Jesus Unmasked

“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”” (Matthew 16:13)

If you’re a fan of Batman or Spiderman or any other masked superheroes, you’ll be familiar with that critical scene were someone finally works out who the superhero really is. Batman really is billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne! Who would have guessed? The guy in the spider suit really is young Peter Parker! Well … Matthew, chapter 15, is that moment for Jesus.

Up to this point, everybody, including the disciples, has been asking, “who is this guy?”, but here, at at Caesarea Philippi, all is revealed! The mask comes off! Jesus’ hidden identity as the future ruler of the world is revealed, All questions are answered and all ambiguities are removed, even if it takes the disciples a good while to work out what it all means.

Of course, the scene doesn’t begin with Jesus ripping off his mask. It begins with Him asking, ““Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “What”, in other words, “are people saying about me?”

In years past, I only ever saw this as a warm-up to Jesus’ real question – “but who do YOU say that I am?” – yet it occurs to me, on reading it again, that the question of what the average citizen of Judea thought of Jesus was itself an important question.

Mark Twain said that church is a place where “nice, respectable people go and listen to a nice, respectable man tell them how to be nicer and more respectable”. If you’d asked one of Mark Twain’s contemporaries who the Son of Man was, I expect they would have said something along those lines – that Jesus was a nice, respectable man – a paragon, indeed, of civility and respectability.

I’m not sure how much has changed. One of our Fighting Fathers elders shared something in our mid-week Bible study this week – that when her local parish priest asked the congregation to summarise the Christian faith, most people said something like, “Try to be nice to each other.” Jesus barely got a mention!

I think I’ve been biased the other way in that I’ve known too many people who have been abused by the church, and I think many people in our community associate the church with abuse. Perhaps some might even think of Jesus as an abuser?!

Of course, church abuse goes back hundreds, and even thousands, of years, and not only sexual abuse. I’m a bit sorry now that I read that book on the Crusades as it was appalling to read in detail of all the violence enacted in the name of Christ!

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” I’m not sure I really want to know what all my contemporaries think. In the case of first century Judea though, we do know:

“And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”” (Matthew 16:14)

These were the superheroes of generations past, and they were all dangerous men – prophets who confronted kings, exposed corruption, and paid for it with their blood!

John the Baptist had just had his head chopped off by Herod
Elijah spent much of his life on the run from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Jeremiah, “the weeping prophet” endured terrible persecution:
- Beaten and put in stocks (Jeremiah 20:1–2)
- Mocked, isolated, and socially ostracised (Jeremiah 20:10)
- Threatened with capital punishment (Jeremiah 26)
- Imprisoned and left to die in a sewar (Jeremiah 38:6)

These were not nice, respectable men telling everyone how to be nicer and more respectable. They were rebels and social agitators of the kind that regularly got themselves assassinated.

And Peter goes one step further by saying of Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). In other words, “you are the chief agitator!”

When we put Peter’s statement in context, this is quite clear. They are in the district of Caesarea Philippi – a part of the world named after two of the world’s greatest dictators (Julius Caesar and Philip of Macedon). They were great and powerful rulers, but Peter sees in Jesus someone even greater and more powerful!

Peter is right, of course, in a sense, though he’s also tragically wrong about a lot of it as well, as becomes evident when Jesus concludes the Caesarea Philippi episode by referring to Peter as Satan (but more on that another time)!

Let it suffice to say here that the average Jew of Jesus’ day understood Jesus better, I think, than the average person today, and that Peter understood Jesus better than most of his fellow peers. That’s clear from his confession, and the church continues to hold to that same confession today, though it’s not obvious that today’s Christians have a much better understanding of what it all means than they did back then!

Even so, Peter, and by extension, the church built upon him, holds the keys to the Kingdom, and that’s a sobering thought – that this flawed and broken man with his flawed and broken church is all we’ve been left with to mediate Christ to the world!

Couldn’t God have given us something cleaner, safer – something less broke?
Couldn’t’ God have supplied us with something less likely to damage people? Well … He didn’t. Christ gave us the church we have — the one built both on Peter’s confession and on Peter’s many weaknesses.

Our superhero has been unmasked, His majesty revealed and His powers passed on to His people even though we were never ready for all that power or for the responsibility that came with it.

Lord Jesus, come back quickly, please. Restore Your world, redeem Your church, and bring to completion the work justice and mercy that You began. Amen.

Our Sunday Eucharist

We celebrated another wonderful Eucharist last Sunday. It was great to have Dr Andrew Madry and Bryn Rees back with me on the panel though Bryn, unfortunately, kept dropping out. Why did we keep losing Bryn? I’m not sure. It may have just been poor reception but we’re not ruling out something more sinister. Bryn has been on the front line of the spiritual war lately.

I’ve clipped the discussion on Romans 11 and included it at the end of today’s newsletter. Unfortunately, Bryn wasn’t with us at that stage but AI Saint Paul did his best to fill the vacancy.

I’ve include three reels below this time – one from each of us. Each of these have received thousands of views over the last week. Interestingly, Andrew’s discussion of “Lockdowns and Lies” was initially taken down from TikTok, branded as ‘fake news‘. Such is the world we live in. Lies are peddled as truth while truth is declared fake!

This coming Sunday I’m looking forward to having Rev. John Queripel back on the panel with me. Pastor Eric Fistler from Crystal Lake, Illinois, was also scheduled to join us but has had to pull out at the last minute. Thankfully, Rob Gilland has offered to take his place. Thank you, Rob.

Join us from noon this Sunday (Sydney time) on all the usual channels: Rumble, Facebook, Twitter (X), LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or StreamYard.

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Friday to Sunday, August 21 to 23 @Binacrombi. Please join me
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I’m finishing today’s newsletter in the dark. It’s just gone 2 am, I’m deep in the bush, and the lights have gone out. Evidently, the solar batteries have run out of power. Hopefully, there will be just enough charge left in my phone and in my laptop to create an Internet connection that will allow me to publish this newsletter before I get to bed. We’ll see …

It feels like an embodied parable – a light shining in the darkness. If you receive this email before sunlight (Sydney time), you’ll know that, once again, the darkness did not overcome it! 😉❤️

Your brother in the Good Fight,