who do you say i am?

How do you see yourself? How do you see other people?

Last week a guy I play hockey with asked me if I had seen the movie Raising Helen. He wanted to know because he said I remind him of Dan, the Luthern Minister in the film. So last night I watched it. It’s a peculiar thing to have someone place you so specifically, yet in some ways its like having a mirror held up to you, and you see a reflection – an image of yourself – that you might not have seen otherwise. In many respects it helps me to become more self aware.Jesus asks a perplexing question about identity in this weeks reading. After asking his mates what they think other people believe about him, he asks them directly ‘who do you say that I am?’

Why is this significant? The significance I suppose comes because at the heart of Christianity is a wondering about who this Jesus actually is. It’s a pondering on the life and significance of one person, but a person who is believed to be significant in both our understanding of who we are as humans and who God is. In grappling with the question of who Jesus is we attempt to become more aware of what it means to be human, and what it means to be in relationship with ‘the other’ – God.

A humbling thought really!