In order to understand the significance of this episode in our gospel, it is important to know a few facts. This place where Jesus takes his disciples, Caesarea Philippi is located at the northernmost point of Israel. From there, Jesus and his followers would have a wide panorama of the whole country spread out before them. It was a place known in antiquity for being a shrine to various gods, including the god Pan, pictured as half-goat, half-man. Human sacrifice was offered to the gods at this place in ancient times. In Jesus’ time, this location, Caesarea Philippi was renovated by King Philip, and dedicated to Caesar Augustus, who insisted on being treated as a god, and to be referred to by various titles such as Son of God, Redeemer, Savior, all titles that would eventually be attributed to Jesus Christ.
So, in this shrine with so many associations with divinity, Jesus asks the crucial question: “In this place associated with various gods and idols, where do you put me? Am I just one of many gods to be worshipped at this site, or do I have a unique and special status?” Jesus has already asked his apostles “Who do others say that I am?” The various answers offered to that question represent good guesses on the part of the crowds, but they fall short of the full truth about Jesus. Jesus is more than John the Baptist, or Elijah or one of the many prophets in Israel’s past. I wonder if we went out now to interview people in the streets and ask them “Who is Jesus to you?”, what answers do you think we would get. Probably answers like “He was a good man” or “He was a great teacher” or “He was someone who had a lot of good ideas at the time”. All answers that would be woefully inadequate. But perhaps there are some among you, who, if asked the question, would still fall short of the fullness of the truth about Jesus.
To begin with, Jesus cannot be described as being in the past. He WAS a good teacher, he WAS a good man, he HAD some good ideas. No, no, no. Jesus is not some dead figure of history. He is history itself, the centre of history and the one to whom all history is headed. In one of his most explosive declarations about himself that Jesus makes to the Jews, he states “Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). The Jews nearly stoned him to death for saying that. And no wonder. Jesus is saying to them, and to us “I am not a dead figure of history. I am eternal, I always have been, I always am, and I always will be” In other words, “I am God”. No one merely human could ever get away with saying that. Not Caesar, not Mohammad, not Buddha, not Gandhi. No one. The writer of the book of Hebrews declares it succinctly: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
In our gospel today, Peter speaks up for all the apostles when he declares to Jesus: “You are the Christ”. That is a much better answer than anyone else has given, but it is still not the full truth. The Christ is the title given by the Jews to the one they believed God would send into the world to bring in God’s kingdom and overcome all evil. They did not understand that the way in which Jesus was destined to bring that about was by his suffering and death, freely surrendered to his heavenly Father. Jesus, as we see, goes on to tell his disciples what was going to happen to him in the future. He was going to be rejected by the religious leaders of Israel, and be killed, before rising again after three days. It is almost certain that the disciples missed the reference to rising again. They were outraged by the suggestion that the Christ, the Messiah, God’s own champion and Savior of the people would suffer and die. This was impossible. God would never allow something so terrible and heinous to happen to his anointed one. That is why Peter takes Jesus aside to remonstrate with him and receives the greatest slap down any of the disciples gets from Jesus. Jesus actually calls him a “Satan”, which means an adversary or opponent. This is absolute humiliation for Peter, who goes from hero to zero in a matter of minutes.
What the Jews didn’t get, what Peter and the other apostles don’t get till much later is that evil will never be overcome by more evil, ,by violence and atrocity. That will only lead to more violence and evil. Evil is to be overcome only by love, but the free willed, obedient, loving surrender of Jesus on the cross with the words on his lips as he dies: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Jesus, at that point, is appealing to his Father to forgive every single one of us, past, present and future, including those baying for his blood at the foot of the cross, his sworn enemies, as well as the atheists and agnostics and haters of Jesus. Until we get this, until we can think of Jesus looking on each one of us, knowing our darkest and deepest sins, and still loving us to death, his death, then we have missed the whole point of our gospel today, and indeed the whole point of our faith in Christ. Until we can place our greatest enemies, the ones who have wounded us the most, at the foot of the cross of Jesus and say “Yes, Lord Jesus, I ask you to forgive even this person, and that one, and that one”, then we miss why Peter’s answer to Jesus: “You are the Christ” is the only truly correct one. In Matthew’s gospel, Peter answers Jesus’ question in the fullest way “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16).
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to never let go of that truth. It is the truth which will save the world.