I have been mulling on this section of the disciples journey with Jesus for a while and have gotten to preach on it twice. So, maybe as we remember Jesus suffering adn dieing for us this week....and then rising from the dead (!) take some time and think about who he is to you.

30 Miles north...

Do you remember playing follow the leader? Wasn’t it the popular kid (yes there was popular kids in kindergarten) and the extent you thought he or she was cool or trusted the person you would follow them anywhere. But there was no shortcut or avoidance of the hard stuff, the monkey bars, the swamp….you had to go through it or you were out, cut off, blackballed on the playground.

I was thinking about this as i read the account in Mathew 15 and 16 of Jesus with his disciples only a few weeks before his passionate entry to Jerusalem.
If you read Mathew 15 we find Jesus and his crew on the shore of Galilee. For three days the people brought him their wounded and their sick. Eventually they were hungry and Jesus could take it no more and he turned to his guys and said, "feed them." They hemmed and hawed a little but eventually gave Jesus what they had and he fed everybody! Jesus, most likely being pretty tired decided it was a good time to leave and they left to Magadan only to be confronted by Pharisees and Sadducees who demanded sign (everybody wants a sign!). He turns to them and says, “Nearly three years have gone by and still you cannot see who I am”. I think it is safe to say Jesus was fed up. So he tells them "the only sign you're going to get is the sign of Jonah"...What was the sign of Jonah? 3 days/3nights and rise again and we all know saddly, they didn't understand it in the end either.

So, at this point Jesus is fed up and decides to head back across where is confronted by his own disciples lack of understanding. They couldn't get their mind of of lunch and Jesus had to sit them down and spell it out for them. Funny how often Jesus spoke of spiritual mattes and people simply missed it. In John 3 Nicodemus wonders how he can be born again--literally. In John 4 the woman at the well wants a bucket of the living water stuff and in John 6 the crowds don't want to be cannibals so almost everyone takes off. Jesus tries repeatedly to get us off the physical and into the spiritual. How often do we miss it to?

What struck me was that at this point Jesus decides to take his boys for a walk. Thirty miles north, out of the way. They head away from Jerusalem to a place called Ceaseria Phillipi (CP). Now we find Jesus is retreating to be with his disciples
to an ancient pagan area. Now, there was this valley/canyon where the Greeks believed was the ‘gateway to Hades’. There was a spring in the bottom and they built a temple there. Pagans came from all over to worship and make sacrifices. And it is here is where Jesus puts the question to his disciples.

“Who do the people say the Son of Man is?” (v. 13)

So how do they respond? Well they start giving the 3rd person answers. "Some say it was John", "others say it was Elijah," and still others say it was Jeremiah". Each answer was good, not the right answer, but not bad. John, prepared the way for Christ, calling for repentance and holiness, Elijah was a man of prayer and Jeremiah was a suffering man of God. Each was a good answer coming from a Jew of the time but each was missing the completeness and entirety of Jesus is. After all they had seen, all they had witnessed firsthand Jesus brought them to the point of declaration.

You can see them walking along talking about the conversations that were happening around them. Maybe people came up next to them and joined in...but what Jesus wanted to know was "what about you, who do you say I am?” The third-person is wimpy way out isn’t it? Up until now Jesus let them get away with it. But he knew they had to OWN the answer.

And our dear, favorite foot-in-mouth disciple, Peter answers not flippantly but strongly….”You are the Christ”, (the Messiah, Anointed One, the son of the living God). And Christ turns to Peter and you can almost feel the excitement in Jesus' words, "you are right, you didn't understand this from any human understanding!"
He didn’t ‘get it’ because he was with Jesus 3 years, or went to seminary or because he had a great mentor or a BIG Bible…or even that he studied and memorized the words of Jesus, but because the Father revealed it to him. (It is all about grace isn't it?! Even our poor understanding is a gift!).

On this declaration of who he is Jesus says the church will prevail. Build on this "rock" petria (bedrock) on Christ the Son of the living God. Nothing will replace it, stand against it or overcome it. Not "petros" (rock-Peter) but the declaration of who Christ is.“And the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (16 v.18) Interesting point here that a gate is defensive, the church should be offensive--aggressively bringing light into darkness. Attacking the forces of evil...and prevailing (hmmm).


So we would imagine at this point the disciples were pretty pumped and ready to go…but what does Jesus say? “SHHHHH, don't tell anyone” v. 20.

WHAT!? It makes sense knowing now that Jesus would go on to take up all our sin and bear it on a tree, die in our stead and rise victorious over death. It wasn't time yet. He hadn't done all he set out to do.

So what did happen? “And from that time on Jesus went on to explain…that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things and be killed and on the third day raise again” (v. 21) Jesus would go on explaining it to them for at least 100 miles of walking. There were no iPods, radios, DVDs in the car…cars, they didn’t even travel by camel!
Now remember who Peter was, obviously Peter didn’t like to hear such things… it says he pulled Jesus aside and rebuked him. A loving, affectionate rebuke, really, and Jesus answers him equally sweetly? Not really. Jesus turns to one of his closest friends and says, “Get behind me Satan” (v. 23). Simon, had spoken from a worldly perspective, he had revealed the mind of the enemy. But in the same moment i can see Jesus then putting his arm around Peter’s shoulder, everyone is quiet, (maybe they heard the words of Jesus and they were stunned), but Jesus gazes at the rest of the followers and seizes the moment and turning to the rest of the disciples and says, “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”.(V.24).

Deny yourself, ice cream? Luxury? No, deny yourself…your desires and rights.

"If you say i am the Christ, voluntarily, completely follow me, where-ever i lead you."


This was the call, the appeal, the offer. To renounce everything we are, ever were or are to be and be completely utterly his. To submit to his words and teaching. To renounce our previous ways isn’t enough. This was total surrender and the Jewish nature in these guys understood it. They had just heard the rah-rah speech given to Peter and were pretty pumped. Jesus here calls for a little more seriousness here.
It as if Jesus was saying, "This kingdom of love and grace and freedom you have found in me will grow but you must decide who I am, voluntarily come, deny yourself and submit to my words faithfully….until the end".

Jesus had taken them 30 miles north of where they were spiritually to confront them with a decision. To decide who he really was to them. He took them there, somewhere special, to tell them something pivotal, important and empowering.

Follow the leader. If we believe WHO Jesus is we will DO what he asks of us and go where He leads us. So this Easter, stop and ask yourself,

Who do you say He is?