Simon speaks
He brings us to a pagan place, Caesarea Philippi, and we are tested. It is a place of wild and chilling beauty, haunted by the strange gods and elementals who had inhabited the land forever, horrors who knew the battle was lost, was always lost, but lingered on the mountainside, ready to lead my people away. My people have wandered astray in the past, praying before a gilded calf, forgetting the Lord, forgetting our own children. Now we are tested as our Rabbi gathers us around him.
‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’
We have discussed this before and we tell him that people suggest that he is John the Baptist, or a new Elijah, Jeremiah or some other prophet. He presses us further.
‘But you, who do you say I am’
In another place, in the life I used to live, three years ago, before I saw him and touched him and heard him, before he showed us his Father, our Father; I did not know who he was. Now though, after all this time, I do know. A wind stirs the air around us.
‘You will forget him,’ comes the echo from the great rock and the gated mouth of the Hades cave and also says, ‘Be afraid.’
I am not afraid now. Comforting words come to rest in my mind:
‘From all my terrors the Lord set me free.’ A dove flies up into the air.
And then it is my own voice I hear, above the sound of running water, echoing the voice of the day of creation, a word, issuing from the Beginning:
‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’
Everyone is still now, hushed as people in a holy place, and united in our focus on the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I recite in my mind: ‘Glorify the LORD with me, let us together extol his name’. I catch sight of John’s face and one tear rolls down his face and drops to his breast. Each one of us holds the words in our minds and repeats them in our hearts.
Jesus speaks
‘So I now say to you: Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!’
‘Yes, Lord,’ I’m thinking: ‘taste and see how good the LORD is; blessed the man who takes refuge in him.’
He continues:
‘For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.’
While I’m singing silently: ‘The Lord is among us, Son of the Father, and we stand before the Glory. Praise him, my soul and my brothers. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’
And my Lord says
‘And I tell you, you are Peter (Petros) and on this rock (Petra) I will build my church,
and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.’
I am Peter. I have spoken the truth of who Jesus is. Whatever comes, I know who I am for Him.
[Readings: Acts 3:1-10; Ps 19:2-3, 4-5; Gal 1:11-20; Jn 21:15-19]
