1

Title Page.

2

Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been ministering in Galilee,

which was relatively friendly to his healing, preaching, and teaching. But

now he begins to travel toward Jerusalem, the centre of his opposition and

where he would eventually be sentenced to die. He goes on to Caesarea

Philippi—originally named Paneas after the Greek God Pan. Then the city

was re-named Caesarea to honor Caesar Augustus. And then it was re-

named again to Caesarea Philippi because there was already another city

named Caesarea, so Philippi was added to honor the local ruler Philip who

was also the son of Herod the Great.

In the midst of this naming and re-naming of the city, Jesus asks his

disciples, who do people say that I am?

3

Earlier in the gospel of Mark—back in ch. 6 when Jesus was performing

miracles--the people were already speculating. Some said he was John the

Baptist raised from the dead after Herod had him killed—even King Herod

said, “John, whom I beheaded has been raised from the dead.” Others

thought Jesus was Elijah, a famous Old Testament prophet, raised from the

dead. Or maybe one of the other prophets. They were trying to make sense

of Jesus by comparing him to people from their past history. But Jesus was

not like anyone else. His disciples didn’t know the full story, because this

was still fairly early in Jesus’ ministry, and they didn’t know yet of Jesus’

death on the cross and how God would raise him from the dead. But the

disciples already knew that Jesus was not like anyone else.

4

Jesus was not satisfied by what people in general said about him. The word

“you” here is emphatic: who do YOU say that I am? Peter answered, you

are the Messiah, which is the Hebrew equivalent to the Greek word Christos

or the English word Christ. You are the Christ. In Hebrew or Greek it meant

the same thing—you are the “anointed one”, the long-awaited prophet-priest-

king that God had promised long ago, the One that everyone was waiting for.

It was a confession of faith—that Jesus was the One. In time, Peter and the

other disciples would understand more fully what that would mean—instead

of coming as a military man or a political ruler, this Messiah would bear the

sins of the world and bring salvation by suffering and dying and rising again.

5

At this point in the gospel of Mark, still near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry,

Peter didn’t yet know all of this, but in time, he too would add to his

understanding of Jesus—the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one, is the

Lord who suffered and died and was raised from the dead.

This confession of faith is a classic definition of what it means to be

Christian. You either confess Jesus as Lord or you don’t. You either believe

that God raised him from the dead or you don’t. We might diagram it like

this:

6

Confessing and believing puts X inside the circle. Not confessing and not

believing puts Y outside the circle. Inside the circle is Christian, outside the

circle is not. There is no grey area, no maybes, it’s inside or outside.

7

In the bounded set, everything inside is clearly marked off and separated

from everything outside. Everything inside belongs, and everything outside

does not belong. It’s like in some farming communities where farmers build

fences around their land to keep their own livestock in and their neighbours’

livestock out. That’s a bounded set. It clearly shows who’s in, who’s out, it’s

very neat and tidy and orderly.

But the bounded set also raises some troubling questions. Is real life really

all that neat and tidy? What about people who never get to hear about

Jesus? Are they out through no fault of their own? What about the person

who made a childhood commitment but is later indifferent or outright

hostile—do they go from inside to outside, and at what point does that

happen?

8

But what if we thought instead of a centred set? In this model, it’s not about

drawing a line or a circle to determine who’s in and who’s out. There’s no

boundary like that. Instead, there’s a centre—in this case marked with a

star—so instead of inside/outside, the key issue is how close or how far you

are from the centre. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch explain it this way in The

Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-century

Church. They write: “In some farming communities, the farmers might build

fences around their properties to keep their livestock in and the livestock of

neighboring farms out. This is a bounded set. But in rural communities

where farms or ranches cover an enormous geographic area, fencing the

property is out of the question. In our home of Australia, ranches…are so

vast that fences are superfluous. Under these conditions a farmer has to

sink a bore and create a well, a precious water supply in the Outback. It is

assumed that livestock, though they will stray, will never roam too far from

the well, lest they die. This is a centered set. . . . Rather than seeing people

as Xn or non-Xn, as in or out, we would see people by their degree of

distance from the center, Christ.”

9

That’s the centred set that Frost and Hirsch talk about—it’s not about who’s

in and who’s out, but those who were far off have been brought near.

10

This is the centred set: Jesus, the Messiah, the Lamb, the ruler on the

throne, the shepherd, is at the centre. Just as livestock in the Australian

Outback aren’t fenced in, but are drawn to a well of water, all of us can also

be drawn in by Jesus as the water of life—whether we already feel close to

Jesus or farther away, whether we’re very near the centre or some place that

we can’t even see the centre or imagine what it might be like.

11

There is still a place for making a decision of course: to accept Jesus as

Saviour and Lord is a defining, life-changing decision. It binds us as brother

and sister with all those who are part of the body of Christ. It separates us

from others who haven’t made the same commitment. Christian faith is a

kind of bounded set. But that’s not the only issue.

12

Christian faith is also a centred set, where it also matters how close we are

to the centre or how far, whether we’re moving toward the centre or moving

away from the centre, whether we’re facing toward the centre, or turning

away. In this example, person X might have made a commitment of faith,

but is starting to move away—maybe he’s preoccupied with making money

or hanging out with the wrong friends, maybe she’s making decisions to go

her own way instead of following the way of Jesus. It reminds me of the

song we sang today: “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the

Lord I love.” That’s person X in this example.

Person Y hasn’t yet made a deliberate decision for Christ—maybe she can’t

quite believe that Jesus really rose from the dead, maybe he’s turned off by

Christians who aren’t living the way they should, but still, Y seems to be

moving closer—he starts hanging out with friends who can help him when he

has questions, she starts reading the Bible even though she doesn’t

understand everything she reads.

For X and Y and for all of us, the issue is not only have we made a decision

for Jesus? That’s a critical, life-changing question. But we also need to ask,

are we moving toward Jesus as the centre, or are we moving away?

13

For this year, our overall worship theme will be “Jesus be the centre.” This

generated a lot of response and questions in our Worship Committee. What

does it mean for Jesus to be the centre of life? What if Jesus were the

centre of our entertainment choices—would we choose different tv shows or

movies to watch? What does it mean for Jesus to be the centre of our

marriage, the centre of our home life, the centre of our work or school life?

Why would or should that make a difference? However near we feel to

Jesus, however far away we might be, what would move us closer instead of

farther way?

Today I invite you also to respond. Just as Jesus asked his disciples, who

do you say that I am, I invite you to think about how do you respond to Jesus

as the centre?

14

Talk-About Time.