What About You? Matthew 16:13-20 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. How do you even respond to a question from Jesus like Who do you say that I am? It is both too simple and too complex and where would we even begin? Every Saturday at our Seminary we have a different guest lead us in worship and on one particular Saturday we had an elderly Methodist minister leading us. He told us he entered a joke that he had written into an online joke contest, and the joke went like this: One day Jesus was sitting around with his disciples and he asked them, Who do you say that I am? After a short pause, Peter spoke up and said, Well, I don t know Jesus. Who do you think you are? Jesus replied, You know, I think I m God. Peter said, Wow, Jesus. That s a pretty bold claim. Why do you think that? Well, Jesus answered, Every time I pray I feel like I m just talking to myself. A long jumper doesn t just stand at the line and see how far they can jump. They get a good running start. So, let s back up a chapter and see if we can get a running start before we jump into Jesus question. The question is found in Matthew 16, but let s walk back to Matthew 15 to try to understand what s going on. We re going to trust the headings given to each section and see if we can gain enough steam to take on the question before us. Let s start at Matthew 15:29. We ll find in this section a Jesus who is surrounded by crowds of people, many with physical ailments. He heals them and they praise God.
Following that, Jesus has compassion on the crowd and feeds over 4,000 people using only 7 fish and a few small loaves of bread. The Jewish leaders, in the next section, aren t sure what they re seeing, so they ask for a sign. As if the healing of the lame, the maimed and the blind and the miraculous meal on the mountainside were not enough, they wanted a sign from God, and we can almost see Jesus shoulders drop in disbelief. Jesus is still replaying these events in his mind when the disciples realize they left the 7 basketsful of leftover fish and bread on the other side of the lake. You can just imagine the disciples standing behind Jesus whispering among themselves, trying to decide who s going to ask Jesus to whip up a few more fish sandwiches. You tell him! I m not going to tell him, you tell him. You re the one who was supposed to pack the lunches. You tell him! While they re still quietly negotiating, Jesus turns around and says, Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The disciples look at each other and say, See! Yeast! Yeast is in bread! Jesus is so mad at you for not bringing us any bread to eat! Do you see what s going on here? Not only are Jesus and the disciples not on the same page, they re not even in the same book. Maybe not even in the same library. The disciples think Jesus is talking about bread but Jesus is still troubled by what he s just heard the religious authorities saying. You fools! We imagine he probably wants to say to his disciples. Are you paying attention?! All I ve been doing is giving sign after sign after sign and they had the audacity to ask for another sign! So they reach the place they are going and in my mind they re sitting by a campfire resting from their journey. As they sit staring at the flames, Jesus breaks the silence with a question. Who do people say I am? After the long day they ve had, it seems like Jesus is looking for a little reassurance from his inner circle. Jesus is checking the pulse of the crowds that seem to find him everywhere he goes. Who do they think I am? It s the type of question anyone can answer because whether the answer is wrong or right, you re just reporting what someone else has said. The three answers the disciples give are all honorable answers. They name 3 names: John the Baptist, Elijah and Jeremiah. Any one of us would be honored to be mentioned in the same sentence with names like that, and I imagine Jesus was honored as well. He doesn t say the people are wrong, but he presses the disciples to dig deeper.
But what about you? Who do you say that I am? Now that s a different kind of question. So, why don t we find ourselves a place to sit around the campfire and imagine that Jesus has just made eye contact with us. Well, if we start with the stories in the Bible, we might say Jesus is - A teacher - A healer - A miracle worker - A preacher - A friend - A storyteller - A comforter - Or a theologian. If we take Jesus at his word, we might say Jesus is - The Son of Man - The Son of God - The Bread of Life - The Door - The Good Shepherd - The Resurrection and the Life - The way, the truth and the life, or - The true vine But what about you? Who do you say that I am? We are told that Jesus never changes, but can t our understanding of who Jesus is change? If we re honest with ourselves, our understanding of Jesus has probably changed hundreds of times in our lifetime and will probably change a hundred more. So let s be honest with ourselves and look at some of the ways we ve answered when Jesus asks us who we think he is. I don t think I m the only one who has thought of Jesus as a moral policeman. You know, Jesus: the one who knows all the rules and ruins all our fun. This is the Jesus that we try so hard to be good enough to please and stay on his good side. Do good things, come to church, pray before meals keep Jesus happy. When we mess up one or two times, he might be willing to forgive us, but when we really do something wrong, you re better off staying away from this Jesus than to come face to face with his wrath.
Or what about the Make-a-wish Jesus? After all, he did say ask and it shall be given unto you. This is the Jesus that hangs out the most in the classroom right before a test or in the football stadium right before the big kick. But he also makes an appearance when we re looking for a front row parking space or while we wait on a loved one in the hospital. Or maybe you are familiar with the ancient Jesus. That s the Jesus that was relevant thousands of years ago, but really doesn t mean much to us now. Or the Bootstrap Jesus that is willing to help everyone as long as they first prove they re willing to help themselves. Or Safety Bubble Jesus who will protect us from all harm or any sad feelings. How I wish I was making up these answers about who I believe Jesus to be, but if I m honest with myself, I have believed every one of these descriptions of Jesus and I imagine I m not alone. I believe that Jesus does not tell us we are wrong in our understanding of who he is, he only encourages us to dig deeper; to push further. Do you remember what he said when Pilate directly asks him Are you the King of the Jews? He answered, That s what you say. In other words, I cannot answer for you who you think I am. As a side note, have you ever heard someone say Jesus is the answer? An author by the name of Martin Copenhaver has pointed out that, in the 4 Gospels, the books of the Bible that explicitly tell of the life of Jesus, Jesus asks 307 questions. In those same books Jesus is asked 183 questions. Do you know how many of those questions he answers? 3. Only 3 times does Jesus give a conclusive direct answer, and I don t think it s because he s a slippery politician! There s just something so final about a definite answer and I don t think Jesus wants the conversation to end. In fact, Jesus is recorded several times in the gospels instructing his disciples and those he s healed to tell no one what has been revealed to them about his identity. When Jesus asks us the question Who do you say that I am?, he is not looking for us to recite what we have heard someone else say. Jesus is encouraging us to dig deeper and speak from our own experience. When the disciples realized the question wasn t rhetorical and Jesus wasn t going to move on until someone said something, our friend Peter, who usually blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind, speaks very clearly and confidently: You are the Messiah (the champion, the liberator, the Savior), the Son of the Living God.
If Jesus were to ask Peter the same question 24 hours earlier, his answer may have been You are a good teacher, now he s sure that Jesus is the Messiah and just a few chapters later, this same Peter is denying ever even knowing Jesus. Jesus will never stop asking us that question because his hope is that we won t lock in an answer and move on. I think Jesus hope for us is that we will continue to dig deeper and answer his question with more questions. I think Jesus hope is that our answer will shape our lives. Graduates, I want to be honest with you. The numbers are stacked against you. Research shows that 40-50% of students just like you who graduate from high school after being a part of a supportive church or youth group will drift away from God and the church through their college years. That means, if the research is accurate, that 2 out of the 4 of you will decide that God is not for you in the next 3-4 years. I ve never liked limiting people to statistics. As you stood up in front of the church a few weeks ago to lead us in worship, we could not have been more proud of your willingness to share your faith so genuinely and personally. But we would be naïve to pretend like days are not coming when your faith will be challenged. There will be days when you drop one egg and feel like you should just throw out the whole dozen. That s not news to you you ve had those days before. Author Brennan Manning says that after thousands of hours of prayer and solitude, he is utterly convinced that when we come face to face with Jesus, he will have questions once again: Did you believe that I love you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I longed to hear the sound of your voice? Because I know your whole life story. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship, and my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are and not as you should be, because you re never going to be as you should be. Jesus asks, How about you? Who do you say that I am? Your answer does not define Jesus identity, but it defines his identity to you. My hope for you is that you will continue to dig deeper, keep asking questions, and never let the conversation end.