Who do you say that I am?

Meditations are to pacify our hearts. This is what we usually hear. I disagree. That which calms the hearts could never be meditation. True meditations should kindle our inner tides of dialectics. Once a kid asked an old man with a long beard. Grandpa, when you sleep, does your beard stay inside the blanket our outside? It is said that henceforth the Grandpa never slept peacefully. Thus meditations are like this. They ought not to tranquilize our hearts and minds but disturb them. Today as we enter the first day of lent I invite your attention to the Gospel according to Mark 8: 29 wherein which Jesus asks his disciples “Who do you say that I am?”

This is a verse which invites multiplicity of Christologies. We encounter a Jesus who is interested to know our own unique version(s) of Christ consciousness. It is not the Christ consciousness handed down to us by our forefathers and foremothers; it is neither the Christ consciousness imparted to us by our parents, teachers or even priests for that matter; but Jesus is all ears to give heed to our individualistic Christ consciousness. He asks each of us, “How do you perceive me?”

Zen Buddhism narrates a story entitled ‘Be Thou Light’. In this story it so happens that a blind man sets out for a journey by walk at night. His friend gives him a lamp. Curious enough, the blind man enquires his friend, “Why do you give me this lamp?” The friend replied “It is not for you but for the people who come across you to see you and avoid collision.” With gratitude in heart the blind started his journey but after walking a while he banged on to another man. With great anger the blind man asked him “Couldn’t you see the lamp in my hand?” With utmost humility the other man replied “I am so sorry my dear friend but the wind had extinguished your lamp way back.”

We cannot travel far in a path illuminated by others. The time demands that we be our own light. Our journey with the Christ consciousness of others will not lead to fruition. Moreover even Christ does not expect that. Let the question of Christ continue to resonate in our ears “Who do you say that I am?

The title ‘Christ’ embodies the testimony of a community. Such is the significance of community’s testification. Rajneesh Osho articulated on his death bed “Do not write my history as my disciples are my history.” Christians and therefore the Church are the sojourning history of Christ. Christ awaits new Christological attributions by Church according to the signs of time but the Church seems to have gone numb. We need to redeem Church from its vegetative state; the dynamics need to be revived. Christos Yannaras, an Eastern Orthodox Theologian opines:

“Once the Church denies her ontological identity– what she really, essentially is as an existential event whereby individual survival is changed into a personal life of love and communion– then from that very moment she is reduced to a conventional form under which individuals are grouped together into an institution; she becomes an expression of man’s fall, albeit a religious one. She begins to serve the “religious needs” of the people, the individualistic emotional and psychological needs of fallen man.”

Let us pray

Ever renewing God, your Son asks us “Who do you say that I am?” In these Lenten days may this question reverberate in our hearts and minds so that we may develop our own credible individual Christ consciousness. We are tired walking the path illumined by others, help us to be our own light. For Christ’s sake we pray. Amen.

Prayers

Dn. Basil Paul