7 August 2014 - who do you say he is?

7 August 2014 - who do you say he is?

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.

Peter experiences the fulfillment of God's promise to Jeremiah.  He tells Jeremiah, "No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the LORD."  And Peter does not learn who Jesus is from flesh and blood.  It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit which gives this revelation to Peter, just as John tells us.

As for you, the anointing that you received from him remains in you, so that you do not need anyone to teach you. But his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and not false; just as it taught you, remain in him (cf. 1 Joh. 2:27).

The question of ultimate significance is who Jesus is for us.  It won't matter on the last day if we can correctly answer what other people think about him.  We have to confess with our mouth that "Jesus is Lord" and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead (cf. Rom. 10:9), because "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (cf. Act. 2:21), or more explicitly "he who believes and is baptized will be saved" (cf. Mar. 16:16).

It doesn't matter if we know what the Pope says about Jesus.  It doesn't matter if we know what the Church says about Jesus.  It matters what we say about Jesus.  Peter is the rock against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail.  The Church is the pillar and foundation of truth.  They do speak with this voice of truth.  They do clearly distinguish falsehood from sound doctrine. But they cannot make the confession for us.  They can give us the words to speak.  They do so faithfully.  They do so without error.  But we must speak the "good confession" from the depths of our own being.

For most of us, the confession of who Jesus is comes partly from us and in part from what we hear.  How does the confession that Jesus is LORD truly become our own?

I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; 
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The LORD wants to "Create a clean heart" in all of us, because it is the pure of heart that see him (cf. Mat. 5:8).  He wants to be seen! The more clearly we see him the more our confession of who he is becomes our own and not just hearsay.  But mark, he does the work in us.  It is not something which we can achieve through any strength we possess.  He "creates" the heart he wants us to have.  He "sustains" the Spirit he wants us to have.  All we do is bring "hearts contrite and humbled", hearts ready to receive all that he wants to do in us.

It's a process.  It's even a process for Peter, the rock.  His idea of Jesus must still be refined by the fire of the paschal mystery.  He never teaches error.  Yet he has to hear “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Even though the Father has revealed to him that Jesus is the Son of God there is more to Jesus than he imagines.

Create a clean and pure heart in us, O God, so that we can see Jesus, so that our vision of who he is.  Let us fix our gaze upon him so that we "may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth" (cf. Eph 3:18)  As we see him, let our hearts confess “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”