Reading Luke Together #29 – Jesus’ True Identity – and Ours
If you’ve been a reader of my emails over time, you’ll have heard me explain how the Gospels chart the plot of Jesus’ life. He begins with almost hyper-activity, impressing ever-increasing crowds with his words and deed, a man on the move, very much in control. But then everything turns on its axis, and for the rest of Jesus’ life, he’s not focused on miracles at all, his crowds dwindle, and he is increasingly pursued, and finally arrested and killed, no longer an actor on the stage of history, in control, but acted upon, or using the words the Gospel writers prefer, Jesus was “handed over.”
The turning point? It’s in Luke 9:18-27. Just as in Matthew and Mark, it’s when Jesus asks the disciples who people think he really is. Luke doesn’t name the place: Caesarea Philippi, on the northern edge of Israel, with its warren of temples dedicated to the deity of Caesar, and its cave to the underworld. Luke instead fixes our attention on Jesus at prayer. “As he was praying alone, the disciples were with him.” Odd, isn’t it? Praying alone, or not alone – since he was communing with God! But the disciples are watching. I wonder if there are ways we might be among people but still in private communion with God?
Jesus gathers the poll results on people’s guesses about his identity – and then Peter gets it right: “You are the Christ.” Unlike Matthew and Mark, Jesus doesn’t fume at Peter for misunderstanding that he will suffer, and he doesn’t pledge to build his church on Peter the Rock. Instead, he simply explains he must suffer, be killed, and rise again. The disciples may have wished what we might wish: that Jesus had just stopped there. But he continues to graft us onto his hard destiny. We must lose our lives to save them. We must take up the cross too. What can this mean? Many Christians have literally followed Jesus in such a way that they were martyred, joining him in death.
For most of us? Bishop Robert Barron suggests that “For all of us sinners, to varying degrees, our own lives have become god.” It’s all about me and my ego, my needs, my projects, my plans, my likes, my dislikes – and we try to squeeze God into the cracks among all that. Barron is right: “Unless you crucify your ego, you cannot be Jesus’ follower.” Jesus was crucified and died over about 6 hours. The crucifixion of your ego might take 6 months or 6 years or 60 years. A baby step at a time. One idol crushed at a time. One priority shifting a little at a time. Keep at it.
Jesus also told them, and so us, to take up our cross. When Jesus bore the cross, he was carrying the burden of the world’s sin. We too are asked, urged, and required by God to carry the burdens of all that sin out there. You see the result of sin in the world, and how it impacts people. Stand with them. Help them carry what they struggle to carry. Lighten the loads of others. What else makes sense for us to do with our time, if Jesus is who we think he is?
Amazingly, immediately after this downer conversation about suffering and crucifixion, about Jesus’ dire end, he suddenly is glowing brilliant hot white on a mountain – and with Moses and Elijah, gone (but not really gone) for centuries. Luke alone reports that the disciples nearly missed all this, as they were sleepy-headed – just as they would again be very drowsy while Jesus prayed in agony in Gethsemane!
What Luke 9:28-36 offers us is a little preview of attractions to come, a peek behind the curtain. This Jesus, who must suffer and die, will be raised to glory. And so we too, who follow, lose our ego endeavors, and take up the world’s burdens will find ourselves raised gloriously. With such a grand destiny, our mission statement for the rest of life is sealed and made unmistakably clear: as the disciples are awed by what they can’t believe they are seeing, they hear a voice right out of heaven saying “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” Indeed. You’re doing so by reading Luke. Shove that ego toward the door and try to listen all the time.