Context No. 2499 of 4322 · Mark
Context · Reflection
Mark 8:25-29: in context
25Then again he laid his hands on his eyes. He looked intently, and was restored, and saw everyone clearly. 26He sent him away to his house, saying, “Don’t enter into the village, nor tell anyone in the village.” 27Jesus went out, with his disciples, into the villages of Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” 28They told him, “John the Baptizer, and others say Elijah, but others, one of the prophets.” 29He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
Mark places two openings of the eyes side by side. First a blind man is healed in stages, seeing people like walking trees before a second touch makes everything clear. Then, on the road to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks his disciples the question the whole Gospel has been building toward. Not what the crowds say, John, Elijah, a prophet, but this: who do you say that I am? Peter answers, You are the Christ.
The two scenes belong together. Seeing Jesus clearly, like the blind man's sight, can come in stages; the disciples are still partway there, right about who he is and confused about what that means. But the question cannot be dodged or answered secondhand. Jesus does not ask what the polls report; he asks each of them directly. And there is no neutral answer available. Everyone who meets him eventually stands where the disciples stood on that road and has to say, for themselves, who they think he is.
Setting aside what everyone else says, what is my own answer to his direct question: who do I say that he is?