Some words are spoken for which there is no going back to yesterday: “Will you marry me?” “You have less than a month to live.” “We just bought a farm!” “Your daughter was in an accident…”
Sometimes we have a sense of the impact of the words we hear or say. Sometimes we have no idea where they lead. Either way, life changes. No turning back.
Jesus’ Questions
Such is the situation today in the Gospel when Jesus asks his disciples two questions. The first is a warm-up question, “Who do people say that I am?”
Jesus gets a variety of answers: “John the Baptist” “Elijah” “Jeremiah” “One of the prophets.”
Then Jesus asks the real question, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
This is the answer Jesus wants, because he says,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
And then things change for Peter, for Jesus, for all the disciples. They move from disciples to disciples-in-training-to-be-apostles.
The Difference the Sentence Made
Up until Peter’s “Profession of Faith” in all three of the synoptic Gospels, the tone is “come and see.” Jesus preaches in synagogues and on hillsides. He tells parables. He heals many and casts out evil spirits. He spars some with the Pharisees, but the tone is mostly respectful debate. He gathers disciples, teaches them, and sends them out to do what they have seen him do. There is a spirit of adventure and expectancy that flows through the verses when you read Matthew chapters 3-15, Mark chapters 1-7, or Luke chapters 3-9 all at a sitting. The Kingdom of God is at hand!
I used to think it was the Transfiguration which changed things. Whatever Moses and Elijah said to Jesus gave him a different, more somber perspective. But recently I have done more careful reading, and it is Peter’s confession that makes the difference. First comes Peter’s confession of faith followed immediately by Jesus’ first prediction of the Passion (Matthew 15:13-23, Mark 8:27-33, Luke 9:18-22). Then a few verses later comes the Transfiguration (Matthew 17: 1-8, Mark 9:2-18, Luke 9:28-36).
When you read the narratives of each Gospel beginning with Peter’s confession up until the entry into Jerusalem (Matthew chapters 16-20, Mark chapters 9-10, Luke chapters 9-19) to begin the story of Holy Week, you hear a different tone. There is a sense of urgency in Jesus’ teaching—especially to his disciples. There are more conversations just with the disciples. The lines of communication between Jesus and the Pharisees harden. No longer are the Gospels focused on “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Now there is the growing awareness, “that Jesus must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Matthew 16:21-22)
There is the shadow of the coming Cross.
What a difference a sentence can make! When Peter said, “You are the Christ,” he, Jesus, and the other disciples entered a new journey—the journey to Jerusalem and the disciples’ own apostleship and eventual martyrdom.
Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Apostle
Today is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Apostle. This feast began in the fourth century in Rome, a recognition that Peter, by virtue of his first confession of faith, had a special role of leadership in the Church. He was its first pope.
Because Peter answered Jesus’ second question well, Jesus named him (and his confession) as the rock on which the Church would stand against the fires of hell. Yet Peter was not beyond correction. Just a few verses later, when Peter tells Jesus that surely he won’t have to go to Jerusalem and die, Jesus rebukes him. “Get behind me, Satan,” he says.
What a difference a sentence can make!
Parallels Today
I have been reading and listening to quite a bit of Bishop Robert Barron lately. He is helping me see the great disconnect between how I see Jesus and how so very many people see him today. I see Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” like Peter. That is how I have always seen him. While my father was agnostic when I was a child, and I heard his disbelief, the doubts I heard were very different from what seems to be common parlance today.
Bishop Barron spends quite a bit of time taking on the “nones”–the people who do not see faith as an important part of life–the agnostics who doubt, atheists, and the great number of people who have enough faith to claim Christianity or Catholicism as their religion, but not enough that that claim determines their lives.
In effect, these moderns see Jesus the same way others saw him in today’s Gospel. Instead of “Elijah” or “John the Baptist” or “one of the prophets” today the descriptions would be “a wise man,” “a friend in heaven,” “a way to give wisdom a face,” or “my mother’s faith.” But it means the same thing: Jesus was a good man, nothing more.
Awareness that so many see Jesus as another good man leads me to ask: “Who is Jesus to me?” If he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, what difference does that make in how I live my life?
Is Jesus the Christ to me?
Our prayer group is going through a Life in the Spirit seminar. We are up to week 4 today. Life in the Spirit, like Cursillo, ACTS, and many other programs, seeks to bring the point home: Jesus Christ is Lord! He is the Son of the Living God. He is God in the flesh, entering into human life, taking on all its struggles, living, teaching, healing, dying, rising, becoming present in sacraments. This Son of the Living God wants to have a personal relationship with me–and with you.
God came (and comes) himself to save us. God suffered and died to save us. God is God, and so he rose from the dead. He sends his Holy Spirit to breathe his life into us–EVERY DAY–if we confess him as Lord and mean it!
I have been through a Life in the Spirit seminar before. I have been through Cursillo. And through the years numerous parish missions, retreats, and moments of awareness “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Yet, again and again, I need conversion. I need that deep awareness: Jesus Christ is LORD. And he wants me to choose him as Lord of me. Every time I’ve had a round of new awareness, God has come to me more deeply. I trust he will again. And, every time there has been conversion in me, life has changed. Yes, more shadow of the Cross.
More costs of discipleship.
Yes, Lord, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. You are Lord of me.
Amen. So be it!
Prayer:
Lord, your Church created Lent to give us a time to focus on conversion. Help me today to proclaim you in my heart and life as “THE CHRIST” and “THE LORD”. Let me follow Peter…and Jesus…here and now, in this little corner of the world. Convert me, Lord. Fill me. Heal me. Help my awareness and conviction of you as Lord of my life move me–even to the cross.
