"Who do you say I am?"

“And you, who do you say I am?”

Matthew 16:15

This is perhaps the most important question Jesus ever asked.  Having heard the disciples pontificate about the crowd’s perceptions of Him, Jesus now moves onto a much more personal, more fundamental, more transforming question.  He is not asking, “What have your parents told you about me?”  He is not even asking, “Who does the church say I am?”  Rather He asks, “Who do you say I am?” 

When confronted with this question, at once, without even thinking, our minds race with answers – “He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the Resurrection and True Vine, the Light of the World.  He is the High Priest, the Good Shepherd, the Righteous Branch, the Precious Cornerstone.  He is Friend and Savior, Master and Servant.  He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  And with each correct answer we may be skirting the very question Jesus is asking. 

Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”

This penetrating question should give us pause before impetuously jumping in with packaged answers.  In what way do I truly know Jesus?  Have I encountered Him personally or have I merely accepted the claims that others have made about Him?  Do I speak to Him often or just let the “religious professionals” handle that?  Do I ever listen to God or am I too busy telling Him what I want?  Jesus question is not only addressed to Peter and the disciples, but all of us today. 

In our age of instant diagnoses and ready-made solutions, the old patented answers, while theologically true, often fail to speak into an ever-changing world.  Do our answers truly address the questions the world is asking?  If we continue to recycle the same answers, do they continue to answer new questions?  Ours is a world of technological connectivity and psychological isolation, unparalleled prosperity and ecological fragility, chronic anxiety and addictive lifestyles, demeaning entertainment and manipulative media, shamefully widening gaps between rich and poor, a growing sense of powerlessness and abandonment among the young, moral confusion and international tension.  Surely the world wants to hear who Jesus is amidst all this.

So what would you say?  Who do you say that Jesus is?

“The essence of Christianity is Christ – not a doctrine, but a person.”

Pope Benedict XVI