When we seek to define ourselves and others there can be pressured to associate with a certain kind of cultural trend or even ideology. She is so retro or he is so postmodern. These labels are not always helpful because it would take tons of stories and years of knowing and commitment to actually know how to define someone. The process for ourselves is odd because as soon as we think we have ourselves nailed tragedy comes or we move away from home and find ourselves changing-growing in ways that home never fostered. But it is one of those ‘navel gazing’ questions isn’t it, “who am I?”
This is a phrase that echoes throughout Mark and it is place only on the lips of Jesus (Mk 8.29). And Jesus isn’t asking himself he is asking others, “who am I?” The responses very but the narrative builds to Peter, who this gospel sees as central to the telling of the story of Jesus. Peter says, “you are the messiah.” A term loaded with imagery reaching back into the tradition of the prophets and meeting its fulfillment in the tradition of Jesus. But what is more interesting is what Mark doesn’t have Peter say. Richard Hays points out that Mark tells the story of Jesus in a way that invites the reader ‘to join the evangelist in confession.’ The confession that Hays has in mind bookends the gospel quite nicely.
‘In the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’ (Mk 1.1)
‘Truly this man was the Son of God’ (Mk. 15.39)
There are only four times this title is given to Jesus in the gospel and two of them are demons and Jesus shuts them up. The end of Mark is the first confession of Jesus as the Son of God by a human being and it happens to be a Roman soldier, which is very interesting especially in light of Mark 5 and the empire subversion motif that undergirds the whole story. But from the beginning of the gospel the reader is invited to confess that Jesus is the Son of God. It makes sense now as the story is told that Jesus is asking Peter, “who am I?” As we cheer for Peter as he begins to confess we realize he has stopped short. The Messiah was to deliver Israel from the beasts the nations but the Son of God was a title given to the Caesar. We find out only after Jesus ascends into Heaven then that the kingdom he is enthroned over isn’t just Rome but the whole universe.
And so when we confess Jesus as this Christ and Son we confess our belonging to him and his kingdom. We confess a belonging to a new order amidst the old as we live ‘with the grains of the universe’. We only come close to knowing who we are when we know who he is, for our being rests in him.
