Lk.9:18-20 – And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?” They answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”
Apparently the miracle of the multiplication of the fish and bread accelerated everything. The crowds had come to a conclusion, Jesus was the prophet Moses had said would come. The problem with all of this was the preconceived idea of what this Messiah-King would be like was causing quite a problem. The people wanted a warrior that would rid their world of the Romans, that is not what Jesus had come to do. The first moment Jesus got to be alone with His twelve disciples He began to question them about who they thought He was. Peter confessed that Jesus was “The Christ of God” but no one was quite sure what that meant. Here is what one of the early church fathers, Cyril of Alexandria, said about this.
“It came to pass that he was alone, praying. His disciples were with him. He asked them, “Whom do the multitudes say that I am?” Now the first thing we have to examine is what it was which led our Lord Jesus Christ to propose to the holy apostles this question or inquiry. No word or deed of his is either at an unseasonable time or without a fitting reason. Rather, he does all things wisely and in their season. What, therefore, do we say, or what suitable explanation do we find for his present acts? He had fed a vast multitude of five thousand men in the desert. How did he feed them? With five loaves! Breaking two small fish into morsels with them! These so multiplied out of nothing that twelve baskets of fragments even were taken up. The blessed disciples, therefore, were astonished….and saw by what had been wrought, that he is in truth God and the Son of God.”
All sorts of things were flooding the disciples mind; multiplying fish and bread, walking on water, shutting down storms, being transported across the lake and the the talk about the cross and eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood. This was just a little too much to take in. But this question was everything, who exactly is Jesus? This is the question all of us have to grapple with today. The answer has eternal consequences, the right answer only comes by revelation from the Lord. Peter got it, Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. The disciples were beginning to see that their belief and expectation of the Messiah was all wrong. They wanted someone to sort out all of their earthly problems, Jesus was much more than that. To know Him was to experience life itself.
