Throughout the Gospel of Mark there is a motif of secrecy. Jesus tells his disciples not to reveal to others that he is the Messiah. The demons cry out that he is the Son of God and he tells them to be quiet. When he heals a person, he warns them not to tell anyone what he has done. In 1901, the scholar William Wrede identified this motif as the Messianic Secret. There is no reason for me to go into detail as to what Wrede made of this, especially since his theory as to why Jesus did this has been debunked, but I mention it because it is a consistent theme throughout the Gospel and has been discussed ever since Wrede. Why does Jesus do this? Why does he not want everyone to know what he is doing? Perhaps he doesn’t want his ministry to be interrupted, since he knows that the end is the cross and resurrection. You can certainly understand why he doesn’t need recommendations from demons. But what would be wrong of those he heals telling others about it?

Could it be that Jesus simply wants to minister to people and has no interest in making a name for himself? We see an example of this in today’s Gospel. A man is brought to Jesus who needs to be healed and they want Jesus to lay his hand on him. What an opportunity for Jesus to wow the crowd. He could get everyone’s attention, wave his hands in the air, say some loud, dynamic prayer, and then lay his hands on the man. That would have made quite an impression. Instead, “he took him off by himself away from the crowd.” I cannot imagine that the man cared where Jesus healed him – in the midst of the crowd or off by himself. But Jesus cared. This reminds me of the story of Naaman who went to Elisha to be healed of leprosy. Elisha didn’t even go out of the house but sent a message to Naaman to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times. Naaman was upset about this for several reasons but one of them was that this was not the dramatic healing he thought he would receive. Naaman left angry saying, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand there to call on the name of the Lord his God, and would move his hand over the place, and thus cure the leprous spot” (2 Kings 5:11). An important man like Naaman needed an impressive healing that didn’t include immersing himself seven times in a dirty river.

Some have suggested that Jesus was playing a psychological game with everyone. The text says, “He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.” According to this view, he only told them not to tell anyone so that they would tell everyone. “This is our secret, don’t tell anyone,” he is saying, knowing full well that the secret would eat away at the people and they just had to let the proverbial cat out of the bag, which is really what he wanted all along.

In the very first chapter of Mark, I believe we get a hint as to why Jesus does this. Jesus ministers in Capernaum. It says that the whole town was gathered at the door. He cured the sick and cast out demons. Early in the morning he went outside of town to pray. Simon and the others went looking for him and, on finding him, said, “Everyone is looking for you” (Mk. 1:37). You have this city in the palm of your hands. You can make a name for yourself. Jesus’ response? Let’s get out of here. My purpose, my desire, is to reach out to the people, not to hit it big. “For this purpose have I come” (v. 38).

The time has come for Jesus to be proclaimed to the nations. However, that is our ministry. It simply was not what Jesus was about.