The Holy Martyr Boniface (230).
Nativity Fast.
Hebrews 9:8-10,15-23; Mark 8:22-26.
Read Mark 8:22-26
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Why does Jesus take this blind man out of the village before he begins to heal him? And why, after he heals the blind man and sends him home, does Jesus tell him not to go into the town, nor tell anyone there about what happened? These are both examples of what biblical scholars call the “messianic secret,” the tendency in the Gospels for Jesus to tell people to stay silent about who he is and what he has done. But why would Jesus want people to be silent? Doesn’t he want us to proclaim his good news to the world?
It seems that Jesus didn’t want people to misunderstand who he was. Someone who had been healed might describe Jesus as a miracle worker without any substantial teaching, as someone who was easy to admire but didn’t require much of his followers. Something like this kind of misunderstanding comes in the verses immediately following today’s gospel, where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, only to have Jesus tell the disciples to be silent about this revelation. But Peter doesn’t get it, and tries to correct Jesus when he predicts his coming Passion, only to get a good dressing down from the Lord as a result.
One possible takeaway: if we are going to proclaim Jesus as messiah, we first need to know what it means for him to suffer. We see this in the gospel passages about the Transfiguration only a few more verses on – Jesus tells Peter, James and John not to tell anyone about their vision of him in glory until after his death and resurrection. Jesus’ glory, whether revealed on Tabor or in his miracles, is a manifestation of his power: but that power is revealed above all, paradoxically, in the cross. We all want to know the power and glory of God – to get there, we have to get to know our Lord crucified.