Bible reading: Mark 9:2-9.

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly, when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Message.

I’m sure we’ve all had experiences which were so wonderful that we simply had to tell our friends. Perhaps we’d been to a concert with an outstanding band or orchestra, or to a play which moved us to tears. Perhaps we’d done something which would usually have been outside our comfort zone, such as skydiving, snowboarding or abseiling (none of which I intend to try any time soon!). Perhaps we’d had one of the best meals of our lives or witnessed an extraordinary view. I’m sure I could go on – what I’m trying to say is that it’s natural to tell other people about these happy occasions – possibly to the extent of boring them to death! And, of course, they’re only listening to what we say rather than seeing, hearing or tasting for themselves. We can ask them to look at our holiday snaps (and, these days, pictures of every course of our gourmet meal), we can show them the theatre programme or lend them the CD we bought, but it’s not the same: we were there and they weren’t. For us, it was first hand; for them, it isn’t.

If you or I had been up that mountain with Jesus, simultaneously dazzled, terrified and overawed by what we’d seen, I’m pretty sure we’d have charged back downhill wanting to tell everyone about the amazing sight we’d witnessed, whether they wanted to listen or not. Yes, we might well have gabbled incoherently; and yes, some people would have said, “I don’t believe it, you’re out of your minds”. But that wouldn’t have stopped us – in fact we wouldn’t just want to tell everyone about our vision, we’d want to tell them what it had declared about Jesus: that he really was special, God, the Messiah. It was all so thrilling – but Jesus said, “No; you mustn’t say a word to anyone”.

This seems to be a ridiculous way for Jesus to have behaved: surely he’d have wanted as much publicity and attention as he could get? So why did he ask his disciples not to tell? Why did he “hold his cards so close to his chest”? There must have been a reason! Well, I think there was – but, before we look at that, I must tell you that Jesus’ behaviour on this occasion wasn’t unusual. For instance, in Mark 1 a man with a so-called “unclean spirit” identifies Jesus as the “Holy One of God.” Jesus orders the spirit to be silent (although the people looking on soon gossip the news around). Later in this chapter Mark tells us that Jesus “would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him.” The theme continues two chapters later, where we read: “Whenever people who had evil spirits in them saw him, they would fall down before him and scream, ‘You are the Son of God!’. Jesus sternly ordered the evil spirits not to tell anyone who he was”.

This motif of secrecy is also associated with miracles of healing. Again in Mark 1 Jesus heals a man with leprosy, charging him to not speak openly about it but quietly present himself in the Temple for the ritual that will allow him to reclaim his place in society. In chapter 7, Jesus heals a deaf and mute man – seen as a particularly difficult miracle to pull off – and tells everyone watching to speak to no-one. Of course they blatantly disregard his command. Much the same thing happens when Jesus gives sight to a blind man in the next chapter. It appears that Jesus isn’t keen to have his healing abilities broadcast widely.

So Jesus tells both spirit beings and people he has healed to keep their opinions of him to themselves. And, very surprisingly, he even tells his disciples to keep quiet. For Mark 8 contains a conversation that’s the pivot of the whole Gospel. During it Jesus asks the disciples who people think he is, and he continues: “But what about you? What is your opinion?” There’s an awkward silence, until Peter blurts out, “We think that you are the Messiah!” Jesus doesn’t deny that, but then replies, “Don’t even think of saying that to anyone!”

So there’s nothing extraordinary at Jesus telling the three disciples, bursting with the excitement of their mountain-top experience, to keep it all to themselves. But why? Well, the answer to that has exercised theological brains for well over a century, ever since a German scholar called Wilhelm Wrede wrote an influential book about what he called “the Messianic Secret”.

Wrede was writing at a time when theologians, including the famous missionary Alfred Schweitzer, were engaged in what they called “the quest for the historical Jesus. It was an age when science seemed to offer rational answers to everything and notions of the supernatural were getting short shrift. This meant that the scholars were happy to accept Jesus as a good teacher and a moral example, but not as anything more; they certainly weren’t willing to accept him as the Son of God. They believed that the Church had distorted the basic Gospel stories, overlaying them with myths and legends, and they saw their task as one of “rescuing the real Jesus”. They wanted to dig him out from the alleged later changes to the Bible which, they claimed, made him into someone he wasn’t and failed to do him justice. The Gospels therefore became ripe for picking and passages which didn’t fit into their way of thinking were dismissed as fanciful later additions. (I’m not against scholarly study of the Bible, by the way – but I can’t agree with this arrogant approach which was a product of its time and is largely rejected today).

But why am I telling you all this? – I know it’s heavy fare for a Sunday morning! It’s not, I assure you, just to show that I do some study and thinking for the messages I prepare! No; it’s because Wrede and his colleagues were coming from a background which said that very little of what we read in the Gospels can actually be trusted – a thought which has sadly seeped into much Christian thinking. They believed that it was Jesus’ followers rather than Jesus himself who came up with the idea that he was the promised Messiah or Saviour, and that Jesus in fact constantly played down and discouraged such notions (which automatically makes me think of Brian’s mother in the Monty Python film who says, “he’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy”). In other words, Jesus said, “Don’t tell” because he didn’t want people giving him a status he didn’t think he had; he was just a man.

But this argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. As we read through Mark’s Gospel, it becomes very clear that Jesus did know who he was and what he had been sent to do. It’s also clear, though, that he didn’t want the people of his day jump to the wrong conclusions about him: the key comes in v.9 where he orders them “to tell no-one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead”. Jesus constantly had to fight against people, including his closest friends, who saw him as a rabble-rouser, a political leader, a military Messiah, a potential king of Israel. They didn’t have crystal balls to look into the future, they didn’t know that his true colours would only be revealed by his death and resurrection.

Jesus therefore did all he could to dampen down the wrong kind of expectation and speculation – with, I have to say, little success! Nevertheless he tried. He tried to do that because, if he’d simply said, “I’m the Messiah you’ve been waiting for”, it would have misled people into Jewish nationalist dreams rather than revealing God’s plan for salvation. He tried, because he didn’t want the crowds to make him a king; the Romans wouldn’t have tolerated that, in fact it would have ended Jesus’ ministry at a stroke.

And yet … while Jesus before his death did repeatedly command his followers to keep silent, he also after his resurrection said the exact opposite. In the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel (and echoed in some versions of Mark’s) he tells his disciples to “go into the whole world and preach the Gospel”. His final words in Luke declare that the message of repentance and the forgiveness of sins must be preached to all nations; Luke amplifies this in Acts by adding, “You will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”. Even John gives us Jesus sending the disciples into the world as the Father had sent him – which presumably includes speaking in God’s name. His final words were no longer to keep a secret but the exact opposite: open and bold proclamation.

Where does this leave us today? I’m afraid to say that the Messianic secret is alive and well in our churches, as very few (if any of us are bursting to tell other people about our faith in Jesus! Indeed, if we’re chatting to someone and religion comes up in the conversation, we get embarrassed and quickly change the subject to something safe such as our family, football, weather or the price of fish. Religion, especially a clear faith about Jesus, seems to be “off limits”. Of course, few of us have had heavenly visions like those disciples, or witnessed miracles like those first-century crowds. But, even if we have, we’re reluctant to say anything, perhaps for fear of being seen as over-enthusiastic religious cranks. Jesus doesn’t need to say, “don’t say a word about me” to us as we’re already masters and mistresses of doing that!

Should we be more forward in talking about our faith? The answer has to be “yes” although British people are particularly reticent in doing it. What Jesus says to us is exactly the opposite of what he said to those excited disciples. He says “please, please do tell”, so that his secret may be a secret no longer.