“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’  He said to them, ‘But, who do you say that I am?’  Simon Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah’, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven…”

~ Matthew 16.13-17, New Revised Standard Version

Some say that Jesus was/is a social critic or a prophet.  Others say that he was/is a revolutionary, a martyr like Gandhi, King or one of the others.  Still others say that Jesus was/is a great teacher and rhetorician.  It seems, at least to me, that we will call Jesus everything but the Son of God.

It is in the reality of our familiarity with Jesus that He becomes unknown, hidden from us and a stranger.  We focus on the things about Christ that we deem relevant and useful to us.  We make Jesus into an image and likeness that is most fitting for our use of him, that is in line with our convictions and that attests to what we hold to be true. But, he is unknown to us when we see him as we want him to be.  He is unknown to us when we see him with blonde hair and blue eyes or black hair with brown eyes.  No, there is but “one Lord, one faith and one baptism” (Ephesians 4.5).  When the goal of knowing Christ is that he look and sound and behave like us, that he belong to us and no one else, we do not want a relationship with him.  We want a relationship with our version of Christ.

It frightens me when persons say that the know Christ. The apostle Paul wrote the church at Philippi, “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.  More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, and regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God based on faith.  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in death, if somehow I may attain resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3.7-11, New Revised Standard Version, emphasis added).  Paul said that he wants to know and thus, does not fully know Christ.  And he suggests that Christ is known “by becoming like him in death.”  Now, how many of us can say that we know Christ?

Jesus says of Peter that his knowledge of his identity is gained by revelation.  Jesus is not a savior who comes in all shapes and sizes, that we can somehow process, ship and handle, that can fit into any box that we construct.  But, Jesus can only fit into our boxes when we leave the cross out.  Paul says that he wants to know Christ and not just the power of his resurrection but the sharing of his sufferings.  And right after Peter declares Christ the Messiah, Jesus foretells his death and resurrection.  You simply cannot have Christ without the cross.

To know Christ is to die with him for it is in dying to self and its carnal desires that we become fully alive and aware.  But, it is not a quick death, a twelve step program, a forty day or forty year journey but we must “die daily” (I Corinthians 15.31).  We live to die and die in order to live in Christ Jesus.  The truth is that we don’t want to know Christ if he doesn’t look like us.  “If Jesus doesn’t look like me, then he cannot love me.  If Jesus doesn’t live like me, then he cannot understand me.  If Jesus doesn’t belong to my group, my people, my geographic location, then I cannot belong to him.”  This is what we say.  But, Jesus is not a servant of culture, social locations or social colors; Jesus is a servant of the cross and thereby, the servant of God.

Jesus is not known based on or because of who we are.  “(He) and the Father are one” and “if you have seen Christ, then you have seen the Father” (John 10.31; 14.9).  And Jesus says, “If you know me, you will know the Father” (John 14.7).  Jesus’ identity is rooted in that of the Father and the work of Christ is to fulfill the will of God not ours: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 6.38).  In our attempts at identifying Christ with us, remaking his earthly life to match that of our own, we forget that Jesus’ beginning was not earth but heaven.

It is in our familiarity with Christ that we reveal that we are mere acquaintances with ourselves.  We don’t know ourselves for it we did, then we would recognize our deep need for the Son of God and not some racialized, overly humanized, under- divinized version of Christ.  We do not know ourselves because if we did, then we would know more about Christ than what we have heard from others.  Twelve disciples walked with Christ and only one knew Him but only by revelation: Peter, who did not know himself (Matthew 16.21-23)!

We don’t know Christ because we don’t want to know ourselves; instead, we want to believe that we are the versions of ourselves that persons have told us that we are or that we believe ourselves to be.  But, I am certain that we don’t know Christ because if we did, then we’d have to face the truth that we are no different than his disciples– deniers, betrayers, deserters.  It is because we want to save this life, this identity, this self.  We do not want to be like Christ. We do not want to die.

And this is not based on race.  You need only be human, which makes us sinners who are in need not of a white supremacist or a black nationalist (i.e. a separatist), a Democrat or a Republican but the Son of God, the Savior.  It is for this reason that Christ came: “Christ came into the world to save sinners” (I Timothy 1.15).

But, we cannot be familiar with the concept, this idea, this arrangement, this story as some have referred to it.  Jesus Christ must be made known to us not in the social coloring of skin but in the pardoning of sin. He is the Son of Man but He is also the Son of God.  And if all we have done is ascribed to Jesus our cultural preferences, our nationalistic pride and made him a player in our will for humanity, then Jesus has not be revealed.  Jesus has not been made known to us.  We are instead in a relationship with is aJesus that we have created.

May we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3.18). Amen.