1.Zachariah
12:10-11
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2.Galatians3:23-29
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Luke 9:18-22
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" How our faith is challenged"
One of the Aesop fables
that I most like is one entitled The Hunter and the Woodman. It happened
one day that a hunter was searching for the tracks of a Lion. He asked man
felling oaks in the forest he had seen any marks of the lion's footsteps or
knew where his lair was. " Oh
yes," said the woodman, " I will take you to the Lion himself."
The Hunter turned pale from fear and stuttered, " No thanks. I did not ask
that; it is only his tracks that I am looking for, not the Lion himself."
In our dealing with God and with one another sometimes we are often like this
hunter. We always profess that we stand for something but when the full
implication of what we profess stares in the face we draw back.
In our today's gospel
this exactly is what we see. Peter, speaking for himself and for the disciples,
rightly confess his faith in Jesus as the long expected Messiah. However, when
Jesus reveals to him and the disciples the implications of being the Messiah
they begin to draw back. By confessing Jesus as the Messiah, the disciples show
that they have gone above the " level" of the people who take Jesus
to be nothing more than a prophet. Furthermore, Jesus continued to tell them
they implications of what they had just said: " The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by
the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be
raised." (Luke9:22).
The challenging issue
here is that apart from professing Jesus to be the Messiah, the disciples
really are not ready for this. They are looking for Lion's foot prints and
Jesus offers to take them face to face with the lion. Consequently they begin to
withdraw. This withdrawing is more dramatic in the gospel of Matthew where
Peter takes Jesus aside and tries to talk him out of the suffering and death he was destined to undergo. However
Jesus would rebuke him and call him Satan for seeing things from purely human
than seeing things from God's point of view. Luke's version of the story which
we read today focuses on the disciples as a whole and not particularly on
Peter. This mighty explain why it does not include the dialogue and the
incident between Jesus and Peter after had made the all-important confession.
Rather Luke shows the disciples pulling back from Jesus at his arrest,
suffering from death, which shows that they do not understand the implication
of the faith they profess in Jesus as the Messiah.
The disciples are
challenged by Jesus to think for themselves about the identity of Jesus. Jesus
shows that he expects his followers to think for themselves when he asks them
first, "Who do the crowds say that I am?"( v.18). And then the
all-important question: " But who do you say that I am?"(v.20). From
the conversation between Jesus and his disciples we learn a lesson that the
disciples must inform themselves on what the current thinking is on any given
issue. In our ordinary life communication one can achieve that by reading
books, listening to the radio, watching the television and surfing the
internet. However, over and above that, disciples must then in light of
Christian faith and revelation make up their minds on the issues. Christians in
this perspective are challenged not to allow themselves to internalize the
voice of the people such that the voice of the "people" becomes the
voice of their conscience. This is what Paul is telling us in Romans 12:2
"Do not be conformed to this World, but be transformed by the renewing of
your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and
acceptable and perfect." As people of faith Jesus asks us to know what
"people" around us are thinking but not necessary to endorse what
they are thinking. Like the prophets of old, faithfulness to God demands that
we follow the voice of God within us, which we call conscience, rather than
popular opinion.
However, discerning
what God is saying to us is only the first part of our challenge as Christians.
The second and even more deciding part is following in practical life the
implications of what God is saying to us. This actually is the crucial moment.
This is facing up the lion- The lion that must be confronted before justice and
peace can prevail. Anything short of this and we are like the hunter searching
for lion trail and not the lion himself. Such a hunter achieves nothing at the
end of the day. Soon we shall be invited, like the disciples to proclaim our
faith in Christ. Let promise God that we shall not pull back when the
implication and challenges of faith dawn on us in our day-to-day lives.
Let me end my sharing
with the following story: Collin power, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of the Staff of the United States, narrated a story about three men working in
construction company. The first man was digging but kept on complaining about
the hardship of the job, the low salary and the scorching heat of the sun. The
second man was resting on his shovel, his hands on his waist and bragging about his knowledge on construction. He was
telling his fellow workers he should not be digging because he knew better than
all the rest. The third man didn't say a word but just kept on digging and
digging. After ten years, the first man was still digging, the second man was
long terminated and the third man became the owner of the construction company.
Dear brothers and
sisters, what can we learn from this story? Somebody said that to enter God's
Kingdom and to possess Jesus fully, it will not by doing grudging what Christ
commands us to do like the first man; it will not be by boasting what we know
about Christ and yet not doing what He wants us to do like the second man; it
will only be by doing what He wants us to do like the second man; it will only
be by doing faithfully what we have to do as His followers like the third man.
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