Who

More than a decade before 9/11, I went to Wall Street, in the south side of Manhattan, to visit a classmate who worked in one of those high-rise financial firms. Dressed in t-shirt and jeans and sneakers, I came to the reception desk and was immediately asked who it was I was bringing a package for. Had I had been younger and thus more insecure then, I would have felt insulted to have been mistaken for the delivery guy. I wasn’t even carrying a package.

Once too, I am told, a certain Jesuit president (not Fr Ben Nebres and not Fr Bernas) was miffed when he spotted a tricycle driver peeing on one of the trees of the Ateneo de Manila campus. Accosting the driver (apparently in the middle of the minor delivery operation), he asked, “kilala mo ba kung sino ako?!” Nonchalantly, the driver looked at him, “hindi po, at wala po akong pakialam.”

In the Gospel today, we see Jesus in an intimate moment with his disciples. It must have been intimate and personal because he was in the middle of praying. And as it is many times in prayer, deep questions of identity come to the surface. He asks them, sino ako sa kanila? They fumble for an answer: John the Baptist? Elijah? One of the ancient prophets?

Then, as it is many times in matters of the heart, the direction of the question changes and the tone shifts to solemn and vulnerable: kayo, sino ako sa inyo?

Yes, they think I’m the delivery guy, maybe even the president, but you, “who do you say that I am?”

This time, it is Peter who appears to be quick and bright and who fills in the blanks: You are “the Christ of God.” You are the anointed one, the Messiah we have been longing for, at last the one who is to come and save us from our sins.

Perhaps that kind of a bold profession no longer has the power to astonish, but it must have been startling to the Lord who knew all too well how slow and blind we are to catch the things that truly matter. In sorrow and even in glory, the Christ of God is not readily recognized. Disfigured and scourged, he is condemned as a delusional rabble rouser. Transfigured and risen, he is mistaken for the gardener.

Ikaw, sa tingin mo, sino ako? It is more than a functional question. That is, it is more than an asking about roles and benefits and deliverables. Rather, it is the kind of question lovers ask of each other. It is what lover asks of the beloved over the years, until they are free enough to surrender and see how love goes farther than mere function and utility.

We come to know who the Christ is not from what we can receive. Just as we can never really know who our beloved is from the standpoint of our need. 

When Jesus asks this question of identity, we believe the answer lies somewhere beyond our expectation of package delivery or of presidential control over our lives. He is more than the delivery guy or chief executive officer. When Jesus asks who we say he is, it is as a lover asking his beloved. When Jesus asks us for our sense of who he is, it is from heart to heart, as a lover who chooses to surrender power and as the Christ of God who decides to deliver himself freely into our hands:

“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

We are told yet again in the first reading today that the grief that follows the mortal wounding of the anointed One will be unspeakable, as when the people at Hadad-rimmon in Megiddo sorrowed over their king (Josiah) who was killed in battle.

“They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as one grieves over a firstborn.”

Ultimately, this is who we say the Christ of God is: the One we have pierced, an only son, the firstborn we rejoice and grieve over, the One who stays with us in death and defeat, and who on the third day is raised to life to be our very life.

Ikaw, sa tingin mo, sino ako? It is a question that invites contemplation, wonder, and gratitude. We may mistake him for the gardener, but Elizabeth Barrett Browning reminds us:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

But only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. 

Pray to know when you stand on holy ground. Pray to see who the Christ of God truly is.

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Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin SJ is President of Xavier University, Ateneo de Cagayan. For feedback on this column, e-mail [email protected]