You never stayed in one place when you followed Jesus. This time it was two days walk from the Galilee to Caesarea Phillipi. There were the ones he called, and others of us who walked with him. Those of us on the fringe, as it were, changed over time. It is with a smile now that I recall we became called followers of the Way. We seemed to go wherever he went. it was an odd place to come to, to an area named after the emperor by one the Herod family.

It was during that time that Jesus called his circle to him, and asked the following question, who people say that the son of man is. I think when he said son of man, he was referring to himself as a human being. Others amongst us thought he was referring to himself as a heavenly figure. That made sense from some of our holy writings. Sometimes you were never sure with what Jesus was saying. Indeed, I needed to have the parable of the Sower explained to me several times. Anyway, lots of people were saying lots of things about the man from Nazareth. John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.

All three of them were popular descriptions for several reasons. The Baptist and my rabbi were cousins and therefore had a lot in common. Elijah is sometimes thought to be the one who would come to herald the Messiah. those listening to Jesus were convinced he was a prophet: an uncomfortable truth teller who pointed us back to God. It would be worth saying that not all our leaders would have agreed with popular sentiment.

Then Jesus dropped his voice and asked, what about you: who do you say I am. I think there was silence for quite a while before the reply came. You are the Messiah, the son of the living God. There was silence for what seemed longer then. All of us probably had our own understanding of what Messiah was meant to be: conqueror, king, wiseman, priest, prophet, teacher enter our minds and disappear. Not many of us would have used the term son of God, although in our psalms the king of Israel is described as such.

It was our rabbi who broke the silence. You are blessed because God has revealed this to you. He said this to Simon to whom he gave a new name, ‘Rock’ (Peter). I was then lost with what he said next, not because I did not understand it, although in fairness I did not completely; keys and binding and such like. I was lost in the fact that the one we had yearned and prayed for was stood in front of us. He was not like we imagined. That made sense really. In my experience of these things, God is not like we imagine, certainly not how I do. Here he was, smiling at us as we were keeping up with what had just happened.

Then he said: do not tell anyone who I am. I think that was to give us time to breathe.