Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Who do people say that I am?” I submit that is the greatest
question ever asked among mankind. The answer is literally one of life or death
– temporal, spiritual, and eternal.
If we were to go door to door in our community, asking that
question, what answers might you get? How might our friends, neighbors,
classmates and coworkers respond?
Most, if not all, will admit there was a man named Jesus –
this is called the “historical Jesus” – He did exist. But from there, beliefs
start to break down. They deny His Divinity. Prove it, they’ll demand. All He
did was walk a lot and talk a lot…and die. It doesn’t take any great person to
die. Others, much less generous, say this kind of foolish talk shows that He was
literally crazy, demon-possessed, a liar, or even a heretic – anyone who claims
to be God deserved the rotten ending He got.
Others will idolize Jesus as the ultimate pacifist, the
predecessor to and patriarch of the 60’s with peace and love. He preached
kindness, lived among the people, wore sandals and long hair, demonstrated
compassion, and even when He was being tortured and killed, He spoke nothing
but forgiveness to His tormenters and compassion to his friends and mother.
Some claim Jesus is as fictional a legend as King Arthur,
Robin Hood, and Paul Bunyon. Instead of knights of a round table, He had
disciples willing to follow Him everywhere. Although Jesus never stole from the
rich, He spoke harshly against the wealthy and favorably to the poor, showing
extraordinary compassion to the least in society. Instead of roping tornadoes,
there are stories of Jesus calming storms and walking on water – tall tales of
legendary proportions, to be sure.
People who consider themselves to be enlightened philosophers
may give you that Jesus was a profound thinker, an inspiration to us all for
forcing us to look inside ourselves to find truths that might not otherwise
exist. They will label Him as a precursor to Ghandi or Marx, Norman Vincent
Peale or Dale Carnegie, a great motivational leader of people who followed him
for his wisdom and insights who also followed him and spread his teachings
around the world.
And then there will be some that curse the very name of
Jesus, calling Him the world’s greatest liar, the biggest hoax that the world
has ever seen. The lie was so carefully crafted that even today, 2000 years
later, people still risk everything, giving away money, property, even their
very lives, deliberately calling themselves Christians in places where that
title is a death sentence. Fools following a fool.
To be fair, out here, and maybe even in Victoria county and
South Texas, the answers might skew toward the traditional, Christian answer –
the answer of Peter, that Jesus is the Christ – but, then again, we might be
sadly surprised by answers we get from neighbors, friends, classmates and
coworkers. In an August 30, 2020 Newsweek article, author Benjamin Fearnow
cites a Ligionier Ministries survey done earlier in the year.[1]
The survey of 3,000 Americans, including 630 self-described evangelical
Christians, discovered that over half of all surveyed, 52%, believe Jesus is
not God. Let me restate that: 52% deny that Jesus is God. Surely, that number
has to be better among the 630 evangelicals, right? No: a third of
self-identifying evangelical Christians said the same thing, Jesus isn’t God,
and two-thirds believe Jesus is the first and greatest piece of God’s creation.
While 44% correctly believe Jesus was both God and Man, they incorrectly
believe that because Jesus was a man He was, therefore, a sinful being just
like you and me.
“Who do people say I am?” A wise man once told me, be
careful when you ask a loaded question because you might not like the answers
you hear.
With fewer and fewer around us able – or, perhaps willing –
to confess Jesus as Christ, the question then become even more poignant and the
answer becomes all the more vital when it is turned to you: “Who do you say
that I am?”
To answer the question correctly, you must see Jesus where
He is to be seen: at the cross. Peter did not want to do that. Peter wanted a
cross-less Christ. He wanted a bloodless hero. He didn’t want to hear about
Jesus’ suffering and rejection at the hands of the Jewish leaders. He didn’t
want Jesus to talk about His death and dying. We can empathize: our culture
does not like to talk about suffering and death and dying, either. We do
anything and everything we can to prevent any or all of those things from
happening. We helicopter parent our children so they don’t have to struggle. We
expect our kids to be the star athlete, honors scholar, soloist, and featured
artist and blame the coaches, teachers, directors, and other parents who say
that they are, well, average. We expect above median salaries, bills to be magically
paid, and dream vacations flourish. We slather our bodies with serums to
prevent wrinkles, plump our lips to look more appealing, Botox our brows to
avoid tired eyes, and spend hours in the gym trying to reshape ourselves into handsome
dad and attractive mom bods while fighting hairlines that recede and greys that
advance. We are always trying to mute a biological clock with wonder drugs that
promise to work wonders against the last enemy to be defeated. No; we don’t
want to talk about death and dying, either.
So, while we may understand Peter not wanting Jesus to talk
about the cross, that is where Jesus must go. You must allow Jesus to go to
Jerusalem; must see the Christ at the Cross. Cross and Christ go together. No
cross, no death. No death, no atonement. No atonement, no forgiveness. No
forgiveness, no salvation. No salvation, no Christ. Christ, you remember, means
“anointed.” Anointing happened in the Scriptures for prophets, priests and
kings, and Christ fulfills them all. Christ is the perfect prophet, proclaiming
that the Kingdom is here. He is the perfect priest, making the perfect
sacrifice of Himself, the perfect Lamb of God. He is the perfect king, ruling
from the throne of rough-hewn wood driven into the ground. His glory is in His
death. He is anointed to die.
Anything that gets in His way is the work of the devil,
satan, who is trying to stop the cross-focused Lord. Peter tries to get in the
way, the devil’s roadblock. “Get behind me, satan. You are not setting your
mind on the things of God but on the things of man.” Nothing can be in His way,
not even a disciple. Jesus must go. He must go to the cross. He must go to die.
Jesus promises death. He promises He must die for the sins
of the world. It was His anointing.
And, He promises your death, as well. This is life under the
cross. We know this. All those things we do to try to convince ourselves to the
contrary, unless Jesus comes first, we will one day die in this flesh. The
wages of sin will be paid. But, they have already been paid fully and eternally
by Christ. You’ve already died in Christ. In Christ, you are anointed – not
with oil, but with baptismal water. Baptized into Christ Jesus, you are also
baptized into His death. And, baptized into Christ, you are also baptized into
new life in Christ for He, who went the way of the cross, also goes the way of
the empty tomb. Christ promises that from death comes life.
So, if asked, “Who do you say Jesus is,” you have nothing to
lose. You have already been lost and found in Christ and are placed under the
cross. When asked, confess Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one. Confess that
He went the way of the cross, dying a sinner’s death, sacrificing Himself for the
sins of the world. Speak confidently that those who believe in Him might rise
to eternal life with Him in the resurrection of all flesh. Proclaim boldly that
you believe this: He is the Christ, crucified and risen, for you.
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