This question of who Jesus is seems to grow legs in each generation…and it can grow legs in different moments of our lives.  There is a healthy dimension to this question’s recurring.  It challenges us as believers to ask:  “Upon what basis do I claim that Jesus is my Messiah?”

Matthew offers us the basis to which believers continually return.  Jesus answers John’s question by telling John’s disciples stories.  He tells them about times when the blind received their sight, the lame walked, lepers were cleansed, the deaf could hear, the dead were raised to life, and the poor had good news brought to them.  The implication is that the Messiah is one who brings healing and renewing love to the afflicted and lost - and that is exactly what Jesus has been doing! 

It is through stories – Bible stories, other peoples’ stories, and especially our own stories that we come to know Jesus as the/our Messiah. 

Florence Wuellner tells this story in her book Forgiveness, The Passionate Journey A friend tells her: “I felt drowned. I had made a mess of my own life.  I had let everybody down.  I had made every mistake in the book.  I felt my life was ruined, and the despair was cold and horrible.  Then I saw him.  He was standing at the end of the room between me and the window, wearing a brown robe with a rope tied around his waist, and thong sandals on his feet. I couldn’t see his actual features, but the love, and above all, the warmth that flowed from him was beyond anything I had ever imagined possible.  Everything changed for me that moment.”

This story is neither proof nor prototype; for the ways Jesus appears as the Christ (Savior) are both varied and always steeped in divine mystery. 

Jesus may come to us:
…when we experience a deeply needed Love that no human being can offer us.
…when we become vulnerable to a deep inner loneliness and are met with Divine Companionship.
…when we realize that we have no way of fixing a recurring life-destroying flaw…and experience Divine Forgiveness.
…when Healing Love reaches and calms an affliction beyond the reach of human touch.
…when we are caught in the dark place of death and find a Resurrecting Love. 

It is this Love, first told in Scripture stories about Jesus, then told by others, and now alive in us that gives us a sound basis to say:  “Jesus is the Christ!”

Prayer: Christ, continue to nurture our faith through Scripture stories, stories told by others, and those holy, life-defining moments when we meet your love in our hearts.  Amen.