DEAR FATHER | The Messianic Secret may seem counterintuitive to us, but Jesus had His reasons
Why did Jesus ask people not to say anything after His miracles? Didn’t He want them to share His message and get new followers?

Why did Jesus ask people not to say anything after His miracles? Didn’t He want them to share His message and get new followers?
It seems counterintuitive that Jesus would spend so much of His time calling followers and preaching to large crowds, but then He would suddenly instruct people to “tell no one” about a great wonder that He had just worked in their lives.
This paradox is known to biblical interpreters as the “messianic secret.” We see it frequently at Mass this year because it is most commonly found in the Gospel of Mark, which we read in Year B of the three-year lectionary cycle
While it is impossible to know why Mark includes these strange asides in his Gospel, I will share two possible reasons from which we can learn.
The first possible reason is that Jesus is trying to control His message and how people think of Him. Contemporary pop stars and actors complain that celebrity can become a burden hard to escape. Fame unleashes forces beyond a person’s control.
So it is likely that Jesus did not want people just to view Him as a faith healer to whom they could bring their every ache and pain or as a wonderworker who provided cheap entertainment. The expectation for what it meant to be the messiah was very different in the first century. Jews of that time expected the messiah to be a military leader and political king, and Jesus knew that if people started labeling Him that way before the time of His crucifixion, then many would come to all the wrong conclusions about Him. Telling people not to make Him a “celebrity” would help make sure that people came to encounter Jesus as He meant them to.
The second possible reason is my favorite, though. When the basketball great Larry Bird played, he was so confident in his abilities, he often would tell his defender exactly his plan for the coming play. Then it would be all the more impressive when the defender could not stop him, and Bird would still make the shot.
While Jesus is obviously not a big ego sports star, it may be that He attempted to hush the news of His miracles as a way of making it even more impressive when His message still broke out. The spread of the Gospel was not because of Jesus’ self-promotion or a slick ad campaign. People were witnessing something they could not keep inside themselves, no matter what you asked of them. God’s power is such that no one can keep it secret — or the rocks and stones themselves will cry out!
Father Chris Schroeder is senior associate pastor of St. Charles Borromeo and St. Peter parishes in St. Charles.