OT XXIV [B]Is 50:5-9a; Jas 2:14-18; Mk 8:27-35

Every photographer knows the importance of having the camera lens in focus before triggering the shutter. You can set the right shutter speed. You can open the lens to its proper setting. But if that lens is not in focus, the picture will be worthless.

Anyone who's trying to sell something these days knows the importance of having an accurate focus on the market for which a product is intended. Whether you're trying to sell soap or soft drinks, it's necessary to know exactly which people will most likely purchase your product. On what age group or sector of the public do you focus your advertising?

So Jesus realized that if people were going to follow him, and if his followers were going to be truly effective Christians in the world, they needed to know exactly who he was. They also needed to know precisely what was involved in being a Christian. If his disciples did not know who he really was, then his entire ministry, suffering and death would be useless.

That's probably one reason why he asked this simple, but all-important question in the gospel reading. "Tell me," he says, "who do people say I am?"

When the people identified Jesus with Elijah and Jeremiah they were paying him a great compliment and setting him in a high place. Then came the most important question, "Who do you say I am?" With this question Jesus reminds us that our knowledge of Jesus must never be at second hand. Christianity never consists in knowing about Jesus; it always consists in knowing Jesus. Jesus demands a personal verdict from every Christian.

"Who do you say I am?" When this question was addressed to Peter, his answer was, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." His answer was correct. Jesus complimented him for his right answer. But then the way he reacted to Jesus’ next statement that the Son of man should suffer and die, shows that Peter really didn’t know the exact implications of his answer. It is something like you ask your kid to solve a math problem from his Math book. And after some time he comes up with the right answer. And you ask him how did he get this answer? And you find out that he didn’t know because  he cheated the answer from the back of the text book. Father revealed him the answer. But Peter had to find out the way to get there himself, by gradually living with Jesus and observing him personally.

For the last 20 centuries this question has been repeatedly addressed to a number of Christians; and their lives depended on the answer they found for this question. During the first three centuries, the Church boasts about eleven million martyrs who fertilized the tree of faith with their blood. They found the right answer looking at the life of Jesus and those others martyred before them.  

The four Gospels are filled with demands straight from the mouth of Jesus Christ. These demands are Jesus' way of showing us who he is and what he expects of us. Jesus never sugarcoats his call to discipleship; to be his faithful friend will involve sharing in his cross, there is no way around it. But crosses, when borne together with Christ, always lead to resurrections.

How many advertisements do we think most of us see or listen to every day? Probably at least 14,15. And what is the message behind almost all of those advertisements? In some form or another, each one of them is telling us that we can have more happiness if we have less inconvenience, which this particular product or service can provide for us. And most of the propaganda mega churches will never tell you that there is a cross in Christianity. They gulp down the most important message of the Gospel: the cross. In other words, our consumer culture is convinced that lasting joy comes with diminishing crosses.

But God has showed us that true lasting joy, Christian joy, includes the cross. If we follow him on the path of self-denial, "losing" our self-centered lives in order to be faithful to him and his Kingdom, we will "find" true life, life in communion with God.

As we continue with this holy Mass, in which Jesus will unite our crosses to his, let's thank him for giving meaning to our sufferings, and promise to help spread that meaning to others.