Who Am I To You?

              If Christ were to pose the question He asked the apostles today to you, what would you say to Him? Would you say He was a holy man who performed miracles? Or would you say He was a prophet? How about a man who was elevated to His status by God to finish God’s work? These ideas and deductions were all arguments that took place in the early Church. This is a very important question for our own faith journey, and in the history of the Church, it is pivotal. If we believe and have faith the Scripture and the Gospels were written with Divine Inspiration, we can know who Jesus is. It is through these Scriptures and the witnesses of many that it is revealed to us.

I was once asked why it took God so many attempts to bring His people back to Him. Why did He send prophet after prophet only to be rejected again and again and then send Jesus? Why not Jesus first? The simple answer is we were not ready. The revelation of who Jesus is and God’s plan for us was given to us at perfect the time and place God chose. If Peter’s declaration of who Jesus is in today’s Gospel is true, it places Christ as the Son of God, the final person of the Trinity. If God has existed eternally, then Jesus Himself has existed eternally. He was there at our creation. He was there at the fall in the garden. He was there at the parting of the sea. He was there during the Babylonian exile. And most of all, He was there in the words of the prophets. It was always God’s plan to reveal His Son to us over time. This allowed us to prepare for His arrival. Remember, this was always God’s plan for us.

Our own journey of faith and our own idea of who Christ is for us also takes time. I am personally not the same college fraternity guy I was many years ago, as all of us are not the same we were. It is God working in our lives’, preparing us to receive and embrace His Son. It is through this embrace and the gift of faith from God we too can declare the words that Peter gave us, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

May Jesus live in our hearts forever.
Deacon Chris