None of the above

Jesus and the Apostles were praying when He asked them, "Who do other people say that I am?" The Apostles said, "Some people say you're John the Baptist, or Elijah or another prophet." "But who do you think I am?" Jesus asked. Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the one sent by God."

If you have to take final exams at school, you might have a favorite and least-favorite type of question: Maybe you rock at writing essays, but you dread true-or-false questions.

Multiple-choice questions can also be painfully tricky - like the one in this week's Gospel (Luke 9:18-24).

Usually, when you're taking a multiple-choice test, you can rule out a couple of the choices right away. At least one choice is often a giveaway: You know the end product of photosynthesis is not Pepsi! But sometimes, it seems like the answer must be either "none of the above" or "all of the above," and all you can do is guess.

When Jesus asked the Apostles who people said He was, they had a whole multiple-choice list: Some people mistook Jesus for His cousin, John the Baptist, since John also taught about God; others thought Jesus was a prophet from the past, come back to life.

It's easy to see that some of the Apostles still didn't have a clue who Jesus really was, since they didn't add, "But we know you're the Son of God." If the question were in a multiple-choice test, they would have gotten a low grade!

Peter, though, got the answer right. When Jesus asked who the Apostles thought He was, Peter immediately said, "You're the Messiah." (That means the one sent by God to save the world.) Jesus' identity was a "none of the above" answer, because it took a lot of studying and faith to really understand who He was!