Whenever I get peace to watch TV by myself, I tend to flick channels all the time. It’s only when I’m watching something with someone else that I am disciplined to stick to the same channel.

Anyway, not long ago, as I was ‘flicking’ away, I came across a programme about the sinking of the Titanic – ‘the real story’, as it were. You may have seen it! On the night of Sunday 14^th April, 1912, RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and two hours and forty minutes later, early on 15^th April, 1912; the “unsinkable” master of nautical engineering sank. 1,517 people lost their lives. The programme went into all the details of that night, as best they could. It seemed there was a catalogue of disasters from the change of course, to the first sighting of an iceberg, to ignored telegraphic messages, to lack of lifeboats and the list went on.

Through film and genuine research, there has grown a fascination for the Titanic. Only in recent times has Belfast come to recognise and indeed publicly remember that the marvellous ship was built only a few miles from where we sit at present.

Above everything else, the programme asked how could such a mighty ship be decimated by something like an iceberg.

I came across a little article recently which was written a long time before this programme was aired, and it spoke of this worst peacetime maritime disaster of all time. Extraordinarily, the article came up with the same conclusion as the programme; or, at least one of them!

Lying some two and half miles below the surface, cameras, sound waves and all sorts of other modern equipment have discovered that the damage to the hull of the Titanic was surprisingly small. Instead of a huge gash, they discovered six relatively narrow slits across six watertight holds.

A salvage team recovered several of the rivets which secured the damaged hull. On analysis, they discovered that the rivets were made of a low-grade steel. Had all the rivets been of the same high standard throughout the entire ship, they, perhaps, would never had snapped and caused such an awful tragedy. The question was asked by the programme and the article I read, had these rivets held, the ship may have survived the impact with the iceberg... just a few small rivets caused such catastrophic damage!

When Jesus was with his disciples and asked the kind of questions he asked, Jesus was in Caesarea Philippi! It is without doubt the same story that is told in Matthew 16. Surrounded, as he was by representations of all sorts of false gods and deities, as we are today, he asks age old questions, ‘Who do people say that I am?’; ‘Who do you say that I am?’ It’s all about who Jesus really is, his real identity, and he needed to know had any of them grasped the significance of all that had gone before – he was heading for Jerusalem and the cross; he needed to know!

The right answer would make all the difference. And it was Peter who was the one who answered you are

‘The Christ of God’.

It’s an astonishing ‘confession’ and it is one of the most crucial moments in the ministry of Jesus; a few words which made all the difference.

It’s not about what others say, it’s what you think! What do you think? Jesus is always a personal discovery.

This may have been a specific and hugely significant moment in the life of our Lord, but it’s a question that is asked of us almost every moment we open our mouths to speak. In our small ways, in what we do and in what we say, are we denying him, or are we affirming Him to be the Christ our Lord?

You see, it was a huge moment that is recorded in our Gospel reading, but it is in the small things that we say and do that we affirm or deny the living Christ. He is judged, not by the big event; he is judged by what his followers say and think of him; the small things play such an important part, and the wrong word or the wrong action can cause immense damage.

Jesus is a personal discovery, and we must live by him, or else we can often deny him by the little things we do and the little things say.