"and He Warned Them Not To Tell..."

[MissyP89]

All over the Gospels, we see Jesus doing miracles and then essentially saying not to tell anyone.

This weekend's Gospel is similar as Peter confesses Jesus is the Christ, and is told to keep it quiet.

Why does Jesus say this all the time? Was it for humility or some other reason? I've never understood it.

[CatherineM]

You're a woman. You know the quickest way to spread a story is to say it's a secret.

Seriously, I have never heard a good explanation either and hopefully someone else will come along who does know. I have always thought though that he didn't want people to think of him just as a miracle worker. There were lots of those then. I think he showed the miracles primarily for his Apostles so that they would truly begin to know who he was and from where his power came from. I also believe that he was full of compassion for those who he healed, and couldn't help himself.

[cappie]

The word Messiah ([i]Christos[/i] in Greek) simply means “anointed one” and is used in the Old Testament to refer to diverse figures such as Saul, David, and Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the Jews to return from Exile. After the kingdom of Judah fell in 586 BC and the Jews were sent into exile, there was a longing for the restoration of the temple and the political triumph of the Jewish people. The person to fulfil this hope was the “Messiah,” a political figure, a king anointed by God. But the story of the Jews from the exile onward is the story of living under a foreign power, sometimes benevolent and sometimes hostile. By the time of Jesus, the Jewish Messianic longings were reaching a breaking point.

When Peter says “You are the Messiah,” we ought to hear the longing in his voice of centuries of Jewish waiting for political vindication. Peter expects the Messiah to be a king, to conquer the Jews’ foe (this time, Rome) and to re-establish the Jewish kingdom where Jews, and YHWH, would reign. The last thing in the world he would expect is the martyr messiah that Jesus turns out to be. The Jews knew of the suffering servant motif that we read in Isaiah this week, but the suffering servant was something different than the Messiah. So Peter is understandably confused

When Jesus connected Messiahship with suffering and death, he was making statements that were to the disciples both incredible and incomprehensible. All their lives they had thought of the Messiah in terms of irresistible conquest, and they were now being presented with an idea which staggered them. That is why Peter so violently protested. To him the whole thing was impossible.

Why did Jesus so sternly rebuke Peter? Because he was putting into words the very temptations which were assailing Jesus. Jesus did not want to die. He knew that he had powers which he could use for conquest. At this moment he was refighting the battle of temptations in the wilderness. This was the devil tempting him again to fall down and worship him, to take his way instead of God’s way. It is a strange thing, and sometimes a terrible thing, that the tempter sometimes speaks to us in the voice of a well-meaning friend. We may have decided on a course which is the right course but which will inevitably bring trouble, loss, unpopularity, sacrifice. And some well-meaning friend tries with the best intentions in the world, to stop us.

The tempter can make no more terrible attack than in the voice of those who love us and who think they seek only our good. That is what happened to Jesus that day; that is why he answered so sternly. Not even the pleading voice of love must silence for us the imperious voice of God.