The BIG Secret

In Matthew 16:13-20 and Mark 8:27-30, Jesus asked his closest friends, the Disciples who the people thought he was. They shared what people were saying. Some thought he was John the Baptist come back to life, some thought he was Elijah returning, some though he might be one of the prophets like Jeremiah. There were a lot of speculations out there. This Jesus must have been raising quite a stir! I can’t think of any current people who raise that kind of speculation. Who IS this man? Where did he come from? How can he do these things?

Then Jesus asks his friends, “Who do YOU think I am?” Peter, who seems to be always the first both in the race of feet and the race of tongue, blurts out, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” These guys sound pretty sure of this. The comment Jesus made at this point befuddles me.

“Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.” Matthew 16:20

Well why, for heaven’s sake, not? Didn’t he want everyone to know that he was the Christ? Isn’t that why he came?

In order to even begin to understand this comment, I need to understand the context and the timing of this event. Jesus has been teaching and healing and confronting for a couple of years. Because the disciples have been living this with him, they are sure who he is. Those who look on from further out are not so sure. Even though the prophecies support him being born as a baby, this isn’t how they expected the Messiah to come. He is Joseph’s little boy all grown up. How can he claim to be Christ? And most of the gentiles, who by the way are not looking for a Messiah, only see him as a political threat because of his popularity.

To further complicate things, all along Jesus has been claiming to be the Son of God. He talks about his Father in Heaven and how if people know him they know the Father and he does what his Father asks him to do, etc. So why now, why here, is Jesus shushing them?

What immediately follows this comment is Jesus beginning to teach his friends about his impending death. His time is coming soon when he will be with them no more. They will be on their own – well not quite. He promises the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide them.

Maybe the reason Jesus told them to keep quiet about him being the Christ is a significant timing thing. God always seems to know just the right time to do or say things – possibly because he has the whole picture. His friends were in grave danger in hanging out with him and he was committed to getting them safely through his ordeal with the cross. In his prayer in John 17:12, he tells his Father that “None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction…”

It is important to Jesus that his disciples live and not get crucified with him. Later, many of them gave their lives for their faith. But he needed them to begin his Church and to share the message that he is alive, risen from the dead and that he has made a way for everyone to come to God.

So while Jesus himself was free to claim that he was the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah, he did not want his disciples to publicly claim this until after his death on the Cross. The Gospels end with Jesus instructing the disciples to go out to the world and teach them everything they have learned from him. And in Acts 1:8 Jesus instructs his friends to be witnesses about what they have seen and heard and assures them of the Holy Spirit to go with them, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”