Thinking Anew:IN TOMORROW'S Gospel reading we find Jesus alone with his disciples in the foothills near Caesarea Philippi. He asks what people are saying about him.
“Who do they think I am?” The disciples tell him there are various opinions – some think he is John the Baptist, others Elijah or one of the prophets.
The general conclusion is that Jesus is a prophet, someone who speaks God’s word to the people.
Jesus then asks a much more difficult question: “But who do you say that I am?” It is always easier to say what other people think, to hide behind their opinions; much more difficult to give one’s own opinion and stand by it. Peter emerges as the spokesperson and although often considered impetuous, in this instance he speaks from experience, of time spent in the company of Jesus. He had seen and heard enough and his answer is unequivocal: “You are the Messiah” or as another account puts it: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. It is difficult in this day and age to understand fully the significance of such terms but the claim is that Jesus is the unique and real, purposeful presence of God in human affairs.
It is inevitable that people will have different opinions of Jesus. Some years ago the author Richard Ingrams edited an anthology entitled Jesus: Authors take Sides. In it he explores the writings of well known writers in which they give their views. Some are traditional; some are questioning and enquiring while others are critical and even cynical. But what it shows is that Jesus refuses to go away, that he will not be consigned to history but still challenges each new generation with the question “Who do you say that I am?”
And it raises the question as to whom we should give allegiance when it comes to deciding our beliefs and values.
We were reminded earlier this month – the 70th anniversary of the start of the second World War – of what happens when allegiance is misplaced. Adolf Hitler and his large following brought death and misery to countless millions of men, women and children. Many who had a different view of life resisted with extraordinary courage and determination.
Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman whose family were deeply committed Christians for whom Jesus Christ and his teaching were decisive. They sheltered Jews and others from the Gestapo but they were betrayed, and the family suffered terribly. Some were executed and Corrie and her sister Betsie were sent to Ravensbruck Concentration camp where Betsie died.
(Incidentally, six people hiding in the house at the time of their arrest went undetected and later escaped.)
In her book The Hiding Place, she describes an incident after the war which took place following a service at which she had preached. “It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room at Ravensbruck. And suddenly it was all there — the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face.
“, he came up to me beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,’ he said. ‘To think that, as you say, he has washed my sins away.’ His hand was thrust out to shake mine. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand, but I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.
“I breathed a silent prayer: ‘Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.‘ I took his hand. And along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.”
It is easy perhaps to say “You are the Christ” but Corrie ten Boom’s experiences remind us that it is one thing to say it; it is quite another to live it.
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” – Philippians 4:13.
– GL