On Ash Wednesday, 4 March, during the general audience in the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father continued his reflections on the identity of Christ. He introduced his discourse with a few remarks about the season of Lent.

Today, Ash Wednesday, is a special day of the liturgical year, and therefore of our interior journey to the Kingdom of God. 

The period of Lent begins today, and it will conclude with Holy Week, which will lead us to Easter. This period is an invitation for us to live more deeply the mystery of Christ's Cross, so as to understand better and live the mystery of the Resurrection. In this new climate of spiritual fervour we continue our Wednesday reflections, focusing on the way that Christ fulfils the prophecies concerning the Messiah’s sufferings and death.

1. In the previous reflections we sought to indicate the more important aspects of the truth about the Messiah, such as it was foretold in the Old Covenant, and as it was inherited by the generation of Jesus of Nazareth's contemporaries who had entered a new stage of divinerevelation. Those of that generation who followed Jesus did so because they were convinced that the truth about the Messiah was fulfilled in him, that he was really the Messiah, the Christ. The words in which Andrew, the first of the Apostles called by Jesus, informs his brother Simon, "We have found the Messiah (which means Christ)'' (Jn 1:41), are significant.

It must, however, be recognized that such explicit observations are rather rare in the Gospels. This is due also to the fact that in the Jewish society of those times there was widespread an image of the Messiah to which Jesus did not wish to adapt his figure and his work, notwithstanding the amazement and admiration aroused by all that "he did and taught" (Acts 1:1). 

2. Indeed, we know that John the Baptist himself, who on the banks of the Jordan had indicated Jesus as "he who was to come" (cf. Jn 1:15, 30), having prophetically perceived in him "the Lamb of God" come to take away the sins of the world, John who had foretold the "new baptism" which Jesus would have conferred in the power of the Spirit, when he was in prison sent his disciples to ask him, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" (Mt 11:3).

3. Jesus does not leave John and his messengers without an answer: " Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them" (Lk 7:22). With this reply Jesus intends to confirm his messianic mission by referring in particular to the words of Isaiah (cf. Is 35:4-5: 61:1). And he concludes "Blessed is he who takes no offence at me" (Lk 7:23). These last words sound like a call, addressed directly to John, his heroic precursor, who had a different idea about the Messiah. 

In fact, in his preaching John delineated the figure of the Messiah as that of a severe judge. In this sense he had spoken of the "wrath to come", of the "axe already laid to the root of the trees" (cf. Lk 3:7-9), to cut down every tree "that does not bear good fruit" (Lk 3:9). Certainly Jesus would not hesitate— firmly and even with severity, when necessary—to deal with obstinacy and rebellion to the word of God, but he was above all the preacher of "good news to the poor", and by his works and miracles he revealed the saving will of God, the merciful Father. 

4. Jesus' answer to John presents also another element which is interesting to note: he avoids proclaiming himself openly as the Messiah. In the social context of the time that title was very ambiguous; the people generally interpreted it in a political sense. Jesus therefore prefers to refer to the witness offered by his works, desirous rather to persuade and to engender faith. 

5. However, there are not lacking in the Gospels particular cases, such as the conversation with the Samaritan woman, narrated in John's Gospel. To the woman who says to him, " I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ): when he comes, he will show us all things", Jesus replies, "I who speak to you am he" (Jn 4:25-26).

According to the context of the conversation, Jesus convinced the Samaritan woman whom he had perceived ready to listen, since she, on returning to the city, hastened to tell the people, "Come, see a man who told me all I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" (Jn 4:28-29). Moved by her words, many Samaritans went out to meet Jesus: they listened to him, and they in turn concluded, "This is indeed the Saviour of the world" (Jn 4:42). 

6. Among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, however, Jesus' words and miracles gave rise to questions about his messiahship. Some excluded that he could be the Messiah: "We know where this man comes from; but when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from" (Jn 7:27). But others said, "When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?" (Jn 7:31). "Can this be the Son of David?" (Mt 12:23). The Sanhedrin also intervened, decreeing that "if any one should confess him to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue" (Jn 9:22). 

7. We are thus in a position to understand the key significance of Jesus' conversation with the Apostles near Caesarea Philippi. "Jesus... asked his disciples, 'Who do men say that I am?' And they told him, 'John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others one of the prophets'. And he asked them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered him, 'You are the Christ' (Mk 8:27-29; cf. also Mt 16:13-16 and Lk 9:18-21), that is, the Messiah. 

8. According to Matthew's Gospel this reply provides Jesus with the occasion to announce Peter's primacy in the future Church (cf. Mt 16:18). According to Mark, after Peter's reply, Jesus charged the Apostles "to tell no one about him" (Mk 8:30). Thence we can deduce that Jesus not only did not proclaim that he was the Messiah, but he did not even wish the Apostles to spread the truth about his identity at that time. In fact, he wished that his contemporaries should arrive at this conviction by observing his works and hearing his teaching. On the other hand, the very fact that the Apostles were convinced of what Peter had expressed in the name of all of them, saying "You are the Christ", proves that Jesus' works and words were a sufficient basis on which faith in him as Messiah could be founded and developed.

The Master's rebuke

9. However, the following part of that conversation, which we read in the parallel texts of Mark and Matthew, is still more significant concerning Jesus' mind on his own messiahship (cf. Mk 8:31-33; Mt 15:21-23). Jesus, in fact, as if in close connection with the Apostles' profession of faith, "began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mk 8:31). The evangelist Mark observes that "Jesus said this plainly" (Mk 8:32). Mark says that "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him" (Mk 8:32). Matthew tells us that the rebuke was as follows: "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you" (Mt 16:22). And then the Master's reaction: Jesus "rebuked Peter and said, 'Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men'" (Mk 8:33; Mt 16:23). 

10. In this rebuke of the Master one can hear a distant echo of the temptation undergone by Jesus in the desert at the beginning of his messianic activity (cf. Lk 4:1-13), when Satan wished to dissuade him from fulfilling his Father's will to the very end. The Apostles, and Peter in particular, who, although they had professed their faith in Jesus' messianic mission: "You are the Christ", could not free themselves completely of a too human and earthly idea of the Messiah, by admitting the prospect of a Messiah who would suffer and undergo death. Again, at the moment of the ascension they would ask him ..." will you restore the kingdom of Israel?" (cf. Acts 1:6). 

11. Precisely when faced with this attitude Jesus reacts with great decision and severity. He knew that his messianic mission was that of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, as described by Isaiah, and especially that which the Prophet had said: "For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness... He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows... he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities" (Is 53:2-5). 

Jesus firmly defends this truth about the Messiah, resolved to fulfil it to the very end, because in it is expressed the Father's salvific will: "The righteous one, my servant, shall make many to be accounted righteous (Is 53:11). In this way he prepares himself and his friends for the event in which the "messianic mystery" wil1 find its complete fulfilment: the Pasch of his death and resurrection.