FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Have you ever been proven wrong about a first impression? I have on any number of occasions but never as wrong as I was about a young man whose name was John. I was serving a suburban church in Atlanta. He just showed up one day to see me. He walked with crutches because of childhood polio. Although a college graduate, his grammar was atrocious and he spoke with the north Georgia twang of an uneducated man. He said he was looking for a church but it was clear from the number of follow-up appointments he was looking for a friend. From the first I knew it wasn’t going to be me.
But I could not have been more wrong. I quickly learned he was a man who had no guile…no hidden agenda. He was as open and honest a person as I have ever met. Before very long I found myself sharing my own problems with him. In a very real sense John became my confidant and confessor. It was one of the great privileges in my life that I was with him in his final hours of battling cancer.
The church was full on the day of the funeral. I discovered that John had affected many, many people with his folksy way of speaking in that Georgia twang. Virtually everyone who spoke to me said he simply loved people unconditionally. I have long since repented of the day I thought to myself, “There’s someone I could never get to like.” First impressions can be very wrong indeed.
The gospel today reveals just how wrong Peter’s first impressions of Jesus were. He was among the first disciples so he had a front row seat at Jesus’ healings, his teachings, and his day-to-day living. He had shared his food with Jesus as well as his home in Capernaum. One day on a dusty road everything became sparkling clear to Peter. He had an answer for the question Jesus was asking.
They were traveling in the region of Caesarea Philippi, which is a little northeast of Capernaum. Jesus asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” There was apparently much speculation about this larger than life man who had burst on the religious scene earlier that year. I think Jesus was trying to find out if anyone had a hint about his mission that would allow him to make some final plans.
Well, the disciples answered offering their own speculations and those of the crowds that had also witnessed the ministry of Jesus. They said, “Some people thing you are John the Baptist; and others think you might be Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” Then Jesus asked the real question, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:27-29). Here is where Peter blurted out, “You are the Messiah!”
The word Messiah meant the Christ, God’s anointed, and it fit everything Peter believed about the one for whom his people were looking. The Messiah would be the one to restore the fortunes of Israel and give the boot to their Roman masters. The Messiah would be the one to restore the kingdom to its golden age of Kings David and Solomon, the true glory days of Israel. Peter saw in Jesus a Messiah King who would liberate Israel.
His impression of who Jesus was is not all that different from many of the impressions people have of Jesus today. For some he is seen as simply a friend of children found in churches’ stained glass and Christian coloring books; or, like Thomas Jefferson, a teacher of morals and good behavior; or, for some, a revolutionary character who inspires violence against oppression. He is held up by many politicians as an endorser of our nation’s values. And for some television evangelists, he is marketed as an avenue to riches and fame.
But that is not what Jesus claimed for himself. He said, “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” (Mark 8:31). Jesus understood that Messiah meant suffering and death not glory and honor and riches and fame. He was modeling the prophet Isaiah’s suffering servant not Israel’s King David.
Peter’s Messiah did not include the cross. Peter was furious that Jesus would say such things about suffering and dying. Jesus had to rebuke Peter’s impressions for he was projecting on Jesus the Messiah he wanted and Jesus would have none of it. For Jesus, being Messiah, meant a long journey to Jerusalem and the cross. And from that moment on Jesus set his face towards that city that held his fate.
“Who do you say that I am?” is a profound question for anyone who wants to understand the Christian faith. There is no glib or easy answer and I find those people disturbing who offer cheap substitutes for an authentic Christ; who present Jesus as a happy soul making no demands. Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (8:34).
Being a disciple of Jesus requires three things: self-denial, taking up the cross of sacrifice, and following him. That means learning to live in the world of suffering and caring deeply about it because Jesus cared deeply for it. It means following a man whose love was unconditional rather than following doctrines that quantify and qualify love.
Following Jesus has never been an easy thing for he is going where the Father leads. Ewald Bash wrote of this in a short piece:
“My God,” called Moses, “the humor’s all sucked out of me. God, where are you?” God was not up on Sinai, or in heaven, or in any of the local churches. Moses couldn’t find God anywhere. Looking, looking, he finally found God on a Bengali Street, dying with eight hundred others that day. Moses pressed bread to the lips of God, but God turned away refusing the offer. “Over there,” God whispered pointing to another in need (Source unknown).
It is not easy to follow Jesus and sometimes we get it wrong more often than right. I do know this that the correct picture of Jesus must include the cross. No portrait of him is complete without it. And for those of us who would follow him, that picture is not complete without us standing right there with him…no matter where the path might lead. For that is the way to life.
Amen
The Rev. Dr. W. Robert Abstein
St. Ann’s, Nashville
