Jesus was a wonder and excitement to many of his people. But for some he was a dangerously growing threat. Though many listened to him, many were not his disciples. For some the listening ended in an appreciation “he spoke well!” Others marvelled at his miracles. Some showed affection and praised the privileges of ‘his close people.’ “Blessed are rather those who hear the word of God and keep it” was the response Jesus had.
These are varieties of ways people spoke of Jesus. When Jesus asks ‘what do the people say that I am, the answers vary depending on how they liked to listen to the Word and responded. Some thought of an immediate return of John the Baptist in Jesus because he was known as a prophet and had to suffer an unjust death. Even Herod thought the same. When Jesus worked miracles they may have thought of the miracle working prophets Elijah and Elisha and there was great expectation that Elijah would come in the beginning of Messianic age. Because Jesus taught with authority some thought that he was Moses.
Not only these, Jesus was thought to be a mad man, possessed by devil, drunkard and glutton, friend of tax collectors and prostitutes, antinational and lawless. These are opinions about a man out there, showing some miracles and challenging the authorities having a number of people as his followers.
Opinions are many within the crowd, but the disciples are formed with an intimate knowing of the heart of the master. When a master is gradually understood more than a source of a new path and enlightenment, it seeks deeper convictions on the many questions that arise from the present standpoints. So, the significance of the master reshapes one’s own outlook over the world, religion and ethics.
Messiah would remove all sufferings. How can that Messiah fall victim to sufferings? How can we let our Hero, the master, the Messiah become a failure? Would it not be our failure too? Would it not break whatever we thought about him? They had not understood that being messiah had a price to pay, the price of life, because it is for this he came.
True love and life challenge the self-righteous and selfish powers. But for the disciples Jesus was not practical. His preaching ‘kingdom of God’ is beautiful to dream, but standing on realities we have to see that we live. The failure of theirs and ours is in making God obey for the survival of ourselves and the preservation of God himself. We have failed God by replacing the Gospel with News that seem good to us. Christ can be made an ideology, an object of best explanations and definitions. Christ can also be made an object of cult, a wheat that does not fall down, does not die. The cross itself becomes sign of domination and invasion. In these attempts of preservation it can so happen that we celebrate lies to defend our hypocrisy.
The true understanding, devotion, and communion can be there only in belonging to him. He lives among us. He is the source of our life, the model for our living, and the image we want to become. This, we achieve by sharing with one another the grace that we have received. The living, understanding, and witnessing to the World can happen when we have the messiah in and among us. The suffering, sacrifices, humiliations, persecutions, being handed over … are not the mode of atonement, they are the modes of life-giving.
When Peter professed that Jesus was the Christ the Son of the Living God, Jesus says that it was revealed to them by the heavenly Father. Yet, they needed more understanding on what it meant to be the Christ and the Son of God. It would happen only by being with him in all his trials. Generally, the people expected a political Messiah who would restore Israel. Some of them expected a change of heart in the people, some even expected a cosmic newness. Would all these happen just at a touch of the Messiah? Could it happen all of sudden at the very moment of the arrival of the Messiah?
Let us ask the Father to reveal to us the face of Christ present amongst us today, and also the face of the Messiah the Father asking us to be.
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