José Ricardo Bezerra and Felipe Bezerra
On this 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Gospel places us before the most decisive question of the Christian life. At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Mt 16:13). And the answers are the ones that circulated among the people: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets (cf. Mt 16:14).
Jesus was not taking an opinion poll. He leads the disciples, and leads us, from the ideas people hold about him to the encounter with who he really is. For this reason it is worth going through each of these answers. They are not gross errors: each one touches something true about Jesus, yet remains small before who he is. As the Catechism says, following Saint Jerome, ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ (cf. CCC 133; Dei Verbum 25), and it is precisely the Old Testament that helps us understand why the people thought this way, and why Jesus goes far beyond.
We already meditated on this same Gospel on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, on 28 June, with other points. Here we have chosen five new points, which we share on the podcast: https://youtu.be/NF6mZAWqhPA (with subtitles in your language).
Gospel: Mt 16:13-20
“At that time, Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and there he asked his disciples: ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ They replied: ‘Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ Then Jesus asked them: ‘But you, who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ In reply, Jesus said to him: ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for it was not a human being who revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the power of hell will never overcome it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Then Jesus ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Messiah.” (Mt 16:13-20).
1. John the Baptist: the Jesus we would like to be harsher
The first confusion has a concrete root. Herod himself said that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead, and that this was why he worked miracles (cf. Mt 14:1-2). And indeed the similarities are there. Both drew crowds, both had disciples, both preached conversion: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 3:2) is the word of John and of Jesus (Mt 4:17). Both were arrested and died as victims of the unjust power of the authorities of this world. John was the one sent by God to prepare the way (cf. Jn 1:6), and the angel announced to Zechariah that he would come “with the spirit and power of Elijah” (Lk 1:17). Zechariah himself prophesied: “You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways” (Lk 1:76), taking up Isaiah (cf. Is 40:3).
But John rejected any claim to take the place of Christ. When they asked him, he confessed without hesitation that he was not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet (cf. Jn 1:19-21). “I am the voice crying out in the desert” (Jn 1:23). The voice is not the Word. John points and withdraws: “Behold the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29), and two of his disciples leave their master to follow Jesus (cf. Jn 1:35-37).
The question for our prayer is a different one, and it is uncomfortable. It is not whether we confuse Jesus with John; it is whether we would not rather have Jesus be like John. John was austere: he wore camel hair, ate locusts and wild honey (cf. Mt 3:4), called those who came to him a “brood of vipers” and warned that the axe was already laid to the root of the trees (cf. Mt 3:7,10). Jesus, on the contrary, sat at table with sinners (cf. Mt 9:10-11). How often we want a Jesus who will come at once and cut at the root, who will denounce, who will be severe with others. And how often we turn our own spiritual life into rigour and an excess of penances, as if holiness were harshness.
John and Jesus are not opposed, but they are not to be confused. And there is a pastoral lesson here that holds for us: we proclaim the truth clearly in order to lead people to God, never to drive them away from him. John preached conversion frankly and offered a baptism of penance to those who welcomed his call. Of the soldiers he did not ask that they abandon their profession at once, but that they extort from no one and be content with their wages (cf. Lk 3:14). Forcing the truth down someone’s throat usually produces the opposite of what is intended: the person turns away and no longer wants to hear about God, because what was presented to them is not the true God. Saying “it’s all fine, what matters is being happy” is no help either, because the Lord himself warns us about happiness on this earth (cf. Lk 6:24-25). The Christian way is neither to impose the truth nor to abandon the truth, but to proclaim it with charity: ‘Come and know Christ; in him there is a new life, true and eternal.’
2. Elijah: the Jesus of spectacle
In Judaism there was the expectation that Elijah would return before the Messiah, based on Malachi (cf. Mal 3:23-24). Jesus himself, coming down from the mount of the Transfiguration, will say that Elijah had already come and that they did to him whatever they pleased, referring to John the Baptist (cf. Mt 17:10-13).
Elijah was a powerful prophet. He multiplied the flour and the oil of the widow of Zarephath (cf. 1Kgs 17:8-16), raised her son (cf. 1Kgs 17:17-24), shut and reopened the heavens (cf. 1Kgs 17:1; 18:41-45), called down fire from heaven before the prophets of Baal (cf. 1Kgs 18:20-40), was taken up in a chariot of fire (cf. 2Kgs 2:11) and left Elisha as his disciple, who asked him for a double portion of his spirit and who was also powerful (cf. 2Kgs 2:9-15). There is no biblical book attributed to the prophet Elijah, who became a representative figure of the prophetic tradition; this is why he appears beside Moses at the Transfiguration (cf. Mt 17:3).
Here is the risk in our prayer: wanting a powerful Jesus at our service. Jesus did work miracles, yes, he walked on the water, multiplied the loaves, forgave sins, raised the dead. But he did not work signs to show himself off or to satisfy curiosity. Before Herod, who was hoping to see him perform some wonder, Jesus answered nothing (cf. Lk 23:8-9). In Nazareth he did not work many miracles, because of their lack of faith (cf. Mt 13:58). And to those who sought him after the multiplication of the loaves he said: “You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life” (Jn 6:26-27).
There are two moments that shed light on this difference. Elijah asked for fire from heaven and the fire came down (cf. 1Kgs 18:38); yet when James and John wanted to do the same against the Samaritans, Jesus rebuked them (cf. Lk 9:54-55). Elijah’s fire shows the judgement of God in a specific prophetic context; Jesus, however, does not allow his disciples to turn that image into a justification for destroying those who do not receive them. And Elijah himself, the prophet of fire, perceived the manifestation of the Lord not in grandiose phenomena, not in the mighty wind, not in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the gentle breeze (cf. 1Kgs 19:11-13). The passage is traditionally translated as ‘a gentle breeze’ and has been interpreted, in the spiritual tradition, as a discreet manifestation of God in silence and serenity. Before that, exhausted, he had lain down wishing to die, and an angel woke him with bread and water: “Get up and eat, for the journey is too long for you” (1Kgs 19:7). This episode can be read, by spiritual analogy, in the light of the faith of the Church concerning viaticum, the Eucharist received as food for the passage from this world to the Father (cf. CCC 1524).
Sometimes we want the Jesus of spectacle. Jesus is not the Jesus of spectacle.
3. Jeremiah: the Jesus who suffers, but not only that
Why confuse Jesus with Jeremiah? Because Jeremiah was the persecuted prophet. He announced the destruction of the Temple on the eve of the Babylonian invasion, called the people to conversion and was not heeded. He was mocked, he was imprisoned, he was put in the stocks (cf. Jer 20:1-2) and thrown into a cistern, where he would have died had the king not ordered him to be pulled out (cf. Jer 38:6-13). Jesus too was slandered, persecuted and derided, arrested and scourged.
The resemblance is real, and it is dangerous when it turns into a mirror: “I identify with the Jesus who suffers, who is persecuted, whom nobody understands, that is just like me.” Jesus was all of that, but he is not reduced to it. In the Passion he is sovereign: when a guard struck him, he answered with serenity: “If I have spoken wrongly, show what was wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” (Jn 18:23). He accepted being apparently defenceless, not out of powerlessness, but out of the free gift of himself.
There is still an aspect of Jeremiah that consoles us. There was a time when it was said everywhere that one should not complain, that complaining makes you a tiresome person. But there is an entire book in the Bible called “Lamentations”. Tradition associated the book of Lamentations with Jeremiah; it gives voice to the grief of Jerusalem and of the people before the catastrophe. His words: “You seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced; you were stronger than I, and you prevailed” (Jer 20:7), are not a romantic phrase; they are the words of a man telling God that he feels deceived and alone. The Lord himself on the cross prays a psalm of lamentation: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:2; Mt 27:46), a psalm that ends in hope. The Word of God not only acknowledges this experience of pain and abandonment; it also expresses it, and so we can bring it to God in prayer.
And Jeremiah, the suffering prophet, is also the prophet of hope. With ruin already imminent, he publicly buys a field at Anathoth, as a sign that the people would return to that land (cf. Jer 32:6-15). And the prophecy of the New Covenant is his: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel” (Jer 31:31), a Covenant fulfilled in Christ (cf. Heb 8:8-13). Everything seems to be collapsing, but God’s promise remains; hope does not rest on how things look at the moment, but on the faithfulness of the Lord.
4. One of the prophets: they all point to him
“One of the prophets” is the vaguest answer, and perhaps the richest. The prophet par excellence who was awaited was the one announced by Moses: “The Lord your God will raise up for you, from among your own brothers, a prophet like me; to him you shall listen” (Dt 18:15). That is why they asked John the Baptist: “Are you the prophet?” (Jn 1:21).
But there is another figure still closer: the suffering Servant of Isaiah. Right after Peter’s profession of faith, Jesus begins to announce that he had to go to Jerusalem, suffer greatly and be killed (cf. Mt 16:21). The fourth song of the Servant (cf. Is 52:13-53:12), written centuries earlier, has always been understood by the Church as a prophecy that finds its full fulfilment in the Passion of Christ. And it is worth understanding the order of things: Jesus did not suffer as one subjected to a blind fate. His Passion belongs to the Father’s saving plan and fulfils the Scriptures, and at the same time those who condemned him acted freely and remain responsible for their acts.
Ezekiel is often called by God “son of man”, an expression which there designates his human condition; and Daniel presents the vision of a figure “like a son of man”, who receives everlasting dominion and kingship (cf. Ez 2:1; Dan 7:13-14). It is this text of Daniel that sheds light on the title Jesus uses in the question of this Gospel. Hosea makes use of the spousal image to speak of the covenant: Israel is the unfaithful bride, and God promises to lead her back and renew the covenant (cf. Hos 2:16-22). The Song of Songs, which makes some uneasy because it is a love poem, is inspired Word; in the spiritual tradition of the Church, Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint John of the Cross also read it as an image of the soul’s nuptials with God, without this excluding its literal meaning.
Here is the point: which prophet? All of them. For the Jewish people there is the Law, the Wisdom books and the Prophets; for us, the whole Old Testament prepares, announces, prefigures and finds its fulfilment in Christ, even though not all the texts are direct prophecies about him. This is why Jesus does not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to bring them to fulfilment (cf. Mt 5:17). He did not abolish sacrifice: he himself is the sacrifice (cf. Heb 9:11-14). Even Leviticus, which seems to be nothing but prescriptions, is fulfilled in him.
This fullness finds a privileged sacramental expression in the Eucharist. In the liturgy, the words and the gestures of the consecration, under the separate species of bread and wine, sacramentally represent the giving of the Body and Blood of Christ and make present the one sacrifice of the cross; and it must be said clearly that, after the consecration, the whole Christ, Body, Blood, soul and divinity, is present under each of the species and under each part of them (cf. CCC 1374-1377; 1362-1367). He is the true Temple, because in him the fullness of divinity dwells bodily (cf. Jn 2:19-21; Col 2:9), and it is of this presence that our temples are a sign, and, by participation, the Church and each of the faithful are temples of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1Cor 6:19). Jesus takes up and brings to fulfilment the history of the covenant of Israel, accomplishing in his person that to which the Law, the Prophets, worship and the promises pointed. And so he is the Anointed One.
5. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”
We come to Peter’s answer, and it has two parts that cannot be separated.
“You are the Christ.” “Christ” is not a surname. It is the Greek word Christós, which translates the Hebrew Mashiach, Messiah, the Anointed One. To say “Jesus Christ” is to say Jesus, the Anointed One. It is striking that the Gospels narrate no ritual anointing of Jesus at the hands of a prophet: neither Simeon at the presentation of the Lord (cf. Lk 2:22-35) nor John the Baptist anointed him. His messianic anointing is manifested at the Baptism, when the Holy Spirit descends upon him and the Father reveals that he is his beloved Son (cf. Lk 4:18; Acts 10:38). The confession ‘You are the Christ’ recognises Jesus as the promised Messiah, the Anointed One who, in the humanity assumed by the Word, perfectly fulfils the kingly, priestly and prophetic mission. The genealogies of Matthew and Luke insist on this (cf. Mt 1:1-17; Lk 3:23-38), and John will say that the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what our hands have touched of the Word of life” (1Jn 1:1). Risen, he will say to the disciples: “Touch me and see” (Lk 24:39).
However, among the messianic expectations of the Judaism of that period, some took on a strongly political and national character: people expected a king who would drive out the Romans and restore the Kingdom of Israel. Jesus fulfils the promise and infinitely surpasses it: “My Kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36).
And Peter says further that Jesus is the “Son of the living God.” This second part is what sets the tone of the whole Gospel. Mark opens his book exactly like this: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). The expression “Son of God” had varied uses in the biblical world; the Christian newness, fully revealed in the light of the Resurrection and of apostolic faith, is that Jesus is the eternal Son, consubstantial with the Father, and not merely an envoy or an adopted son. He is far above simple humanity: he has power over the waters, over the forgiveness of sins, over death. True God and true man, one Person in two natures (cf. CCC 464-469). It is with Christ, alive and risen, that we must enter into a relationship of faith and of love. John the Baptist, Elijah and all the prophets do not take the place of Jesus; they point to him and find in him the fulfilment of their mission.
And where do we discover who the true Jesus is? In the Word. Do not invent your own Jesus. God created man in his image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-27), and we live tempted to make a god in our own image and likeness. Jesus is not what we project. We need to see who he is so as to become like him, and not to make him look like us.
This holds in both directions. If you see a Jesus who is all justice and no mercy, be careful: “with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Mt 7:2). And if you see a Jesus who never disturbs anyone, remember that he made a whip of cords in the temple (cf. Jn 2:15). That prophetic gesture does not authorise violence on the part of the disciples; it reveals the zeal of Jesus for the House of the Father, for the purity of worship and for the truth of our relationship with God. He is the same one who says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). Jesus came for everyone, especially for sinners (cf. Mk 2:17). Let us not drive away those who need the mercy of God — and all of us need it —; let us welcome them and accompany them to Christ, who calls everyone to conversion and to new life.
Steps of the Lectio Divina
Lectio Divina is the prayerful reading of the Word of God. Set aside a time of silence, invoke the Holy Spirit and go calmly through these steps, praying yourself with this Gospel.
1. Reading (Lectio). What does the text say? Read Mt 16:13-20 slowly. Notice the two questions of Jesus: first what others say, then what you say. Notice the names that appear: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, the prophets.
2. Meditation (Meditatio). What does the text say to me? Which of these “Jesuses” have you been looking for? The severe one of John the Baptist, the powerful one of Elijah, the suffering one of Jeremiah, or the one you yourself invented in your own image? Where is your idea of Jesus smaller than he is?
3. Prayer (Oratio). What do I say to God from this text? “Lord, you are the awaited Messiah, and you go far beyond what we expected. Show us who you truly are: not what men say, not what we invent, but you yourself. Reveal yourself to us. Give us something of your merciful heart, meek and humble, and at the same time firm, resolved not to compromise with sin, as you were, firm before those who wanted to water down the truth, and you never gave up the truth that you yourself are…” Continue your prayer as the Holy Spirit inspires you.
4. Contemplation (Contemplatio). What new outlook is God giving me? Remain in silence before the living Lord, true God and true man, asking for nothing. Let him show himself.
5. Action (Actio). What is the Lord calling me to today? Choose a passage of the Gospel to read this week, so as to know Jesus as he is and not as you imagine him. And in the way you speak of God to others, choose to draw people to God rather than drive them away.
See you next week! Shalom!
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