“…and he would not permit the demons to
speak, because they knew him.” (Mark
1:34)
My old synodical bishop was a very clever
fellow. He used to caution me about giving out too much personal information. He
figured there were probably a lot of things the average parishioner just didn’t
need to know. “There are nineteen interpretations for everything you say,” he’d
tell me, “and eighteen of them are wrong.”
Sometimes it’s just a good idea to keep stuff
to yourself. I think that explains the “Messianic Secret” which gets introduced
in the gospel lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary for Epiphany 5, Year B
(Mark 1:29-39). Jesus, if you’ll recall from last week, has just performed a
miraculous healing of a man possessed by an unclean spirit in the local
synagogue. People get really excited about this and start talking it up. When
Jesus leaves the synagogue and enters the home of his friends Simon and Andrew,
he finds Simon’s mother-in-law down sick with a fever. I guess since there’s no
other woman there to do the cooking in this male-dominated society, Jesus heals
the old gal, and she immediately gets up and starts serving the guys.
(You’d think he’d let her rest a bit, but
maybe, being a Jewish mother, she couldn’t rest when there was food to be
cooked!)
Suddenly Jesus finds himself to be quite
famous. He doesn’t even get a chance to finish dinner before the whole town
starts trotting out the sick and demonically possessed hoping he’ll heal them—which,
of course, he does. However, he won’t let the demons speak to him. He knows
they know who he really is, and he’d rather keep that tidbit of information to himself
just at the moment.
Why? I’m guessing it’s because the folks
just wouldn’t understand. The demon in the synagogue dimed Jesus out as “the
Holy One of God” (verse.24). That wasn’t something Jesus wanted shouted, because
he might’ve figured that the local folks would think he was going to be some
kind of Davidic king who would free them from their oppressors and give them
everything they think they wanted. But that’s not what this messiah came to do.
The next day Jesus goes out to pray by
himself. He’s had enough of the crowds cheering his celebrity. He needs a few
minutes to connect with God, but the disciples run and find him and tell him
that everyone is looking for him. His response is to move on to the neighboring
towns and proclaim the kingdom of God. He doesn’t want to stay in Capernaum and
take a curtain call. Fame isn’t what he’s after. It also seems to me that he’s
not that interested in the individual acts of healing, either.
Jesus says that his mission is to proclaim
the message. He might be able to do this through healing and casting out
unclean spirits, but such spectacular shows of divine power may have only a
minimal effect. Yes, the sick were made well, but they would eventually die
some other day. What would their lives be like in the interval between their
healing and their death? Would they know the kingdom of God was with them, and
would they be able to praise God in all their circumstances and see God’s
presence in those around them?
A physical cure is only temporary, but the
knowledge of God is a permanent lifestyle. We all call for Jesus when we’re
sick or in trouble, but do we know to praise him when we’re well fed and
healthy?
You just have to admire Jesus in this
lesson. I mean, he’s really being pretty classy, and I think we can learn
something from the way he operates. After all, what really matters? Doing the
righteous work of God, or being praised
for doing it?
God be with you, my friends. Keep
proclaiming the Kingdom!
No comments:
Post a Comment