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“Sssh – it’s a secret” Friday Meditation. 5/8/20. Alan Neale.
Trinity Church, Newport, RI

Mark 311 Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” 12 But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

For the past two meditations I have made reference to what is sometimes called the “Messianic Secret” in Mark’s Gospel. Now, I realize that Christendom has not been waiting with bated breath for this daily meditation but it is a big part of Mark’s Gospel and I think there are spiritual lessons for us to learn from this somewhat academic theme. So, here goes…

The Messianic Secret was first nominated as such by William Wrede in 1901, since then it has been discussed, dismissed, debated. Any careful reader of the Gospels will notice a similar theme in Matthew, Luke and John; and even in Mark’s Gospel some argue that Jesus talks of this secret to his disciples and to demons in a different tone, a distinct voice.

But without a doubt this secret appears consistently and regularly in Mark’s Gospel more than the other Gospels; and I think a study of Mark requires some reference to this practice (whether or not it be called The Messianic Secret or not!).

Some argue that Jesus wanted to maintain a total distinction between hopes and writings about a political Messianic victor and his own unique understanding of Messiah (cf. Mark 10:45 “The Son of Man came not to be served… but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many”). Here Jesus shows a discerning wisdom; that he could be followed for all the wrong reasons, followed by those who want a warrior politician rather than a suffering Shepherd. We too need often be challenged to ensure our image, our theology of Jesus does not lead us into triumphalist irrelevance but rather into lives shaped and inspired by our Shepherd king.

It is also suggested that Jesus wanted the message to be about “the kingdom of God” not himself. He was wary of nurturing a personality cult which had no real integrity nor authenticity. This is difficult for churches… we know that personality matters (I remember Lord George MacLeod’s succinct comment “matter matters”) and yet this is a mine-laden field. At the end of the day a prayerful, spiritual disposition is more effective than an actor desiring personal praise.
These are valid comments but I feel much more drawn to the concept that Jesus asked his disciples to keep quiet because he knew that they were (especially in Mark) often plain and simple… clueless. It is best that we first process internally the message, mission of Jesus before we offer a theoretical, objective to others. Here, though I would go a little further… I believe there is much in the Gospel narratives that suggest Jesus’ sense of identity grew and that, sometimes, his grasp of mission was stronger than at other times. I hope this does not perturb you, dear listener – it comes from a belief that Jesus was as fully human as you and me. This is the Saviour, Liberator, Shepherd with whom we share our lives.

I conclude with a rather long quotation from Peter feldmeier: “The messianic secret can be alive and well in our lives. While some religious people may be more generous and moral than nonreligious folk, most are not dramatically so. The sociologist Christian Smith argues that most religious people in effect live a faith he calls “moral therapeutic deism.” It boils down to this: God wants them to be happy and modestly moral; God makes few demands on them; God promises heaven to anyone who is not egregiously evil; and God is not imagined to be actively part of a person’s everyday life. Religious skeptics rightly ask: What real difference in your life does being a Christian make? Have we lost all sense of the glory of the secret enshrined in Jesus?