We may read this Gospel as one more clash in a series of conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees, one more invitation on his part which becomes a rejection on theirs, but that is an area for theologians to consider.  What is important is where I fit into this exchange, what this passage has to say about my own life.

I must ask, very simply, "who do I say that Jesus is?"  Is he only a marvelous human, even if he is very Godly in every way?  Or is he actually divine in the fullest sense of the word and someone I must meet and deal with on that level?  In this story Jesus does not, indeed can not, answer the Pharisees because they are unwilling to come to grips with that question.

And until I myself decide that Jesus is God, that he is present to me in the most personal way, he can not converse with me as he is or as he wants to be:  if we accept him only as a wise man, he cannot be our Lord and our God, our salvation and our hope, just another pretty ethical face in a long line of leaders who were, in the end, not the One that we are looking for.