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The Rev. Dr. Dennis E. Morey, Pastor
Scripture: Mark 8:27-38
Who Am I?
It is a guessing game children like to play.
“I am huge. I have four legs a tail, a trunk and big ears.
From what you know, who am I?”
Everyone replies, “An Elephant!”
“I have four small legs, a powerful tail, and huge teeth.
I live in the swamp and hide just under the surface of the water.
From what you know, who am I?”
Everyone replies, “An Alligator”
“I always make Thanksgiving dinner. I have gray hair.
I live in an old house and you think I have lots of wrinkles. From what you know, who Am I?”
This may bring forth a variety of answers.
Some may reply, “The old man down the street.”
Some may reply, “The chef at the restaurant downtown.”
Some may reply, “Grandma.”
The answer would depend on your Thanksgiving dinner experience.
Jesus and his disciples were together just outside the city of Caesarea Philippi. This is the pagan city where Pan, the half-goat, half-man god, had a temple near a cave. It was the practice for Pan worshipers to throw a human or animal victim into the deep pit as a sacrifice to Pan before entering the city. It was believed that when the cave flooded, the demons of hell came bursting out. This place was called “the Gates of Hell.”
Walking along together just outside that city, Jesus asked his disciples a question, “Who do people say I am?” He was asking the disciples to tell him what they had heard on the street.
Even though we see Jesus and the disciples together most of the time in the scripture, in reality we know that there were times when that was not the case. There were those times when Jesus got off by himself for several hours or several days to pray. No doubt there were times when the disciples’ families needed them and they would leave the group, agreeing to meet up again on a certain time and day at a certain place.
“Who do people say I am?” Jesus asked, and the disciples replied that the word on the street was, “Some say you are Elijah and you have reappeared as the scriptures predicted just before the Messiah is revealed. Elijah is predicted to return because he will call us back to worshipping the Lord God and then God will send us the Savior we are promised.
“Some say you are John the Baptizer who has come back to life trying to finish the work of preparing people for the coming Kingdom of God. Some say you are one of the great prophets of long ago, sent to warn us of terrible days ahead.”
Then Jesus asked, “Based on what you know, who am I?”
Peter said, “You are the Messiah.”
This scripture has always invited its readers to consider who they believe Jesus to be. One thing about Jesus: No one can just walk away. Everyone who encounters him has to offer some kind of opinion as to who he is and what that means to them personally.
The very fact that we assemble here on Sunday mornings is testimony of our belief that Jesus is God’s Son, and our Savior.
Out on the street where you live and work, in our culture, who do people say Jesus is? If you took a microphone and a video recorder out on the streets of Oskaloosa and stood at a stop sign interviewing people in cars asking, “Who is Jesus?” this video is what you would most likely find.
Reading this scripture lesson gives us the opportunity to think once again about what we believe about the question of Jesus, “Who do you say I am?”
Understanding the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, the question from the call to worship comes to life. “When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you have set in their places—what are human beings that you think of them, mere mortals that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3-4)
This week, in the news, we have seen the story about how the Hubble Telescope has been repaired and the vast space it sees beyond our galaxy. Figuring that light travels 186,000 miles per second, consider how many miles it will travel in one year. Then consider how many million light years that telescope sees, even to the place where some stars are in their formation stage. Our God is still creating. This God is interested in you and me on this tiny planet in this one of many galaxies at this point in time.
This week we heard the President speak to children in the classroom. He talked about how children should be motivated to do their best so they could have a good life and be an asset to their country. He said the world needs their help in solving its problems.
They may have been impressed to some degree that they were directly addressed by a President of the United States.
I doubt if schoolchildren are going to be motivated to do a better job because they want a better world.
This is the only world they have known, and even as adults we understand that we can only know a tiny glimpse of what is going on around the globe and what the world needs.
This country and the world is filled with grownups who cannot be motivated to do the good thing or the right thing because they are such good people full of potential.
Most of us look at the problems of the world and feel there is very little if anything we can do to solve those problems. The world’s challenges are far bigger than any of us can even imagine.
Being motivated because parents, teachers, and even the President tell us we can make a better world is not what motivates the human being. It knows that the God who created all this and us, too, believes we can make a difference.
This God wants to be so involved in our lives and longs to know us—the God who has created everything that is, even reduced himself into the form of a human being as Jesus and lived among us, and died as the payment for our sin.
I believe we will not be motivated to change the world until we understand and settle Jesus’ question: “Who do you say I am?”
And we can’t come to the answer to that fully until we see our need, the deficiency in our own character. Until we come saying, “I know I need some help. I know I can’t do this on my own. I know something is missing.” Only when we understand who we are and our need to know God can we understand the true identity of Jesus.
Song: “Who Am I” by Casting Crowns (video from YouTube)
When we settle in our hearts “Who am I?” and understand ourselves as not having all the answers inside us, when we understand that there is not enough potential inside us without the presence of God, then we will understand we need God in our lives.
God presents the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ and invites us to invite him into our lives and allow his Holy Spirit to instruct us and guide us as we live out the plan God has in mind.
Then we can answer the question, “Who am I?” with the words of that song, “I am yours.”
Because we belong to God we can change the world.
Amen.
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Mark 8:27-38 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (From the
New Revised Standard Version of the
Bible) |
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