Yesterday's Lost Post: Knock-knock

Today's Gospel reminded me in an odd way of the typical knock-knock joke. "Knock, Knock. Who's there?" It seems to resolve with the first answer: "Tennis." But that first answer is incomplete or even misleading. "Tennis Who?" "Tennessee!"

Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do people say I am?" And then, "what about you?" 

When we hear Peter answer for the disciples that Jesus is "the Christ of God," you would think the story would end there. But Jesus, in effect, tells them that they've only gotten half-way. "The Son of Man is going to be handed over and killed..."

Today people are rather free in giving their opinions about who Jesus is. Ancient holy man. Jewish peasant who didn't mean for any of this history-changing stuff to happen. Prophet. Myth. Bohddisatva, even. It's just as challenging now as it was 2,000 years ago to accept the folly of the cross, and to accept what being "the Christ" really means, because (as Peter intuited when he tried to talk that folly out of Jesus) it means accepting our own "share in the sufferings of Christ and the glory to be revealed" (1 Peter