Summer is a time when many people go on vacation. It’s good to go on vacation. It gives us a refreshing break from our usual routines, and we see and learn new things. And we can come back with new eyes for the old things in our lives – new appreciation for what we already have but often take for granted.
It seems that even Jesus and his disciples took vacation. In today’s Gospel Matthew tells us that they went up into the region of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was a great city about 60 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. It was something of an oasis resort, with refreshing springs and an elevation of about 1,000 feet at the foot of Mt. Hermon.
Still, it was a rather strange place for Jesus to take his disciples for a break from their very intense Galilean ministry.
Caesarea Philippi, as its name suggests, was not a Jewish city. It had been built by Philip the Tetrarch as a thoroughly Greco-Roman city. Philip, who had lived in Rome, had even named it after Caesar, probably to curry favor with him and to show the world that the more “progressive” Jews were just as sophisticated as the Romans.
As a Greco-Roman city, it was also had several pagan shrines. There was a huge cave there with a spring gushing out of it from a pool that was so deep that it could not be measured. Philip’s father, Herod the Great, built a temple at the mouth of this cave, and sacrifices would be thrown into the bottomless pool, which were believed to be the gates of the netherworld, Hades. Philip came along and enhanced the area with several other temples and statues to other gods, sort of a pagan pantheon.
This was not a place that a pious Jew would be caught dead! So imagine the thoughts and feelings of the disciples as Jesus takes them on what would have been an arduous three-day hike up to this center of all that was pagan and horrifying, to the very gates of the netherworld. But, they followed him, didn’t they?
Imagine this Jewish rabbi standing with his disciples in front these pagan temples, including the so-called gates of the netherworld, in the midst of all of these grand and imposing symbols of the dominant Greco-Roman culture, with nothing Jewish in sight, and saying, “What about me? Where do you think I fit into all of this?”
And St. Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, steps up and, in spite of all this intimidating pagan evidence that Jesus and Judaism were of no significance whatsoever, says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus immediately affirms Peter’s answer and declares that none of this pagan culture, not even the gates of the netherworld, would overcome this faith and the community of believers, the Church.
And, Jesus was right. Here we are today, two thousand years later, people with the faith of Peter and members of the Church built upon that faith. And all of that intimidating Greco-Roman pagan glory – it’s gone. If you go to Caesarea Philippi today, you’ll find nothing but dry, dusty ruins. No one lives there anymore.
But we have our own version of that today, don’t we? Like St. Peter and the disciples two thousand years ago, we are also surrounded by a dominant secular culture that tends to deny or disregard our faith in Jesus Christ.
There is scientific atheism, which contends that there is no God that created everything, and the only things that are real are those which can be detected by scientific means. It denies even the possibility of the existence of spiritual realities.
Then there is our entertainment culture, which constantly presents us with a world in which there is no God or religion, suggesting that our faith is irrelevant or even ridiculous and dangerous.
And there are all of the non-Christians religions and the two-thirds majority of the world who are not Christian. Christians are and always have been a minority. Most people don’t believe that Jesus is who we say he is.
So here we are in the 21st century, surrounded by this pantheon of beliefs contrary to our own. And Jesus asks us the same thing that he asked his first disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”
I sent out an email this past week to the 511 of you on our email list with this very question from Jesus, “Who do you say that I am?” Here’s what you said:
I have pondered this scripture most of my long life. Each step in my journey I find I have different answers, usually depending on what’s going on with my life. However, my answer always is quite clear…Jesus is my friend, my compassionate listener, my laughing partner. He embraces me and holds me tight and carries me when it is too difficult to walk alone. I can feel the touch of his hand always in mine.
You are my best and most loved friend who accepts me as I am no matter what.
You are the Messiah, the Promised One sent by the Father to teach us how to live.
For me, as I put my feet on the ground to begin each day, Jesus asks me that question. I must reply to Him in the people that I see here at the clinic or the coroner cases that come across the x-ray table: You are the Son of the Living God.
You are the light that helps me out of the darkness.
I am finding that Jesus tells me who he is many times during the day…..when I have a tough situation at work and I get through it with a smile……whenever I see Dan (the chaplain,) I SEE Jesus come into the rooms and he says the most wonderful things…..he says he is hope, faith, strength and love. I try to emulate those things and say them…….that is who he is for me!
Jesus is my close friend, someone I can share all of who I am without being judged. When I don’t make the right choices, I know his true unconditional love.
Jesus is my comfort, support, security. I know he is with me all the time. I feel him in events that happen in my life and take comfort in knowing that I can say anything to him.
Jesus is the one that my life points to. He is the one who gives purpose to all of creation. Jesus is my lord and savior. Jesus is the word of God made flesh in order that we might learn by His example. Jesus is the peace of the world that brings all of humanity together as one.
Jesus is my brother, teacher, mentor and one that I trust in to bring me to life everlasting!
He is the lamb of God. He lived a life that we couldn’t, died for our sins that we couldn’t pay for, and rose again so that we may do so as well.
Jesus is my Rock.
I believe you are all there is. You are everything and everything is you. Without you, there is nothing. You are life now, before and after, but most of all you are the reason why.
To me Jesus is my guide to goodness. He helps me cherish and value the good times in life and leads me down the right path in getting me through the rough times. I am so appreciative to have Jesus in my life every day and can’t imagine existence without him.
I tell Jesus daily He is my savior and redeemer, my physician and healer, my very best friend and lover of my soul. He hangs with me every single day, and I never leave home without Him.
I love to hear these voices of faith, your voices, the faith of the Church alive and well here in Aptos in the 21st century. I’m sure St. Peter and the disciples would have been stunned to see how this faith has spread throughout the world over the past 2000 years, when it seemed that the odds were against it. Yet from St. Peter, with all his human weaknesses and failings, and that tiny little band of disciples, it has.
When we are tempted to despair by our dominant culture when it makes us that feel our faith, our Church, our Jesus is useless, wrong or irrelevant, let us be inspired by that first generation of disciples who overcame tremendous odds and stepped out in faith, hope and love to change the world. Let us offer ourselves just as they did, knowing that with our faith and our faithfulness, Jesus will work wonders through us to continue his work of transforming the world and all that is in it.
