There is a practice
in today’s culture and society that can help us
toward understanding this Sunday’s Gospel: opinion
polls.
These are conducted everywhere, especially in the
political and commercial spheres. One day Jesus also
wanted to do an opinion poll, but, as we shall see,
for a different purpose. He did it not for political
reasons, but for educational ones.
Having arrived in Caesarea Philippi, that is, in the
northernmost region of Israel, and taking a little
rest alone with the apostles, Jesus asks them, point
blank, “Who do people say that the son of man is?”
It seems that the apostles were not expecting to be
asked more than to report what people were saying of
him. They answered: "Some say John the Baptist,
others Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the
prophets.”
But Jesus was not interested in measuring his
popularity or in looking for an index of how well he
was regarded by the people. His purpose was entirely
different. So he immediately followed his first
question with a second: “Who do you say that I am?"
This second, unexpected question catches them
completely off guard. There is silence and they
stand looking at each other. In the Greek it makes
it clear that all of the apostles together responded
to the first question and that only one person,
namely, Simon Peter, responded to the second
question: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God!”
Between the two responses there is a leap over an
abyss, a “conversion.” To answer the first question
it was only necessary to look around, to have
listened to people’s opinions. But to answer the
second question, it was necessary to look inside, to
listen to a completely different voice, a voice that
was not of flesh and blood but of the Father in
heaven. Peter was enlightened from on high.
It is the first clear recognition of the true
identity of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels. The
first public act of faith in Christ in history!
Think about the wake that a big ship makes in the
sea. It widens as the ship goes forward until it is
lost on the horizon. But it begins at a single
point, which is the ship itself. Faith in Jesus
Christ is like this. It is as a wake that widens as
it moves through history, and travels to “the very
ends of the earth.” But it starts at a single point.
And this point is Peter’s act of faith. “You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God!”
Jesus uses another image, which implies stability
rather than movement. It is a vertical instead of a
horizontal image. It is that of a rock: “You are
Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.”
Jesus changes his name -- as often happens in the
Bible when someone receives an important mission --
from Simon to Cephas, or Peter -- “rock.” The true
rock, the “cornerstone” is, and remains, Jesus
himself. But once he has risen and ascended into
heaven, this “cornerstone,” though present and
active, is invisible. It is necessary for a sign to
represent him, a sign that makes Christ, who is the
“unshakeable foundation,” visible and efficacious in
history. And this sign is Peter and, after him, his
vicar, the Pope, successor of Peter, as head of the
college of apostles.
But let us return to the idea of polling. Jesus'
poll, as we saw, has two parts, which have two
distinct questions. First, “Who do people say that I
am?” And second, “Who do you say that I am?”
Jesus does not seem to value very much what the
people think of him. He wants to know what his
disciples think of him. He immediately asks them to
speak for themselves. He does not let them hide
behind the opinions of others. He wants them to
speak of their own opinions. Almost the identical
situation repeats itself today.
Today as well “people,” “public opinion,” has its
ideas about Jesus. Jesus is in vogue. Just look at
what is going on in the world of literature and
entertainment. A year does not go by in which there
does not appear a novel or a film with its own
distorted and sacriligious vision of Christ. Dan
Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” has been the most well-known
one of late and has produced many imitators.
Then there are those who are middle-of-the-road,
like the people of Jesus’ time, who believe Jesus to
be “one of the prophets.” He is regarded as a
fascinating person and placed alongside Socrates,
Gandhi and Tolstoy. I am sure that Jesus does not
scorn these responses to him, because the Bible says
of him that he does not “quench the smoldering wick
and does not break the bruised reed,” that is, he
appreciates every honest effort on the part of man.
But, the truth be told, this view of Jesus does not
seem quite right even from a human point of view.
Neither Gandhi nor Tolstoy ever said: “I am the way,
the truth and the life,” or “Whoever loves father
and mother more than me is not worth of me.”
With Jesus you cannot not be middle-of-the-road.
Either he is what he claims to be, or he is not a
great man, but rather a great lunatic lifted up by
history. There are no half-measures. There are
buildings and structures made of steel -- I believe
that the Eiffel Tower in Paris is one -- made in
such a way that if you touch a certain point or
remove a certain element, everything will come down.
The edifice of the Christian faith is like this, and
this neuralgic point is the divinity of Jesus
Christ.
But let us leave aside the responses of the people
and consider the nonbelievers. Believing in the
divinity of Christ is not enough; you must also bear
witness to it. Whoever knows him and does not bear
witness to this faith, indeed even hides it, is more
responsible before God that those who do not have
this faith.
In a scene in Paul Claudel’s play “The Humiliated
Father,” a Jewish girl, beautiful but blind,
alluding to the double meaning of light, asks her
Christian friend: “You who see, what use have you
made of the light?” It is a question that is asked
of all of us who claim to be believers.
