Pentecost 13 2026
I suspect we have all come to that point in a book when the plot seems to take a new and fresh turn. A hinge point in the story which will help us to know where we are going next and what the story is really all about.
Well we have one of those hinge moments in the gospel story in Matthew this morning. It comes in the form of a question from Jesus to his disciples. ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ What’s the word on the street? Their response seems to depend on what particular faction they are part of – whether they are partial to John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or another prophet. People are keen to project on to Jesus their particular cultural or theological allegiances.
Then Jesus sharpens the question, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Enough about them!What about you? After all his disciples have been the closest to him, heard what Jesus had to say and witnessed what he had done. So what do they think about him? ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter as he often does speaks first, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church’.
This is a crucial moment in the gospel story – Jesus is identified by Peter as the Messiah, God’s chosen and anointed one. This is an extraordinary statement for Peter to make. For there is a question what messiah like things has Jesus done up to this point? Jesus blesses him for his response, recognising that Peter has become a channel for God’s revelation about his true identity. He hasn’t actually worked it our for himself. But having said this Jesus closes it down ordering his disciples not to say anything about him being the Messiah.
We might wonder what this is all about, it’s often called by NT scholars the “Messianic Secret’. We have to recognise that the title Messiah is a loaded word filled with expectation, hope and some pretty firm views about what the Messiah would do for the people of Israel. At this point in history hope in the coming Messiah had been linked very clearly to freedom from the Romans, to revolution and a change of regime. It seems though that Jesus has other ideas about what being the Messiah meant and it certainly wasn’t about being a military leader of his people. For Jesus this seems to be located in self-sacrificing love to be shown for all people.
If you read on in this passage a few verses later we hear, ‘From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised’. Matthew 16.21 This is why I describe this passage as a hinge moment in the gospel story. We hear for the first time what will happen to Jesus – his death and his resurrection.
As I’ve been thinking about this passage through the week I have been reflecting on the question, ‘who do you say that I am?’. Asking myself the question how would I answer it. I suppose it is about who is Jesus to me now in my life. I could answer like Peter, I could answer it with words of scripture or quote bits of the creed, but I reckon I have to do more than that. I think we all have to do more than that. Who is Jesus to me today and how do I experience his presence in my life and what does that actually mean?
In my own life and journey of faith there came a point when the call to follow Jesus became insistent and I responded. The Jesus who called was a challenging example of someone who offered a new way of being and seeing the world, and as a teenager I was excited by the vision Jesus presented of a changed world, a world of justice, love and mercy a world as God wanted it to be. I suppose that is the Kingdom vision which I hold on to today and which I try to live and to witness to.
Jesus continues to present an example of life and teaching which is radical and challenging and to me he is the one who continues to call day by day, continues to invite, continues to be a giver of hope in a sometimes dark and difficult world. Angela and I knew this very powerfully when our son John died. Jesus was the one who held us and continues to hold us in his arms particularly when grief can become overwhelming.
So I say, ‘who is Jesus for you today?’ How would you answer the question Jesus put to his disciples. I would want to suggest that reflecting deeply upon this will help us all to build our relationship with Jesus, help us to move through what other people say and believe to what is really at the heart of our faith and a real meeting with the risen Jesus.
Of course it is a question that can be put to us as a church too. All Saints who is Jesus for us and does our life and actions answer that for others?
Canon Stuart Bain