The question that unravels the circle and reveals us: “Who Is It, Lord?” Layers of a troubling inquiry.
By Rev. Prof. Paul Sciberras
S.Th.B.(Melit.), S.Th.L.(Melit.), SSL(PIB), S.Th.D.(Melit.)
A seemingly straightforward inquiry: “Who is it, Lord?” admits multiple layers of meaning. At the most literal level, it is a request for a specific identification: Peter, James, Bartholomew, Philip, or any other member of the circle. Probing beyond this surface, however, the question implicitly raises a more troubling possibility: Is it conceivable that one among us might be acting surreptitiously, even conspiratorially, against you? At a still deeper hermeneutical level, the question gestures toward an existential unawareness within the community: Might there be someone in our midst who does not, in truth, belong to us at all, and whose intentions are ultimately harmful, dangerously oblivious of being an enemy of Jesus?
The further challenge, of course, is to consider how we ourselves would respond were such a question directed to us.