Throughout my study of Mark, there appeared a recurring question that I wrote over and over again in my Bible.
“Why did Jesus want to remain hidden?”
In several places in Mark (and other parts of the Bible), when Jesus does something miraculous, usually healing, he (quite seriously) instructs others not to speak of it.
I find this very curious. The Messiah has come, but he doesn’t want anyone to know about it? He possesses miraculous power and is willing to exercise it, but he wants to keep it a secret? He is and has the answers to all problems we could ever have, but he wants it to remain concealed? And what is more, the generous, giving, and glorious Jesus gives these instructions for hiddenness in what feels like an uncharacteristically stern, severe, and startling demeanor.
“Because the demons knew who he was, he did not allow them to speak.” Mark 1:34
“Then Jesus sent him on his way with a stern warning: Don’t tell anyone about this.” Mark 1:43-44
“But Jesus sternly commanded the spirits not to reveal who he was.” Mark 3:12
It helps my meditation and prayer to write my questions down. It is a practice after 2 Kings 19:14, when King Hezekiah received a threatening and troublesome letter from his enemy Sennecherib. After he read it, the scripture tells us “he went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord.”
When I am troubled by something in the Bible (or anywhere), I am sure that it is my own limited understanding and worldview that prohibits me from grasping it more fully. Therefore in faith and trust, like Hezekiah, I spread it out before the Lord and ask him if there is more for him to show me.
As it turns out, and as you may have already remembered, the question that emerged for me is a well established topic among bible historians and scholars. It is referred to as the “Messianic Secret.” There is much research and theory around this if you are interested, though I will only explore a few ideas here.
But I am given pause to praise that we can come to the Word in personal, private, individual study and somehow excavate a concept widely known by those who have collectively come before to the same text.
Proof that the Word is alive and unchanging.
In his commentary, theologian William Lane offers that Jesus’ repeated “muzzling” of the demonic as they tried to identify him was both an order of how he desired to be revealed to the people, “Jesus wanted people to find out who he was but not from some ugly, defensive spirit” and also a demonstration of his overarching purpose to dispel darkness from our world, “to allow the defensive utterance of the demon to go un-rebuked would have been to compromise the purpose for which Jesus came into the world, to confront Satan and strip him of his power.”1
Muzzling demons from speaking of his miracles makes perfect sense. But what about when he instructs healed people not to say anything?
The scripture itself gives us another glimpse into the reason for this Messianic Secret. After Jesus heals a man of leprosy, he gives him explicit instruction not to tell anyone, except in a specific way, “Go to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.” (Mark 1:44)
Jesus is essentially granting this man both physical freedom and social propriety in his healing. The vanishing of his physical ailment is evident but the steps he must carry out from there would grant him credibility and re-establish his standing in society. Does this man follow these instructions?
Of course not.
And thereby becomes a case study in how easy it is for us to miss the full scope of what healing ministry actually is.
Jesus sees and offers at least two dimensions of healing. We ask for, stop at, and become blinded by the first one.
“As a result, large crowds soon surrounded Jesus, and he couldn’t publicly enter a town anywhere.” (Mark 1:45)
This verse communicates clamoring, mania, crazed members of society desperately wanting their own piece of this magical Jesus.
Jesus effectively becomes objectified.
Aren’t we good at that? Objectifying things? Possessing things? Consuming things? Taking what we need and forgetting the rest of the instruction? Acting on impulse, ignoring the potential long term consequences?
I read something recently about the Native American culture’s reverence for nature and animals. The symbols of animal faces in their masks and totems were more than artistic expression. They were homages to the wild that were the first inhabitants, to the land and ecosystems that Native Americans were now living with and sharing. As a culture, they valued, honored, and paid tribute to what they recognized as something mysterious and powerful, not to be conquered or possessed by anyone.
I don’t think I need to list any examples of how our modern culture has failed to exemplify the same attitude.
Jesus, knowing our nature, attempts to restore in a way that reveals his power but does not detract from the purpose for which he came. He knows, intimately, we will all have individual, little wishes for how we desire to be healed in this lifetime. But the bigger story is that the most important part of us, our eternal spirit, has been rescued and redeemed in the salvation of Christ.
By asking for concealment of his healing miracles, it is almost as if he saying to us, “Yes, I can do that…but it isn’t the point.”
Dutch priest Henri Nouwen writes, “The…temptation to which Jesus was exposed [in the wilderness] was precisely the temptation to do something spectacular, something that could win him great applause…But Jesus refused to be a stuntman. He did not come to prove himself. He did not come to walk on hot coals, swallow fire, or put his hand in the lion’s mouth to demonstrate that he had something worthwhile.”2
Something worthwhile.
What is the worthwhile thing that Jesus has apart from his miraculous ministries?
I think that this is a question that must be answered in our own hearts. For the intimate and special ways that Jesus sustains us through physical, mental, and emotional maladies even when they do not seem to retreat in his name, is unique and precious and seemingly hidden.
Could it be that our desires for healing, though valid, are elementary compared to the eternally worthwhile thing that Jesus is offering us? Could it be that healing is closer to idolatry things like money, fame, and fortune, that promise wholeness but can never truly satisfy?
Don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of people in my life I want to see healed in a variety of ways. I, myself, have circumstances and areas for which I pray daily for God to change and liberate. I have experienced loss and devastation that has caused me to question the very goodness of God.
But as my faith has grown, I am learning his goodness is independent of outcomes. That his will and his ways, though I cannot understand, are sovereign. I don’t think he means for us to stop asking. I think he only means for us to come, like Hezekiah, and in faith and trust, lay our troubles before him, spread them out in an offering for what we believe he can do, and then accepting what he does.
For me, I suppose, the willingness to keep doing that is the worthwhile thing. That I will continue coming to him, that my allegiance is to him, that I trust him above all things that I can see before me.
I hope you know I hold this idea tenderly. The aches in my own heart are deep and evidently in need of his touch. He has and he will heal and for that, I am grateful. But we must also speak to the grief stricken population that has experienced circumstances and loss that raise questions about why not?
And it is there that we must look for the next dimension. The worthwhile thing that will sustain us through whatever sufferings we must endure here in his worthy name.
What is the worthwhile thing that Jesus has apart from his miraculous ministries?
Lent is a particularly appropriate season to ponder this question. As we enter Holy Week together, I pray that you take some time in solitude to locate the worthwhile thing that Jesus offers you. The hidden, secret thing between you and Jesus that makes victorious Easter even more sweet.
William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (1975) pg 75.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (The Crossroads Publishing Co, Kindle Edition, 2015.) Loc. 323
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