Stepping into the pulpit after a three months’ absence feels a bit strange.  I want to assure it is a great joy to be back home here at All Souls’.

Once again I thank you for your prayers as we traveled, most especially in the drive to and from Nova Scotia.  Apart from my anxiety in driving for the first time in New York City, (and suburban in mid-Manhattan at that), the trip was without incident.  I look forward to telling you of our adventures, especially our time in Italy which is one of the most beautiful of countries. We saw such remarkable churches and works of art; we ate splendid meals including wild boar and little octopus; we had a brief run-in with the police in Orvieto; and with two other people we saw Pope Benedict the 16^th   just as he… - but you know really, I should be speaking to you about the Gospel.

The teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ are summarized in the four Gospels of the New Testament.  These teachings, His parables, the Sermon on the Mount, and all the rest are vital to our understanding of our Lord and vital as well to the way in which we understand ourselves, our actions and our motivations as Christians.  There are some who maintain that we should focus exclusively on the teachings of Jesus and not give much attention to His life, death, and resurrection.  The thinking is that we can all agree on our Lord’s teachings without having to enter into a debate about the mission and identity of Jesus.

Of course this approach is problematic for many reasons.  First of all, our Lord’s life, death, and resurrection are the perfect, incarnate expression of his teachings.  Our Lord did not merely give us notions about how to live; he gave us specific instructions and showed us in his life that living in such a way is possible.  There is with Jesus a perfect integrity of words and actions, principle and practice.  Secondly, those who say that they focus only on the teachings of Jesus are usually quite selective about which teachings they intend to heed and obey.  A good part of Jesus teaching is about what He had come to do.  He spoke of His death and resurrection.  He spoke of His coming to judge the living and the dead.  He spoke of His identity.  He spoke of His existence with the Father in eternity before the beginning of time.  Focusing exclusively on the teachings of Jesus and not on His life requires selecting certain teachings and ignoring others.  We choose what we like, what appeals to us.  We end up worshipping a Jesus whom we have transformed into our own image.  And you know, it is supposed to work the other way around.

The other thing we need to consider is the importance of our Lord’s identity.  It is not incidental to His story.  It is the story.  The Nicene Creed we recite at every service of Holy Communion is emphatic about this in the second paragraph.  Jesus is the Son of God, the only begotten of His Father, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father – God of God, light of light.  He is God incarnate – God in our flesh.  He is our brother, our kinsman-redeemer.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  He is our Savior and Lord whom we know by faith, personally.  His identity and purpose is both the plot and theme of the Gospel.  His identity is in fact the point of today’s Gospel reading.

As we learn in this passage, there were various theories floating around concerning who Jesus really was.  Some thought he was the re-incarnation of John the Baptist.  Others thought He was the return to earth of the great prophet Elijah.  Simon Peter recognizes Jesus for who He really is and he proclaims: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.”  This is a matter of faith.  It is a matter of revelation.  The origin of this knowledge is not flesh and blood; it is not of ourselves.  This was a spiritual knowledge spiritually given, or revealed.  Peter could not prove the identity of Jesus.  He believed it in faith.  We too must believe in faith.  And, Jesus declares that this faith in the identity and saving work of the Christ is the very bedrock upon which His church is built.  Without that certainty of faith underlying all of the church’s work and witness, it becomes, like in the parable, an edifice built upon the sand which has no endurance or lasting place.

            Jesus tells His disciples not to reveal His identity to the people until He has accomplished what He has come to do.  Our Lord’s identity and our Lord’s teachings are meant to be understood only in the light of what He came to do.  We understand Him only in light of His cross, His sacrificial death and resurrection.  The identity and purpose of our Lord Jesus is understood only in light of His incarnation, death, and resurrection.  And it is then in this light of faith that we understand His teachings.

            Just think about this.  Jesus is the Divine Son of God and the human son of man.  He is both God and man with a perfect divine nature and a perfect human nature.  The question as to whether God truly loves humanity was answered at Calvary and Bethlehem.  God’s love for us was proclaimed by Christ Jesus on His cross.  God’s love for us was proclaimed in the manger at Bethlehem where God unites our humanity with Himself in Christ Jesus our Lord.  God unites humanity with Himself – bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh in a spiritual marriage, and what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Our humanity is united forever with God in Christ.

            Each one of us is loved by God and each one of us is precious in His sight; and our absolute guarantee of this is Jesus Christ our Lord, both God and man.  And so to conclude from St. Paul’s sublime passage in his letter to the Romans about the majesty of God; “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory forever.  Amen.”