A Question of Allegiances
“And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” “And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:27-29)
Writing today on my sixteenth anniversary, I write with an awareness about the gravity of questions. A simple question can forever alter the trajectory of one’s life. As a minister of the gospel, I have repeated those familiar wedding questions on numerous occasions, and the simple answer of which they demand reverberate through every corridor and closet of our lives. “I do” requires new loyalties, new routines, new bank accounts, new obligations, and new promises. The only words which form more drastic change are the words spoken at the creation of the world and the words of our passage.
When Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”, He is not playing Jeopardy, nor does He propose pop quizzes for fun. The question is not one of fact, but faith. Jesus seeks not accuracy, but allegiance. All truth – from matters of faith to the fundamentals of algebra – all truth requires a response. How many times have we failed to act upon a stated fact and heard, “Don’t you know any better?” The response does not chide us for our stupidity, but for our failure to face the facts. As Jesus prepares to teach His disciples about the suffering of faith, He must secure their firm foundation of faith. He cannot speak of affliction before He first speaks of allegiance.
In the South where Vacation Bible School is as ubiquitous as sweet tea, a great deal of people know who Jesus is. They can state the fact, answer the question, pass the quiz. If heaven was a IQ test and a round of Bible Jeopardy, Southerners would outnumber all others in heaven. However, such is not the case. Heaven is not a place of facts; heaven is a place of faith. Instead of the right answer, what about the right allegiance? Does the simple confession of Jesus Christ reverberate through every corridor and closet of our lives? From our speech to our spending, from our rejoicing to our weeping, from the most mundane task imaginable to the very extremity of our faith, does our allegiance to Jesus Christ make a difference? This is the question of eternal importance.
