XXI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Professing Jesus Christ

Readings: Is 22:19–23; Rom 11:33–36; Mt 16:13–20

The First Reading (Isaiah 22:19–23) tells us that Shebna, the steward of Hezekiah (716–687 BC), was replaced by Eliakim because of his thirst for power. The opening and closing of the doors of the “house of the king” (Isaiah 22:22) were prerogatives of the Egyptian grand vizier, whose equivalent in Israel was the royal steward. The Book of Revelation (Revelation 3:7) quotes this passage and applies it to the Messiah, as does the liturgy of Vespers on December 20: “O Key of David and sceptre of the house of Israel!”

The Gospel (Matthew 16:13–20) reminds us that our faith is Christ-centred: only by confessing Christ can we be saved. “For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved” (Romans 10:10); “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partners in a heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession” (Hebrews 3:1); “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realise that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, of course, you fail the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

We must boldly proclaim the Lordship of Jesus, as Peter did (Matthew 16:16), affirming that it is only in Christ that we have redemption: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

This is especially important in an age marked by New Age ideas, in which many regard Jesus as merely one among many prophets of God—a kind of “Jesus-centred spirituality”—rather than as the one and only Saviour, the Son of God, as Christianity truly proclaims. It is also significant at a time when, according to a recent survey examining whom Italians address in prayer, only 35.5% pray to God, while 14.4% invoke only the Virgin Mary, 12.5% Saint Anthony, and Jesus, at 9.5%, is almost on a par with Saint Rita and Padre Pio.

This “confusion” is precisely the work of what Scripture calls the “antichrist”: “This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:2–3, 15). “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. Such a person is the deceiver and the antichrist!” (2 John 1:7). “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23); “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32; cf. Luke 12:8; Revelation 3:5).

The believer proclaims the Lordship of Christ at Baptism: “Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12; cf. Acts 8:37). Yet the profession of faith is also a daily act: “Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess!” (Hebrews 4:14).

Nor is a verbal declaration enough. What is required is the hypotagē homologias—obedience to the profession of faith (2 Corinthians 9:6–13)—made visible through a life of love and service. For “if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2, 13), and “faith without works is dead” (James 2:14–26). Jesus himself reminds us: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

The Church, which Jesus builds upon Peter (Matthew 16:18–19), is called to be the primary sacrament—that is, a visible and concrete sign—of Christ.

“The Church is nothing other than the fruit of the mission of the Son in the Holy Spirit. It is the space surrounding the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ: the space in which the Father is proclaimed, and in which, through the lives of believers and through the sacraments, it is revealed that the living God is the Father of Jesus Christ, the Lord.” (E. Bianchi)