In St. Mark’s gospel Jesus is portrayed as having a large following. The crowds seem to pursue him not because of his message but because they think they will get something out of it — healing, wholeness, health. Even his disciples are somewhat clueless about the identity of Jesus. The demons know who he is: whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” The centurion at the crucifixion confesses: “truly this man was the Son of God.” The most the disciples can muster in recognizing Jesus is Peter saying “You are the Messiah.” We should be consoled that in our own unsureness we are similar to those first disciple — fidelity, not certainty matters to Jesus.