Vox populi non vox Dei
Jesus is not who people say He is
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” said the Preacher (Eccl. 3:1); but “no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end” (3:11). Birth and death, killing and healing, weeping and laughter, mourning and dancing, silence and speech, love and hate, war and peace: good things and bad, all have their time and place. Our pretences to predict their times are proven wrong as often than not. Likewise, our responses.
People who met Jesus often got him wrong, misinterpreted His miracles and signs. From the depths of prayer, he rose and asked His disciples, “Whom say the people that I am?” (Lk 9:18) Rumours were going round that John the Baptist, recently executed by King Herod, had risen from the dead. That will happen; there will be a time for it, when all the dead rise again; but not yet. Others thought that the prophet Elijah, who had been assumed alive into heaven, had been sent back to herald the last times. Again, the last times will come, but had not and have not yet. The people had misread the signs.
So much for popular opinion. Jesus wanted His followers to cut through to the truth and judge the signs aright. “Whom say ye that I am?”
Forget what people say who know me only by reputation, from afar. What about you, who have lived with me, travelled with me, broken bread with me, prayed with me as I commune most intimately with the One who sent me? You are the ones who really know me. So who do you say that I am?
Peter answers for all the disciples: “The Christ of God.” The Anointed One: in Hebrew, the Messiah. The one foretold by the prophets who would be a new King of the Jews and free Jerusalem from oppression, restore the Temple to its glory as of old.
And Peter was right. But not in the way the people were expecting. That is why Jesus “commanded them” — the disciples — “to tell no man that thing” (Lk 9:21). The time was not right. A breath after saying telling His closest followers, yes, I will be your anointed king, He revealed: “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected…, and be slain, and be raised up the third day” (Lk 9:22). You can imagine their surprise and shock. They thought they should go and spread the news straight away. But it was only after He had died and risen that anyone would be able to make sense of who He really was. Then, not now, would be the season to proclaim Him.
We have so many questions. Some may be about God and His ways. Why did He choose the Jews to follow and to proclaim Him? Why then? Why was Jesus not born centuries before? Why have the last times not yet come? The ordering and composition of Scripture, bearing witness to the generations of men and women who encountered God at work in their lives, reveal God’s gradual approach to His self-revelation, accommodating Himself to our capacities as time goes on. We see Him revealing Himself, slowly, gently and partially, also among peoples who never knew the name of Christ. There are commonalities between their stories and the greatest story ever told. But even our knowledge is limited. We see now only in a glass, adn that darkly. So, in times of questioning and confusion, we must recognise the limits of our capacity to know the fulness of God’s ways, and simply get on with the task He has set us, not minding “what profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth” (Eccl 3:9), but labouring without counting the cost.
The same applies to questions about ourselves and the state of the world. Why are bad things happening to me? To those I love? To innocent civilians? Unless there is something we can do practically to remedy the ills of the world, the believer’s only resort is to trust in God, which is what “faith” means, and “to do good in his life” (Eccl 9:12). It is, emphatically, not to trust the opinion of the majority. If Christ had trusted majority opinion, He need never have died. If His disciples had trusted it, nor need they.
It is unrealistic to expect never to suffer. Even the Christ suffered. But after His suffering and His death, He rose again. This mystery of God has been definitely revealed. Suffering and death are not the end. Whatever everyone else may say, we who know Christ, even though we know not the time, even though we know not exactly how or in what form, do know that we will rise again. In this is our hope.
But how can we get to know Christ? Not the same way as His first disciples, when He walked the earth, for sure. We can get to know about Him by reading Holy Scripture and listening to His words. But even that is not quite the same as getting to know Him directly. On its own, it is more wissen than kennen, more savoir than connaître. It will only let us know Him from afar, by reputation. Hence He has left us with more than words: He has left us with His Church and Sacraments.
If we want to get to know Christ, He has told us how to do so. Be baptised into His death and resurrection. Feast with His disciples on earth and in heaven, with Him and on Him, through the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist. Know Him in those who follow Him and are one with Him in His Body, the Church. Know Him in the little ones, the poor ones, the weak and the despised, the needy, the unwanted, the deplorable. Know Him not by rumour or speculation or reputation, but in the depths of prayer: and through Him, enter into oneness with the One who sent Him. Then what you read about Him in Scripture will start to make more sense.
The time is ripe. The time is now.