Saturday, August 20, 2011

Who Do You Say Jesus Is?

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?”  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.” (Matthew 16:13-27)



Before a boy and a girl, knew the status of their relationship, it is very important to ask: Who am I to you? It is only when they fully answered that question will they know if they actually have that special relationship status.

Who do people say that the Son of Man is?  Jesus is asking us who is he. But we commonly refer to the opinion of others.  We usually refer to what others tell us about Jesus or who Jesus based on what we read in the gospels or what we learn about him in theology.  But that is not enough.  

But who do you say I am? We need to know Jesus personally.  Knowing Jesus through the Scriptures, the Church and the testimony of other people are just but preparations or help for us to know him personally.



In Filipino, we have two different terms if we know a person, that is kakilala and kilala. Kakilala means you know that person only by name.  Kilala means that you know the person by who he is. Saying that a person is your kilala means that you already have a deeper relationship to him or her other than being a kakilala.  For example:  To a person that you have just met, you will refer to him as kakilala when you met later.  But when you noticed that the person whom you know very much is hiding something from you, you might say:  Kilala kita kaya wla kang maitatago sa akin. (I know you, so you cannot hide from me.)  It means that you already have a deeper relationship more than knowing by name, birthday, address  and  other external data.   Because of deeper relationship, you know his attitudes, behavior and values in life.  But you cannot make someone your kilala without him being your kakilala. Since it is the first step in knowing a person. 

That is what Jesus wants from us.  First, we need to make Jesus our kakilala. We need to know Jesus through the Scriptures, the teachings of the Church as well as the testimony of other persons.  But our knowledge of him needs to be evaluated by our personal experiences of him.  We need to have personal relationship with Christ by frequent prayer and the reception of the sacraments.  We need to reflect and see how he works in our lives.  We need to listen to his voice within us so that we can understand more the role he has in our lives.

Usually in my catechism class, whenever I ask my students who Jesus is, they will immediately say that he is their Savior.  Or their Creator.  Or their Father.  But when I ask them to explain why, they cannot answer.  That means that their knowledge of Jesus is just in the intellectual level.  There is a challenge in me to allow them to fall in love with Jesus so that they can know him and understand him more.
We can also see a lot of Christians who even memorized the Bible and can argue with other religions regarding on how they knew Jesus.  But they condemn other religions, throw negative words against them and even humiliate other people who do not belong to their faith.  That means they fail to know Jesus by heart who made a commandment to his disciples to "Love one another."  They know Jesus intellectually but fail to know his true teachings.  

In the Book of Job, we can see how Job, a just man suffered and then question God the reason for his suffering. In the end, he began to know God, not anymore of how others tell him  but through the constant reflection of his bitter experiences, these allowed him to understand God more.  “I know that you can do anything,  and no one can stop you. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’     It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.  You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’ I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. (Job 42:2-5) 

It takes a lifetime to know Christ fully.  The search never stops until we see him finally in heaven.  But once we can already answer Christ in his question: Who do you say I am?, he will be very happy for doing our effort and for opening ourselves to God's grace who allow us to understand Christ.  

Knowing Christ also comes with a  mission.  In Peter, he was appointed as the Rock on which Christ will build his Church.  What is our mission in the Church?  For some, it may mean being a leader; to some, a core group member; to some, a follower; to some; an adviser.  But each function that we do in the Church is equally important.  We become channels of God's blessing to the world in whatever work we do.



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