It’s Jesus at his most human. He longs to be known, to be close, to share himself with those whom he loves; to be loved by them.

He asks, “Who do people say that I am?” He knows that people are both awe-struck and bewildered by his extraordinary power, by his indescribable presence, that reeks of something beyond himself, the presence of God. People cast around for familiar forms in which to cast him: Elijah, the prophets.

 “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus continues. He hopes, he prays that they will say something different, something real, something that he recognizes. Something that shows that they recognize him; that he is not so removed from their human experience. “You are the Messiah,” says Peter. And he said to keep quiet about that.

 But what he said openly was that he was a full participant in the human condition of suffering and separation, of mortality and mortification. He wanted them to know not his title, not his Platonic form, not his theological significance. He wanted them to know that he was one of them, that he was with them, no matter what troubles life might bring, no matter who else might misunderstand; that he was human.

 Because if he could show them that, then they would know that God is just as close, and just as true, and just as loving, come what may.

 It makes me wonder how much effort I put into getting to know Jesus. Do I really spend the time to talk with him, to sit with him, to be vulnerable with him, to let him share in that vulnerability? Do I try to fit him into preset pigeon-holes, instead of letting him surprise me with his vision of what comes next? Do I try to speak for him, like Peter, “no, not this way, but that”? Do I disappoint him? Does he disappoint me? Do I worry too much about what Jesus would say about me, how he would describe me to another?

 And what about that? What about the ways we talk about one another. You couldn’t turn on the news or social media this week without coming across scurrilous, sensationalist lies about a certain group of human beings living in Ohio. How does it feel to be reduced to a meme, a joke, a soundbite, a lie? Each of these human beings has a name, a family, a life. Each of them is known and loved by God. But if we will not know our neighbours as individual human beings, how will we love them as ourselves, or as God loves them?

Jesus wanted to be known by more than a title, more than a meme. I think of that father and mother, beseeching the press and the politicians not to reduce their child, their pain, to a caricature in order to make a point. Because he was a child of theirs and a child of God, beloved, and loving, and because there is always more to life and death than can be captured in a soundbite by a stranger.

Jesus wanted his disciples to know him as a person. As a person willing to go to the ends of the earth, of life itself, for them. To push the boundaries of life and death, not only for the little girl he raised from her deathbed, or Lazarus from the tomb, but for all people.

He said all of this quite openly.

On Tuesday evenings, as we enter into our Centering Prayer, we read something to help guide us on our silent journey. Lately, we’ve been reading from Seeking the Beloved: A Prayer Journey with St. John of the Cross, by Wayne Simsic. John wrote in his Spiritual Canticle,

There is much to fathom in Christ, for he is like an abundant mine with many recesses of treasures, so that however deep individuals may go they never reach the end or bottom, but rather in every recess find new veins with new riches everywhere.[i]

Simsic’s commentary adds his learning from a prayer group that,

… repeating the name of Jesus [in prayer] was not simply a pious gesture or spiritual exercise but invoked his real presence. To repeat Jesus’ name opened their hearts to his energy. Each person in the group who employed the [Jesus] prayer acknowledged that it had changed their lives and their relationship with God.[ii]

I think that in this gospel reading, Jesus is asking us to see him for himself, as himself. To spend the time, to invest ourselves in knowing him. Not because he needs us to, but because if we can see him more clearly, and follow him more nearly, we will learn to love more truly, to heal more fully, to find the image of God where we most need to see it, where it most needs to be seen.

If we can learn not to reduce Jesus to a title or a type: prophet, Messiah, Son of God; but to see the whole story of him, the whole person of him, the height and breadth and depth and weight of his love for us, and for the world – then perhaps we can do the same for our neighbours. Perhaps we can even do the same for ourselves.

After all, who do you say that Jesus is?

[i] St John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle, 37.4, quoted in Seeking the Beloved: A Prayer Journey with St. John of the Cross, by Wayne Simsic (The Word among us Press, 2012), 68

[ii] Seeking the Beloved: A Prayer Journey with St. John of the Cross, by Wayne Simsic (The Word among us Press, 2012), 68