When studyiing in any of the synoptic gospels, Jesus follows many healing miraces with a demand for secrecy. This is especially true in Mark, where this feature occurs so frequently that some have identified it as a key theme in that book.
Mark is often regarded as the earliest gospel and Matthew and Luke probably had access Mark, so one should not be surprised to find it in those gospels as well.
There are several ways to explain Jesus’s requests for secrecy. One that makes good sense is simply that Jesus wanted to carefully manage his public image and he did not want the title “miracle worker” attached to his name as that is not why he came.1 Because of his compassion, he performed miracles of all kinds, but always refused when asked to perform a “sign” on demand. Rather, his ministry was that of a suffering servant, and the fact that he finally makes a public admission of his divine identity (Mark 14:61-62) only in his last hours before being beaten, abused, and crucified tends to support that theory.
But miracles were not the only place where the messianic secret was manfest. His use of parables was a deliberate device to prevent his opposition from understanding his teachings, as he explained in Matthew 13:34. He taught his disciples how to interpret the parables, but the oppositigon would only hear “safe” teaching in which the real lessons were hidden.
When Peter confesses that he believed that Jesus was the messiah at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:20), Jesus commands that the disciples to keep that fact a secret.
It also appears when he explains his coming trial and death to his disciples after setting his final journey to Jerusalem as his ministry came to an end. He wanted his death, burtial, and resurrection to be correctly interpreted after these events, but he otherwise demanded2 secrecy (Matthew 13:34).
These facts suggest that there may have been an even stronger motive for secrecy, one that suggests a bigger plan3 to defeat the powers that opposed Jesus and held the world captive.d Such a plan would have been set in place before the incarnation and would only succeed if it could remain a secret right up to the point that the trap would snap shut. The whole plan depended on Jesus’s death and resurrection while the opposing powers were not paying attention. For this to happen, Jesus would have only a few days after entering Jerusalem to affect his death, and as we look at the events of passion week we can see that Jesus himself was the driving force that sent him to the cross. Jesus, in other words, was the victor, not the victim. His disciples staged a provocative “triumphal entry,” he cleansed the temple and scattered the money of the money changers, he insulted the chief priests and Pharisees (Matthew 21:46, 23:1-36), he did nothing to strop Judas Iscariot who he know would result in his arrest, he threw Daniel 7 in the face of the chief priest (Matthew 26:64), identifying himself with God, and he remained silent when interviewed by Pilot. In short, everything he did seems to have been to engineer his condemnation on the cross.
So that may be the best explanation for the Messianic Secret.
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