21st Sunday through year A

Introduction

Jesus also had a “public opinion poll” – Who do people consider the Son of Man to be? But not to adapt its performance to people or to create a new strategy. He was much more interested in what his disciples thought of him. By asking them the same question, he indicated that he expected a different answer from them. Nor was it a crisis of Jesus’ identity. At stake was the identity of the disciples and the identity of a man who, without God, doesn’t really know who he really is. The man who was created in the image of God, after sin, distorted this image in himself, and according to this deformed pattern he also creates God. Therefore, God sends to the world the “original,” His Son, according to whom man was created, so that man may know the original work again and find the way back to God. The question of who we consider Jesus to be is therefore the most important thing in our lives. It is key to knowing our own identity, and thus our eternity.

It is not difficult to acknowledge the historical existence of Jesus – the Son of Man. It is now too primitive to deny that Jesus once lived. It is also not a problem to give him a place among the most important personalities of human history who have marked the world. But acknowledging that Jesus is also the Son of God is the answer of faith. To give Jesus a place among such figures as Buddha, Confucius or Gandhi is the same as to consider him Elijah, Jeremiah or John the Baptist – to place him in the past, among the dead. But he is the Son of the living God, so he speaks to the present and asks again and now. To place Jesus among important personalities may mean respecting his person, acknowledging his qualities, admiring his teachings, but otherwise it does not have a greater impact on human life. It is no more binding than the teachings of Buddha, Confucius or Muhammad. But to acknowledge that Jesus is the living God also means to admit that I am facing the most radical decision in life.

Today, it is again popular to believe in something. It corresponds to the nature of a person who also has a soul, not just a body. But formal affiliation to a particular religion does not mean being a believer. Faith can only be attained with the help of God, who is a mystery but who reveals Himself. Being known is the greatest desire for love. That is why God is waiting for our answer, and therefore He is still asking who we consider Him to be. When Jesus tells Peter that he is blessed because it has not revealed his body and blood, he tells him that he does not have this from his own head. He could never figure it out on his own. Jesus was waiting for which of the disciples the Father would reveal this mystery to build his Church on him. So not on the basis of his human abilities. Therefore, the Catholic Church sees in these words of Jesus the basis of the oscillating position of Peter and all his successors. Even in the controversies that accompany different interpretations of these words of Jesus, seeing how crucial this question is to Christians as well. So what will be our personal answer.