Who do you say He is?

So in RCIA this week we talked about that famous line in Matthew 16:13-20, when Jesus asks the disciples “Who do you say I am?”  Now the Sunday School/RCIA answer is “Jesus is the Messiah, he is the Christ Savior, and he is God incarnate.”  In short, Jesus is God.

But I got to thinking about this, what does that mean to us?  Specifically to each and every individual, what does that mean to us?  Who do we personally say Jesus is?

I kind of look at it from the perspective of many people knowing one individual specifically.  Say Brian is the most popular football player on the team, because he’s a genuinely nice person so everyone in the school knows him.  Everyone has had some interaction with him, but everyone has, by the fundamental nature of any relationship, a different, very specific interaction with him.  Maybe he helped one with an assignment, others he helped during a difficult time, another knows him from math class, another knows him from drama, and so on and so on.  Everyone has had a specific interaction with him, but everyone knows him.

Now the Church, we know Jesus by the relationship we just talked about, he’s the Messiah, the Christ Savior, God incarnate, the way the truth and the light.  But those are very broad answers.  Who do YOU say Christ is?  What do these titles mean to you?

Who is the Messiah?  Who is the Savior? Who is God incarnate?  What do those mean to you?

There was a Christian singer, Carmen, who produced a song “Lazarus, Come Forth” back in 1992.  I know this because my mom had the audio cassette and when I was waiting for her to get out of work I would listen to it, and a few others, to pass the time.  Again…1992.

The point is, in the song Lazarus passes away and arrives in Heaven with the Saints of God, basically the movers and shakers of the Old Testament.  This part is basically a “who’s who” of Sunday School.  You have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Solomon, Ezekiel, Job, Sampson, Shadrach, Meshach, Abendego, Jonah, Daniel and David all sitting around while Moses conducts a meeting and asks for a witness for the Lord.  Each one tells a little blurb about how they knew God during their lives, and what he did for them.  Lazarus adds in his bit, about how he knew God as Christ Jesus, walking with him, talking with him and witnessing his teachings.  Everyone had a personal relationship with God, and while many of the beats were the same, each one was different. All the others knew the Father, while Lazarus knew the Son.

The Savior and Messiah to me may be a different dynamic than the one to you; each of us has our own personal relationship with Jesus.  There really isn’t a hard answer here, just kind of something to personally reflect on:

If Jesus were to come to you right now and say “Who do you say I am?” what would your response be?