“Who do you say that I am?”

There’s a question that turns out to be fundamental in our approach to the mystery of the Lord Jesus. In the region of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” “Who do you say that I am?” This question repeats itself throughout history and confronts men and women of all times, nations and cultures.

Inspired by the Most High, with Saint Peter, believers confess with faith: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The context of the question and the answer is the faith, and this context is also ecclesial. The Lord says: “You are Peter and on this Rock I will build my Church.” And it is “in Ecclesia” that Peter’s confession continues in the correct recognition of Jesus as the Lord. The faith of the Church conserves the entire reach of that confession which points to the centrality of the Lord Jesus in the history of reconciliation. Throughout the centuries, the Church, by Her life, celebration, and teaching, extends this confession of the mystery of God, One and Three, in the same manner of that great act of love by which the Eternal Word became Man in the ever-Virgin Mary, redeeming the human being and showing him his reality, dignity, and vocation. Whoever grasps the meaning of this sees how the very destiny of the world is linked to what Saint Peter and with him the sons and daughters of the Church profess.

The Current Situation

The question has lost none of its currency. Just as it was in those times, according to the testimony of Sacred Scripture, today at the turn of the third millennium there are many erroneous or incomplete answers that have attempted a response. And these answers don’t lack for effect! If it’s an erroneous vision they reflect, the influence they have on the world’s functioning will stem from that very vision, and, as logically follows, the influence of that which is bad will not be a good one.

I suspect that there is a certain correlation between the rejection of Divine Love and its Plan for the human being at the origins (of creation), and the rejection of God who in Jesus lovingly goes out to humanity’s encounter.

There exists a very widespread recognition today of Jesus as an outstanding example of the human species. This would seem like a kind of praise or exaltation, but that’s precisely what it isn’t because not only is it an incomplete vision, but also it rather disfigures the face of the Lord. It’s the vision of certain incomplete humanisms, of that secularism which today is so widely disseminated and which in one of its facets threatens to renounce all objectivity and recognize only the validity of subjectivity.

Alongside it, one frequently encounters what can be qualified as a “religious” vision, also seriously incomplete. In it the true nature of the Lord Jesus is reduced to that of a great prophet, a spiritual master, or even to one of the ways of accessing God. Versions of the so-called New Age, or Gnostic, “revolutionary,” or oriental-styled conceptions are marked by a reductive character which disfigures the mystery of the Eternal Word made Man in the most pure womb of Mary, by the work of the Holy Spirit. In addition to these incomplete or totally erroneous visions are others – fruits of fantasy – which in this world at the end of the second millennium seem to respect nothing. Literary works and even movies present a face of the Lord which is totally unrecognizable and in some cases even disrespectful and sacrilegious. Already in his time the Peruvian thinker Víctor Andrés Belaunde [1] stressed the faith’s image of Jesus in the face of certain dangerous aesthetic sympathies, “which strip Christ of his divinity and His work of permanent efficacy.”

In today’s erroneous or incomplete visions we’re also dealing with a stripping. That illustrious Peruvian Catholic thinker was not familiar with the concept of the “culture of death,” but in such a case he surely would have used it. All these partialities and errors form a part of that culture since the negation to recognize God and His life-giving Plan end up going against life and the dignity of the human being.

Beware!

These days a lot of content is presented under the word ‘Jesus.’ It’s necessary to be attentive to this, conscious of the faith that one professes, in order not to fall into confused ideas. For this reason it’s important to begin with an initial acceptance of Christ, through a process of conversion of the mind and heart, deepening in His mystery of love, adhering in a clear manner to what that implies – according to the teaching of the Church’s faith – and coherently putting this global adhesion to work in everyday life. It’s a maturing in the truth of the Lord Jesus, a process that brings us to adhere and be configured in Him.

“Not all who say ‘Lord, Lord’ will be saved.” The sentence’s meaning is clear, an invitation to coherence between that which is believed and life. It is, therefore, indispensable today to remain attentive to the lights of the faith and not to succumb to the subjectivism and relativism milling around. Not every presentation of Jesus offers the true face of the Lord. That’s why it’s necessary that the search for the full and fulfilling encounter with the Lord Jesus be led by the hand of the illuminating faith of the Church and the space She offers. In Her are found the full confession and life.

Notes

[1] 1883-1966. Peruvian logical positivist who converted to Catholicism and became the outstanding Catholic intellectual in his country, his activity ranging from apologetics to sociology, law, politics and diplomacy. He was elected President of the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1959-1960.