What do they say?

 

Haiku for questioners

In Caesarea

he asked; What do they say; who

is the Son of Man?

Some say the Baptist,

Elijah, Jeremiah;

one of the prophets.

You, who follow me,

who do you say that I am?

Tell me what you think.

You must be the Christ,

Simon answered him; the Son

of the living God.

Who are you? We ask

still; leaning out for meaning,

reaching out for hope.

Who am I? We ask,

discovering our true selves

as we meet with him.

Keep it to yourselves

for now, this revelation.

It will cause trouble.

© Ken Rookes 2020

The big question

Haiku for disciples

It’s the big question:

Who do people say I am?

Have to think on that.

A prophet, for sure;

just like John the Baptiser,

even Elijah!

But what about you,

you who journey beside me

you who know me well?

Breaking the silence

Peter, fisherman, spoke up:

You must be the Christ!

Perhaps I am he,

but do not speak of these things;

they won’t understand.

He began to teach:

The Son of Man will suffer

and he will be killed.

Once more to Peter:

Please don’t talk like that, he said;

This cannot be true.

It is true for me,

and it will be true for you,

if you follow me.

To gain the whole world

is not the same as true life;

to gain, you must lose.

Be my followers.

Take up your cross, just like me,

and take on the world!

© Ken Rookes 2018

But who do you say that I am?

Haiku for answering

What do people say,

Jesus asked his followers;

Who’s the Son of Man?

Some say John the B,

Elijah, Jeremiah,

or other prophet.

Fair enough, he said.

But you mob, what do you say?

Tell me, who am I?

Simon Peter said,

You are the Christ, Messiah;

the living God’s Son.

Good answer, Peter!

This insight is not your own,

it’s from God above.

My good man, Rocky,

I’ll build my church upon you;

you’ll hold heaven’s keys.

What you bind on earth

will be so bound in heaven.

What you loose, as well.

And, by the way, guys,

that thing about Messiah;

keep it to yourselves.

© Ken Rookes 2017

Embodiment

Constantine was the first Christian Emperor and a significant change took place in the church when Constantine was converted. Before this, the Christian Church opposed of most of the Empire’s law and government. This is what Jesus modeled for us. This is what we read about in the gospel stories. Jesus criticized the elite, the self -righteous and the proud. He reminded all that they would be called to account for their behaviour and attitudes.

The word ‘Christ’ is the Greek word for ‘Messiah’ which means ‘the anointed one’ and the same word in Latin is ‘Lord’. There are three ways in which Christians see Christ. Through the centuries the most commonly used image has been that of Christ the King in both the Eastern and Western Churches. This has led to a very hierarchical structure to the Church and the building of huge, opulent places for worship requiring exploitation of poor people to complete them.

The second way of seeing Christ is as a man who was adopted by God as his son either at his baptism as Mark’s Gospel says or at his conception as Matthew and Luke have it.

The third way of seeing Jesus is to see him as part of the embodiment of the Eternal Christ in the way that the writer of the Gospel we call John did when he spoke of Jesus as the embodiment of the Word of God present at Creation and therefore eternal with God. Paul also saw Christ as the Word and Wisdom of God. [1Corinthians 1:24] He also saw each believer as part of the body of Christ so part of this Eternal Creator One. The more we learn about the complexity of creation and such things as its age and size, the more we can see how inappropriate the image of Christ seated on a throne is, how inconsistent it is with the call, as part of the body, to take care of all creatures and all creation.

So as we celebrate the reign of Christ this day, lets examine how we reflect this to the world today, how the world sees us, for the good news is that we have been called to be Christ like by following the example Jesus set for us.

Rev Julianne Parker

(for full sermon see sermon's page)

even with us ....

It was Jesus of Nazareth all right, the man they'd tramped many a dusty mile with, whose mother and brothers they knew, the one they'd seen as hungry, tired, footsore as the rest of them. But it was also the Messiah, the Christ, in his glory. It was the holiness of the man shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it they were almost blinded.
Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the gar-den, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, some-thing so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing.
Frederick Buechner, Transfiguration

Jesus of Nazareth