rather fiery personalities. Jesus is very direct, but also warm and compassionate. Perhaps he is Jeremiah – sometimes called the “weeping prophet” because he was extremely sorrowful over the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem – destruction that he saw to be the judgment of God.
Who do people say Jesus is? Some say he was a great Teacher. I have had people say to me, “I believe in the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule”. That’s a rather stretching claim if you really think about it! Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu, but admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. It is said he always carried a copy of the New Testament in his pocket.
Some have viewed Jesus as the great Example. He calls us to follow his example. He certainly shows us up for what we’re not! If Jesus was principally our Example, we are in a lot of trouble. We hear Paul writing to the Romans, “... I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Rom. 7.18b-19).
Paul’s problem highlights the difficulties we have when we regard Jesus primarily as a great Teacher and Example. We just don’t match up! Not any of us!
Then Jesus must be the great Hero and Martyr. We admire him for the life he lived and hail him as the outstanding person who was so committed to the very best Cause that he gave his life for it.
“But what about you? Who do you say I am?” (Mt 16.15). For three years now they had been his closest associates, heard his teaching, watched his miracles, observed him in private... No unveiling of his heavenly glory yet – that came to three of them six days later (ch 17). Right now, before any vision of heavenly glory, what were their conclusions about him? Who do you say I am?
Peter spoke for the whole group – “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16).
The Christ – the “anointed one” – Messiah in Hebrew – was the hope and expectation of the Jewish people. It still is for many Jews today. Incredibly, after so many centuries they are still waiting for the promised Messiah to come.
There was a thread throughout the Scriptures. Bob Deffinbaugh puts it this way, “Early in the Bible, we are given a skeletal outline, with some of the essential facts. As the Old Testament continues, we find more and more of the details filled in, until, at the end of the Old Testament, a great deal was known about God’s Messiah who was to come.”
The first early hint is immediately after the Fall, the promise that the offspring of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3.15). But that’s all it was – a hint. By the time we reach the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, the promise is clearer. Remember the question of the Ethiopian eunuch, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” (Acts 8.34)
Of course, many Jews were hoping the Messiah would restore the kingdom of David. Perhaps that idea was in the mind of the disciples from time to time as they argued which of them would be the greatest (Lk 22.24), or their question before the ascension, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1.6)
But Peter was quite right, even if he hadn’t fully grasped what his words meant. Jesus was the one promised by God and with a divine mission to deal with human sin and to gather a people for the Lord.
“The Son of the living God”. He was more than a human being – “Immanuel, God with us” (Is. 9.6), the “righteous Branch” of David who will be called “The LORD Our Righteousness” (Jer. 23.5,6), the ruler from “Bethlehem Ephrathah... whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Mic. 5.2).
In the trial of Jesus before the Jewish Sanhedrin. The High Priest asks Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mk 14.61-62).
Pilate had a problem. He was convinced Jesus was innocent, so he offered to set free for them either a notorious criminal named Barabbas or “Jesus who is called Christ” (Mt 27.17). Given such a choice, he was sure they would choose Jesus. But no, they called out for Barabbas. So Pilate asked, “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” “Crucify him!” was their response (v. 22)
And that is the question for us today. Jesus can certainly be rightly viewed as Teacher, Example, Hero and Martyr. He was all of those things – the greatest! But if that is all he was, we might take him or leave him – just a matter of preference. Do you prefer Sachin Tendulkar or Michael Clarke? You can discuss that one over morning tea, but... what difference will it really make to how you live?
But Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God – a figure from history, but truly alive from the dead! “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Thomas, the last of the eleven to see the risen Jesus, said, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20.28). Our response to the real Jesus will affect the rest of our lives.
© Peter J. Blackburn, Halifax and Ingham, 8
January 2012
Except where
otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New
International Version,
© Zondervan, 1984.