Who do you say he is?
Mark 8:29-30
He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”
And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
This is a very peculiar aside in the ongoing drama of Jesus’s ministry of renewal.
Jesus asks his disciples who, or what, the crowds his miracles have amassed perceive Jesus to be: a prophet. Neither confirming nor denying that suspicion, he asks who his disciples think he is. Peter declares “the Messiah.”
He demands their secrecy on the matter—perhaps because various acclaimed messiah figures were perceived as insurgent leaders and thus executed by the Roman Empire. What if his concern here is more about his practical safety in an occupied land than his perceived identity?
I wonder if Jesus really cared who people thought he was, what they believed about him—he doesn't seem as interested in identifications and honorifics as his Church would become, but rather in an integrity of faith through compassion, justice, and hospitality.
If that’s the case, who do you say he is?