The God We Need

In the reading we hear today from Mark’s gospel, Jesus and the disciples are in the district around Caesarea Philippi, where Herod the Great had built a temple and renamed the town after the emperor. It is during this time that the disciples’ assumptions and hopes about what Jesus would accomplish begin to collapse around them. Jesus’ announcement about what would happen to him was the beginning of the end. Up to this point, Jesus seemed unstoppable as a healer, a teacher and a miracle worker. Things seemed to be looking up! This is the pivotal chapter of the gospel, where there is a shift in the journey now heading toward Jerusalem. Jesus and the disciples are “on the way,” when Jesus asks them (and us, the readers) “Who do you say that I am?”