Who Do You Say I Am?

By now Jesus had been going round the towns and villages of Galilee for a long time, teaching and healing, and everybody was talking about him and wondering who he could be. There were twelve of them now, his closest followers, and they went everywhere with him. One day he and the twelve went a long way north, right up past the top end of the Lake of Galilee, toward the villages around Caesarea Philippi. It was a town at the foot of a great high mountain, where snow often lay on the top. And as they were walking along the road, Jesus asked his followers a question: “Who do people say I am? Who do they say the Son of Man is?” *The Son of Man* was what he often called himself. And they told him what everybody was saying: “Some say you are John the Immerser. Some say you are Elijah. And others say you are Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But you — who do you say I am?” And Simon Peter answered him, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” *Christ* means the anointed one — the one God had promised, the one people had been waiting for ever since the prophets. And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! No person of flesh and blood showed you this. My Father in the heavens showed it to you. And I tell you: you are Peter — and on this rock I will build my gathering, and the gates of Hades will not be strong enough to overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens. Whatever you bind on the earth will be bound in the heavens, and whatever you set loose on the earth will be set loose in the heavens.” Peter was the name Jesus himself had given him, on the very first day they met, and it means a rock. And then Jesus gave all of them strict orders not to tell anybody that he was the Christ.

And from that day on he began to tell his followers what was going to happen to him. He had to go to Jerusalem, he said, and suffer a great many things there. He would be turned away by the elders and the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and be killed — and on the third day he would be raised up again. He said it plainly, in front of them all. And Peter took him to one side and began to tell him off: “Mercy on you, Lord! This will never happen to you!” But Jesus turned round, and looked at the rest of his followers standing there, and told Peter off instead: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block in my way, because you are not thinking about the things of God, but about the things of people.” Then he called the crowd over to him, as well as his followers, so that everybody heard what came next, and he said, “If anybody wants to come after me, let him say no to himself, and pick up his cross every day, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, and for the good news, will find it — he will save it.” Everybody listening knew what it meant when a man had to carry a cross. It was what the Romans made a condemned man do: carry the heavy wooden beam on his own shoulders, out through the streets to the place where he would be put to death, with everybody watching. And he went on, “What good is it to somebody if he wins the whole world, and loses his own life? What could a person possibly give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father, with the holy messengers, and then he will pay back every person for what he has done. And whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, among the unfaithful and sinful people of these times — the Son of Man will be ashamed of him too, when he comes. I tell you the truth: there are some of the people standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come in power.”

About a week after that, he took Peter and James, and James’s brother John, and led them up a high mountain, just the four of them, away from everybody else. It was a long climb, and he had gone up there to pray. And while he was praying, he changed in front of them. His face shone like the sun. His clothes turned as white as light — dazzling, flashing white, whiter than anybody who washed cloth anywhere on earth could ever have got them. Peter and the other two had been heavy with sleep. But now they were wide awake, and they saw his glory — and two men standing there with him, talking with him. The two men were Moses, who had led the people out of Egypt and up to the mountain of God, and had died on a mountaintop more than a thousand years before; and Elijah, the prophet who had called down fire on Mount Carmel, and had been carried up into heaven in a whirlwind. They had appeared in glory, and they were talking with Jesus about his going out — the going out he was about to bring to its end at Jerusalem. And as the two men were leaving him, Peter spoke up: “Master, it is good for us to be here! If you want, let us make three tents here — one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not really know what he was saying. He did not know what to answer, because all three of them were terrified. And while he was still speaking, a bright cloud came down and covered them over with its shadow, and they were afraid as they went into the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud: “This is my Son, the beloved, the one I have chosen. I am delighted with him. Listen to him.” When they heard it, the three of them fell flat on their faces, terrified. And Jesus came over to them and touched them, and said, “Get up. Do not be afraid.” And when they lifted up their eyes and looked round, there was nobody there at all any more — only Jesus, on his own, with them.

And as they were coming down the mountain, he gave them orders: “Do not tell anybody what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” So they kept it to themselves, and in those days they told nobody anything about what they had seen. But on the way down they argued with each other about what *rising from the dead* could mean. And they had a question. Long before, God had said through the prophet Malachi that he would send Elijah the prophet before the great day of the Lord came. So they asked him, “Then why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah has to come first?” And he said to them, “Elijah does come first, and he puts everything back in order. And yet how is it written about the Son of Man, that he must suffer many things and be treated as nothing? But I tell you that Elijah has come already. They did not know who he was, and they did to him whatever they wanted, just as it was written about him. And in the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then they understood that he was talking to them about John the Immerser — John, who had come out of the desert dressed the way Elijah used to dress, telling everybody to change their minds and turn around, and to get the road ready for the Lord.

The next day, when they came down off the mountain and got back to the other nine followers, they found a big crowd all round them, and some teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as the crowd saw Jesus, they were amazed, and they all came running up to him to greet him. And he asked them, “What are you arguing about among yourselves?” And a man in the crowd shouted out, and came and knelt down in front of him, and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son! Teacher, I beg you, look at him; he is my only child. I brought him here to you. He suffers terribly. There is a spirit in him that will not let him speak. Wherever it takes hold of him, all of a sudden he cries out, and it throws him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and goes stiff. It hardly ever leaves him alone; it is wearing him out. And I asked your followers to drive it out, and they could not do it.” And Jesus said, “You faithless, twisted generation! How long am I going to be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring your son here to me.” So they brought the boy to him. And as soon as the spirit saw Jesus, it threw the boy into a fit, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked the father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And the man said, “Since he was a small child. Many times it has thrown him into the fire, and into the water, to kill him. But if you can do anything — have pity on us, and help us!” And Jesus said to him, “*If you can!* Everything is possible for the one who trusts.” And straight away the boy’s father cried out, “I trust — help me where I do not!” Jesus saw that a crowd was running together to see. And he spoke sharply to the unclean spirit: “Spirit that cannot speak and cannot hear — I command you: come out of him, and never go into him again.” And the spirit shrieked, and shook the boy hard, and came out. And the boy lay there so still, like somebody dead, that most of the people said, ‘He is dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he stood up on his feet. He was well from that very hour, and Jesus gave him back to his father. And everybody there was astounded at the greatness of God. And while everybody was still marveling at all the things he was doing, he said to his followers, “Put these words into your ears, and keep them there: the Son of Man is going to be handed over into the hands of men.” Later, when Jesus had gone indoors, his followers came to him where nobody else could hear, and asked him, “Why could we not drive it out?” And he said to them, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth: if you have faith like a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to over there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. This kind can come out by nothing at all except prayer.”

Then they left that place and went on through Galilee. He did not want anybody to know where he was, because he was teaching his followers. And as they were walking together in Galilee, he said it to them again: “The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he has been killed, on the third day he will rise again.” And they were very sad. But they did not understand what he meant. It was hidden from them, so that they could not see it — and they were afraid to ask him about it.

And they came back to Capernaum, the town by the lake where Peter and Andrew had their house. On the road there the twelve of them had been arguing among themselves, and when they were inside the house Jesus asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” And nobody said anything. Because what they had been arguing about, all the way along that road, was which one of them was the greatest. But he knew what they were thinking in their hearts. And they came to him and asked, “Who is the greatest, then, in the kingdom of the heavens?” So he sat down — which is what a teacher did before saying something that mattered — and called the twelve over to him, and said, “If anybody wants to be first, he will be last of all, and the servant of everybody.” And then he called a small child over to him, and stood the child in the middle of them all, right beside himself. And he took the child up in his arms, and said, “I tell you the truth: unless you turn round and become like children, you will never go into the kingdom of the heavens at all. So whoever makes himself small, like this child — he is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens. And whoever welcomes one child like this in my name is welcoming me. And whoever welcomes me is not welcoming me, but the one who sent me. For the one who is the least among all of you — that is the one who is great.” Then John, James’s brother, spoke up: “Teacher, we saw somebody driving out demons using your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow along with us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him. Nobody who does a mighty work in my name can turn round the next minute and say bad things about me. Whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth: whoever gives you so much as a cup of water to drink because you belong to the Christ — he will certainly not lose his reward.”