Who do people say that the Son of Man is?
The response to this question has only seemed to degrade in recent years. One used to get the responses such as that the Son of Man was a good moral teacher or at least an admirable myth. But these days the answers have become more hostile. In the minds of many he is not allied with 'good guys' like John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or a prophet. Instead he is often but one of the 'bad guys', champion of the patriarchy and of other old-fashioned ideas. Of course the real Jesus resists any overly simplistic answers. The real Jesus does not fit neatly into any preexisting categories, good or bad. And the truth of his identity cannot be crowd-sourced. One can't rely on Wikipedia or Snopes or any other merely human source of truth to determine if the claims about him are true. This is because no one stands in relation to him as an unbiased objective observer. One can't answer the question of his identity in the abstract as though it held no concern or ramifications for one's own life. Instead one must answer the question of who Jesus is as a question whose answer will determine everything about one's own life henceforth.
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Once the responsibility to answer this question is taken away from the crowds we realize our own lack of qualification to respond. The crowds are no experts, but at least they have an accumulation of assorted facts and assertions. But suddenly we find ourselves here alone before God without any particular expertise, little more than uneducated fishermen really, and yet still called to answer. But it is precisely in this place of humility that we stand the best chance of being open to the answer.
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The heavenly Father wants to reveal Jesus to us as well. This is in fact the only way to come to living faith in him.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (see John 6:44).
The Father and the Son before desired to be known and loved by us so we need not fear that they will withhold this revelation from us. The fact that we are unprepared and don't know how to receive it will not ultimately be a barrier to them if we simply remain open to their work in our hearts.
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.
Although the Church itself cannot make our individual acts of faith for us she nevertheless provides the safe pastures for those who come to faith, against which the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail. We come to believe by supernatural grace, but the content of the faith that we accept as a consequence of that act is safeguarded in the Church herself, by the charism given to Saint Peter and his successors in particular.
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.
Thank God that none of this depends on us! The Father makes the Son known to us. And we respond to the Son by accepting the fullness of what he has committed safely to Scripture and Tradition, safeguarded by the bishops, and in particular, the one who sits on the Chair of Peter. It is this confidence, that God himself provides and does what is necessary for our salvation, that can make us as confident as Paul:
The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat
and will bring me safe to his heavenly Kingdom.
To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
We can come to learn, like Peter, that our God is able, provided we do not abandon him, to deliver us from every spiritual prison in which we find ourselves.
Now I know for certain
that the Lord sent his angel
and rescued me from the hand of Herod
and from all that the Jewish people had been expecting.
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