Friday, 25th September 2020

Ember day Collect

Heavenly Father you have entrusted to your Church a share in the ministry of your Son, our great High Priest; call many through your Holy Spirit into the ordained ministry of your Church and inspire them to respond to your call; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Eucharist Readings:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11                  Psalm 144:1-4                 Luke 9:18-22

In our Gospel reading we are told that Jesus was praying alone but His disciples were with Him. It would be logical to say that Jesus prayed about His death, for this was what He asked them next, and His disciples were in the know to the contents of His prayer and might have been praying too. Why is this important for us? This tiny detail in the narrative reminds us that the eternal Son of God Himself spends time in communion with God in prayer, and He always prayed with His death in mind. Do we pray? What do we pray about?

Jesus proceeds to ask His disciples about the word on the street, who the crowds say that He is. This refer to the many people who followed Him around and listened to His sermons. The people were divided in their opinions about the identity of Jesus. Some believed Him to be John the Baptist because He preached a similar message of repentance. Others believed Him to be Elijah who was one of the greatest prophets who did great work and miracles, and so did Jesus. Who is Jesus to us?

He follows with another question, this time addressing the disciples and asking them who they thought He is. Peter gave the answer in verse 20’God’s Messiah’. We do not usually refer to Him in this way, but Peter knew something important. The Jews knew the scriptures and they knew that God promised one that would come and make things right and Peter made the link between the promises of Scripture, and Jesus. We must also notice that there are two groups of people in Jesus’ mind. The distant followers not known to Him and then the close, more intimate group. The crowds saw Jesus was a man with a great message and with great power, and these were true, but ultimately, they were not sure of who he is and related to Him as some distant Bible character. Peter heard His message and saw His power, but he also knew Him intimately after living and spending time with Him, and ultimately allowed him to conclude that Jesus was not just another great man or prophet, but he was the Promised One from God.

This same question confronts us today, is Jesus also a distant bible character to us? Who do we say He is? Is He a person with a great message, the one that the Bible points to, with wise words? Is Jesus just a person with some powers and rather distant? Do we know him the way a crowd member does, or do we know Him intimately?

Jesus responds to peter’s answer with a strict ban on the revelation and information, and He strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one. This might seem a bit harsh. We would expect Jesus to command His disciples to spread the word after this breakthrough, but Verse 22 helps us to see why Jesus said that, as He followed up with a four-fold comment. He tells them that the Son of Man must:

• Suffer many things
• Be rejected by the chief priests and the elders and scribes
• Be killed
• On the third day be raised

This is shocking for the disciples and the Jews waited for this one to come, their Messiah, and expected Him to come in glory. However, Jesus’ words in verse 22 shattered all their ideas about the Son of Man. How can the Son of man suffer, be rejected, be killed? Isn’t he supposed to be accepted and reign eternally? Jesus’s words were indeed confusing for them, and perhaps even for us. This Gospel reading is reminding us that Jesus, the one Christians follow and call Christ, was death-bound. Do we really know Jesus, or do we know Him the way we want to know Him, not how He presents Himself? We could study so much, listen so much, or even like Peter who lived with Him, yet get Him so wrong. How do we know Jesus?