Deciding & The implications of our answer

Aim: Do we know how to articulate who Jesus is & what does that mean?

Today’s gospel reading is one of the most challenging in the lectionary ... It’s challenging because it asks questions and then poses a big challenge to which we are called to respond to. 

If you look at the reading in front of you ... have a look at the first paragraph 

Jesus was in the region of Caesarea Philippi ... this was a place ... outside of Jewish Territory ... it is where Gentiles worshipped a whole variety of gods ... today you can visit this place ... in the hills ... there were temples and all sorts of shrines. 

and it is in this region that Jesus posed his first question ... who do people say I am? 

A general question ... a factual question ... which the disciples were happy to give an answer to ... some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, some the prophets ... 

Then the personal question ... who do you say that I am? 

I wonder if we were to pose these questions in corn market or in Kings Square  ... who do you say Jesus is ... I wonder what responses people would give? 

Which would we feel happy about giving a response to ... are we happier saying what others say or what response would we give to the personal question ... who do you say Jesus is? 

As we read on down through the passage ... things get a little more complicated ... when we realise that Peter got the first question right .... Jesus is the Christ 

but he didn’t understand what that meant ... and that is a feature of Mark’s Gospel ... that the disciples time after time put their foot in it, they say and do things which I am sure they reflected on later ... O I wish I hadn’t said  that... Scholars tell us that Peter probably was one of the people who Mark used as a source for his gospel so I am sure he would have recalled is stupidity. 

But Jesus uses Peter’s declaration here to tell the disciples what it means ... once they recognise him as the Christ that it’s not going to be plain sailing... its not going to be easy

Look at the words he uses: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^* will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

It is costly to follow Jesus - we must never forget that ... 

This morning I would like to pose two very simple Questions 

• How do we articulate for ourselves the answer to “Who do you say Jesus is?” 
• What does it mean for us 

Down through the years Christians have had to struggle with these questions

Who is Jesus? 

CS Lewis famously answered the question 

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."[5]

or the Hymn Writter John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace puts it like this 

"What think you of Christ? is the test, 

To try both your state and your scheme; 

You cannot be right in the rest, 

Unless you think rightly of him."

If asked what of Jesus I think, 

Though still my best thoughts are but poor, 

I say, He's my meat and my drink, 

My life, and my strength, and my store."

For those of us who know Christ as Saviour and Lord then ... then are we prepared to live our lives as though we are bearing our cross ... taking up our cross and following him ... again a huge challenge ... when you look around the church you see crosses ... but the cross as we know is an unpleasant thing ... it is a place of sacrifice, of suffering and of pain. 

but when we understand it ... it there is nothing else that makes sense ... 

as Isaac Watts put it 

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

and concludes with the line 

... Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Are we prepared to answer the question ... “Who is Jesus to me?” 

If answer is I don’t know ... find out 

If answer is Lord and God ... then how are you living that answer out? 

A sermon preached at 10:30 Holy Communion in St. Columba's Parish Church on Sunday 16th September 2012

Amen.