Today’s passage marks the end of the first half of the Gospel of Mark. In the first 8 chapters he goes to great lengths to teach his readers who Jesus is, that Jesus is God in the flesh, the Creator, Sustainer God of the Hebrew Bible.
The culmination of this section of Mark is Peter’s proclamation of faith. Peter was ready to follow Jesus as Messiah even though he had yet to learn why Jesus had come and how He would accomplish his reason for coming. There is still much to learn.
Why did Jesus want Peter to keep quiet? “Messiah” stirred all kinds of nationalistic and revolutionary, therefore incendiary emotions in many Jews. Jesus did not want that interfering with his mission. Nor did he want huge crowds pressing in on him simply because they were “gawking”. His main mission was to disciple a few men, not inspire huge crowds. Furthermore The word for “timing” is Kairos. Jesus “kairos” moment had not yet come and he was intent on staying with God’s “kairos”. He knew what he was doing and the disciples had to trust Him.
Next we turn to answering the question, “why did Jesus come?"
Thank you for explaining why Jesus asked his disciples not to tell anyone. That has always puzzled me.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to show the same appreciation. We studied Mark in our bible study last semester and the explanation that we received for it was just the gawking part, but the emotions part makes a lot of sense. Thanks Pastor Jeff
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