Like many of you, I've been spending a fair amount of time in the Gospel of Matthew. There's a lot I want to say about the structure and themes in that gospel (see the How Odd Section below for a slice of it), but there's one story that has captured my imagination. It's found in Matthew 16.
Jesus asks his biggest question in the strangest place possible.
Caesarea Philippi wasn't neutral ground at the time. It was actually the epicenter of pagan worship. It was a city built around a cave the ancient world believed was the literal gate to the underworld!
Furhter, locals threw sacrifices into that cave to appease the "god" Pan and Caesar had a marble temple there, stamped with his own claim to sonship.
That's where Jesus turns to his disciples and asks, "Who do people say that I am?"
Easy question. They rattle off the rumors, essentially saying, "People say you might the some kind of reincarnation of a great prophet."
Then Jesus asks the real question: "But who do you say that I am?"
In the Greek, the pronoun shift is glaring. This isn't a general survey. It's to each person in the group. Moment of truth.
Peter, standing in the shadow of that awful cave and in a city where the emperor claimed to be divine, says, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God."
Jesus says Peter's answer is given from God. Good. Whew.
Then, six verses later, Peter, apparently delusionally high on getting the right answer, blows us. Wrongly confronts Jesus. NO ONE tells Jesus what to do! And Jesus pushes back. Hard.
Peter disagreed with Jesus' comment that he, Jesus, would go to Jersualem and suffer and die. Getting the confession right is one thing. Understanding that Christ will be who he wants to be and do what he wants to do is another.
How many times do we confess the right things and then protest how God chooses to work in our lives?
It's another amazing passage. I wrote a fuller commentary on this passage and walk through the passage in a bit more detail. You can read the full piece here.
