Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 453

...he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
They said in reply, “John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, ‘One of the ancient prophets has arisen.’”
Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter said in reply, “The Christ of God.”

As the saying goes, "Everyone has an opinion...." I have found that even those who might ask about something -- frankly admitting they don't know and want to know -- often interrupt a careful explanation. They just cannot wait to learn something without letting themselves get in the way of learning. 

When the disciples set out to announce the Good News of the Lord's death and resurrection to the whole world, they often found their hearers ready to fit the Gospel into something they already knew. The world was just as full of ideas and opinions then as it is today, and many people are more fascinated by what they already know than by something new, regardless of how unexpected and healing it might be. 

Today we might hear that, 

• Jesus only appeared to be dead, and that probably the ancients knew of some mysteriously powerful medicine that would revive a man who has bled out on a cross while his professional killers watched. And, sadly, we have lost that marvelous elixir in the two millennia since! 
• Or that the disciples cooked up the story of his resurrection and told everyone about it, despite the fate the Lord had suffered, and that his disciples would suffer if they kept talking about him. 
• Or that, his disciples spoke only of his wonderful teaching and that, in the course of centuries, the legend grew until it became an outlandish myth of a man rising from the dead. 
• After all, didn't Osiris also rise from the dead? Or something like that? 
• And that the ancients were not half as clever and skeptical as we are, and would believe any ridiculous story no matter how implausible.
• but, yes, there must be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe!  
• And so forth....

The point is not that there may be another explanation. The point is they don't want to believe in the Good News, and would rather call us misguided fools (at best) or perverts (at worst) lest they have to "repent and believe the good news." 

"Who do you say that I am?" Jesus asks. Or, "Never mind what this world's wisdom says, who do you say I am?" 

The question comes directly from the Lord, and we must answer him directly. 

And then, when we answer correctly, Jesus,

...rebuked them and directed them not to tell this to anyone.

He said, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly

and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,

and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

And that's precisely why the world doesn't want to know Jesus. It costs too much! 

Because we believe in the Lord we listen to his words about suffering and death, and take them to heart.