Who do you say I am?

This blog post is adapted from a talk given at Christ Church Abingdon, UK in October 2024. The Bible excerpt referenced is Matthew 16:13–20.

Yesterday, I took my son to one of a toy shop. We walked around the shop and he picked out a nativity set. And bless him, of all the toys in the shop, this is the one he wanted. I contemplated what to do, but Jonny refused to let go of the nativity set and that kid has a tight grip - it wasn’t going anywhere. And… who am I - someone who loves Christmas and who works at a church - to say no to a kid who wants a nativity set?! Pretty sure it was the cute toy sheep he was most excited by but… he’s 18 months old so I’ll forgive him for that! Once we’d paid, he continued to hold the box all around the other shops and on the bus home. Little did I know this was the best evangelism opportunity I have had in a long time. 

As people often do on the bus, an older lady turned to Jonny and asked him what he had. He showed her and she proceeded to ask him questions… “oooo what’s that?!” “Who’s that?!” Jonny pointed to Jesus and said “baby” and I will confess I was very proud of him, if not a tad surprised. I said, “a very special baby, right?!” It was a really tender moment, only then changed when Jonny then proceeded to scream “BAAAA!” as he pointed to the sheep.

To Jonny at the moment, Jesus is but a baby in a manger. And as we approach Christmas, we may be asked the same questions by our friends and neighbours. Who is Jesus? Maybe it’s good if we have an answer to that question.

Tonight we’re thinking about just that, about Jesus’ question…“Who do you say I am?” And we’re going to think about the question three different ways.

1. Who do you say I am?

2. Who do you say I am?

3. Who do you say I am?

These three ‘who do you say I am?’ questions have different askers and intended recipients, as well as different inflexions and purposes. Jesus poses a question to the disciples about the crowd when he asks: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” … which can also be framed as: who do you say I am? when ‘you’ refers to the general public. Jesus then turns the question inward and asks the disciples specifically: “Who do you say I am?” But there’s a third question too, one that isn’t asked but answered in this passage: Peter learns who he is when Jesus tells him he is the rock on whom he will build his church. If Peter were to ask ‘Lord, who do you say I am,’ Jesus’ lines at the end of this passage would surely be the answer.

Jesus: People, who do you say I am?

Jesus’ first question to the disciples is this: who do other people say that I am? At this point in Jesus’ ministry, there were rumblings and grumblings about who Jesus was. And so, with all of Jesus’ questions, there’s something else going on here. Jesus isn’t necessarily asking for the information. He knows what people are saying! Jesus wants to know if the disciples, the people who’ve been spending the most time with him, have fallen in with the crowd’s assessment or if they’re seeing him for who he really is. So he asks them what people are saying, and the disciples give him all the correct answers.

On the surface, to us, it seems as if these suggestions are wildly off-base. How and why would Jesus be any of these people named: John the Baptist (who was just beheaded), Elijah and Jeremiah (Old Testament prophets)? Like, that seems ludicrous! But actually, these suggestions were commonplace guesses as to who Jesus is, and actually indicative of the fact that most people recognised Jesus was from God. If you asked the people around you in your day-to-day who Jesus is… what do you think they’d say? A good teacher? A strong moral leader? Founder of a religion? Most people aren’t walking around saying Jesus was evil and a bad person. Most people recognise something good in Jesus, even if just via hearsay. 

I’m reading articles seemingly all the time at the moment about the openness of people my age and younger to Jesus. It’s a wonderful thing and it gets me really excited about the future of the church. But the sad thing is that the same age group who is so open to the teaching of Jesus is so sceptical of organised religion. Let’s be honest… can we blame them? A lot has been done in the name of Christianity which repulse us now. And with scandals left, right, and centre in the church, it’s difficult for outsiders to trust us when we say we have moral authority. What’s more, I fear we have gotten into the habit as Christians of scoffing at people who don’t have the whole picture quite right. We dismiss those with questions instead of welcoming them in, whatever their age. And we assert truth without the compassion or patience to sit with people as they learn how to apply it. If you haven’t grown up with Christianity, a lot of the things we do at church don’t make sense and are quite confusing. We tell people all the time that it’s not easy to be an overnight success when it comes to fame. But the same goes for Christianity too. Yes, Jesus changes lives dramatically all the time, but the bit that comes next takes a lot of work and readjustment, almost like moving to a new place where you don’t know the language, the people or the customs. People like Jesus. Maybe it’s us they don’t like so much.

Jesus and Christianity have become synonymous in culture, as in some ways they should be. But if our organised religion doesn’t look like Jesus would maybe want it to, can we blame people for being confused when asked who Jesus is? Sure, people today don’t think he’s a reincarnated John the Baptist. But they might perceive his teachings as bigoted or unnecessarily strict. They think him outdated or stuffy, and they may say Christianity does more harm than good. But little of that has to do with Jesus. Something has gotten lost. 

We talk a lot in Christian circles about being Jesus’ hands and feet. If our actions in the world are a significant part of what points people to Jesus, it is on us if people walk around thinking Jesus is a good teacher but nothing more. Maybe that puts more responsibility on us than the divine economy accounts for, but it has to be true that how Christians act influences and impacts who people think Jesus is. 

People answer all kinds of things to Jesus’ question: ‘Who do you say I am?’ How might we influence someone else’s answer this week for the better, help them see Jesus as we do?

Jesus: [insert your name here], who do you say I am?

Upon hearing the disciples’ answer to the first question, Jesus turns to them again: “But what about you? Who do you say I am” In Greek, the word ‘you’ is given added emphasis - who do you say I am? It’s a lot more personal and a lot more directive. The answers the disciples could have given would have revealed a lot. If they’d joined with the various groups calling Jesus John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, and the like, this could have revealed political motivations or societal allegiances. And, it could have shown their relationships with Jesus to be surface-level at best. 

But Peter comes back with this amazing confession: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And many of us now go ‘By Jove, I think he’s got it!’ in an almost condescending tone. Like, “C’mon Peter - how did it really take you sixteen chapters?!” But we forget that we read the Bible now with a lot more information and knowledge of the resurrection. And most, if not all, of us don’t have a whole lot of Jewish tradition and history we have to unlearn to see Jesus as the Messiah. 

Our sermon series is titled ‘The Way of the King’ and we’ve seen so far in our series how Jesus flips the script. And Jesus’ coming as the Messiah was certainly not what the Jewish people were expecting. Peter, who was raised in this deeply Jewish culture, was likely looking for the Messiah to be a zealous political ruler. He maybe even desperately wanted it to be that way. So, when Peter says to Jesus: “You are the Messiah”, it’s a big deal. Peter is casting off all his hopes and expectations for a political ruler and putting his trust in Jesus instead. He’s acknowledging that his previous understanding of the concept was wrong. And he’s all in.

This is what Jesus asks us to do as well. It’s not about the intellectual answer. It’s the personal one that matters. What motivates your relationship with Jesus? Maybe it is the intellectual answer. You believe that Christianity is correct so you come to church and state a belief in Jesus. Maybe it’s social. Your friends believe in Jesus so it’s easier for you to do the same. Or maybe it’s routine for you. You have come to church for a long time so you keep coming out of habit. None of those reasons for coming to church are necessarily bad, but Jesus longs for more.

A.W. Tozer says this: “A true disciple does not consider Christianity a part-time commitment. That person has become a Christian in all departments of his or her life.” But this quote from Tozer can be misinterpreted to suggest that one has to do Christian things all the time. But that’s not the point. I’m not a better disciple because I work at a church and spend most of my time here with other Christians doing Christian-y things. I become a true disciple - to use Tozer’s words - when I look at Jesus and confess him as Lord. Sure, in my life, other things flow from that which may make me seem more Christian. But, in reality, Jesus longs for my heart more than anything I could do. Because, when we truly confess Jesus as Lord, we do become Christian in all departments of our lives. We can’t help it. It overflows and we can no longer contain the love, mercy and grace of Christ. 

That doesn’t mean we won’t make mistakes. Peter is a prime example of that. In Matthew 26, Peter denies knowing Jesus as the person he professed as the Messiah is arrested and taken to the cross to die. He had forgotten what it meant that Jesus is Lord. And I wonder if some of us have forgotten that too. I know that I have, even in the last 24 hours. I’ve lost sight of Jesus as Lord and it’s impacted my thought patterns and behaviours. When I honestly consider the question ‘how can I help someone else see Jesus for who he is?’, I realise that it is when I forget Jesus is Lord that I stumble and fail here. 

The two ‘who do you say I am’ questions in this passage are interlinked. When we see Jesus as the world does, we will behave as the world does. But when we see him as Lord, everything changes. 

Peter says that Jesus is the Son of the living God. He acknowledges that there are other gods out there, just as there are others today. In our culture, we worship fame, power, money, sex, celebrities, work, and even our friends and spouses. It’s not just other divinities that occupy the worship of our culture. All sorts of things become the thing we want, and the thing we seek our approval from. But there is only one living God. We just forget that sometimes.

When Jesus were to ask you, “who do you say I am?”, what would you say?

[insert your name here]: Lord, who do you say I am?

Finally, then, we come to the part of the passage that has sparked much debate in Christian history among theologians. What does it mean that Peter is the rock? What does it mean that the gates of Hades cannot overcome the church? And what does it mean that the kingdom of heaven has keys and that Peter holds them?

Some quick thoughts:

1. When Jesus hears Peter’s confession, he says “Blessed are you” - does that remind you of anything? In Matthew 5, Jesus lists some blessings in which he says “Blessed are the poor” or “the meek” etc etc. We call these the Beatitudes. Jesus is giving Peter a Beatitude of his own here. The so-called reward from his blessing is a renaming. Peter was called Simon until Jesus renamed him. Renaming is a common thing in the Bible and often indicates the beginning of a new call or vocation. Abraham was Abram’s second name. And Jacob gets a new name too. There’s a lot more. Peter is gifted this new name and it means rock. And, Jesus says that on it, he will build his church. Now, Jesus’ word for church here isn’t the same as ours. He likely means the community of believers will begin with Peter. We could argue back and forth about whether that justifies apostolic succession in the Pope… but I don’t think that’s the most helpful point here. Peter, upon his confession of faith, is given a new identity. When we come to Jesus and confess him as Lord, we too are given a new identity and a new call upon our lives. I wonder, what’s yours?

2. The reference to Hades seems like an out-of-place allusion to Greek mythology. And it kind of is, but also kind of not. Hades was the way Peter would have understood death. Jesus is perhaps using this image to show Peter that his death is coming but that even death will not overcome him, or those who believe in him. The famous line from John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That doesn’t mean we won’t face death, but it cannot and will not overcome the power of Jesus.

3. The keys were a rabbinic symbol for teaching at this time. So, the fact that Jesus says Peter will have the keys to the kingdom of heaven is not a sign that Peter literally has a set of keys that can let people in and out. It’s instead a message that Peter will be a teacher. The ‘keys’ would have been something that would have been passed on from rabbis to their successors - it’s not saying that Peter is the only one who will teach. And the comments about binding and loosing stuff were common phrasing used to explain how rabbis would forbid (bind) and permit (loose) conduct depending on their teaching of the Scriptures. That doesn’t mean Peter and those who follow him get to dictate what’s allowed and what’s not but instead says that our teaching matters. What we forbid and permit are important. We can’t just let anything go. Jesus’ commands are important.

Think for a moment though about what this all would have meant for Peter, in that moment, with him knowing all that context that I’ve just tried to briefly explain.

Peter has been given a new name, a new identity, and been told that his vocation is to hold the teachings of the church. Peter saw Jesus as he really was, and then Jesus told Peter how he saw him. Peter probably didn’t believe he was capable of all the things Jesus was telling him he was, but Jesus believed in him. When we come to Jesus and say ‘Lord, who do you say I am?’, we might be surprised by the answer. 

I have struggled with low self-esteem probably my whole life. It’s not necessarily because of a particular moment which crushed my spirit or anything, but just because. And so, some of the most powerful encounters I have had with God have been moments when I have functionally said through lots of tears, “Lord, who do you say I am?” and he’s responded with a lot of love.

But it’s more than love. It’s the truth.

The way of the King? Perhaps above all else, it’s truth. There are actions we can follow and attitudes we can adopt, but - at the core of following Jesus - is truth. Jesus doesn’t lie to us. When we ask him who we are, he responds with the whole truth. No one else can do that. My spouse and my closest friends can tell me what they think of me, and oftentimes it is truthful and it reflects the truth of God… but only Jesus can tell me who I really am and who I was made to be. But I need to see Jesus as Lord before I can hear that and truly believe it. If I put my trust and authority in other people or other things, lies about who I am and what I am worth will seep in. I will never be good enough for this world, but I am more than good enough for God. 

When we see Jesus for who he really is, we can begin to see ourselves as God sees us. We were created in his image, fearfully and wonderfully made. We were made for a relationship with him. And we are our fullest selves when we are in a relationship with him. Put your identity in Christ and the rest comes later. Jesus wanted Peter to see him as he was before bestowing upon him the authority to teach. We can do all the fancy Christian stuff and say a lot of things that make a lot of sense, but we need to see Jesus as he is first. 

As we approach Christmas, it can be easy to get wrapped up in all that comes with it. But let us keep our eyes so firmly fixed on who Jesus is that when we begin to share invitations to our Christmas events, we proudly and boldly declare that the baby in a manger is the Saviour of the whole world. He is the Messiah. He is the Son of the living God. And nothing can change that or take it away.