In the very center of his Gospel, the writer of Mark paints a scene in which Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is. Then he asks the same question of them: “Who do you say that I am?” The New Testa-ment reflects many answers to this question in the early church. How do you answer? Who is Jesus to you? That is the question we will ex-plore this year during our traditional Lenten study series, commencing with our annual Lenten dinner on Wednesday, February 24, at 6:30 p.m. in the theatre.

In Mark 8:27, Jesus puts the question to his disciples as they are “on the way” to Caesarea Philippi, a city in northern Galilee named after Cae-sar Augustus by its builder, Herod Philip (one of the sons of Herod the Great) who ruled from 4 b.c.e. to 34 c.e. Jesus and his band have just left Bethsaida, Philip‟s capital city, where Jesus restored the sight of a blind man. Obviously Jesus‟ actions and the places they occur have so-cial and political overtones for Mark and his reading audience. The question Jesus asks is a highly charged one.

What does Jesus mean to you in the context of our world? Some of us might respond using one of the many titles by which Jesus is called in the early Christian community: Son of God, Lord, Savior, Prophet, Messiah. What did these titles mean in the historical context in which Jesus lived, and what meaning do they have today? Others of us might name characteristics of Jesus‟ actions: he is forgiving, compassionate, revolutionary, counter cultural, nonviolent. We will explore some of these answers, in the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

At the conclusion of his groundbreaking study, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the great New Testament scholar Albert Schweitzer penned these words: “He comes to us… as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those… who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: „Follow thou me!‟ and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.” As we anticipate the season of Lent, let us look forward to sharing with one another what we have discovered of Jesus through our own experiences of who he is.