14 February 2020
Memorial of Saints Cyril, monk, and Methodius, bishop
It may be hard, in today’s image-conscious world, to understand why Jesus so frequently wishes to remain hidden. Yesterday, Jesus entered into a house and wanted no one to know about it (Mark 7:24-30) and today, he heals a deaf man with a speech impediment and orders him to tell no one (Mark 7:31-37). Unfortunately for Jesus, “the more he ordered them not to [tell], the more they proclaimed it.” Jesus’ desire to remain hidden is not feigned humility, like a when a person says that she does not want to be complimented but shows through her body language that she wants the compliments to keep on coming. No. People spreading the word about Jesus’ works when he would rather they be kept hidden should be called by the proper word: disobedience.
It is curious that proclaiming the following against Jesus’s will could be an act of disobedience: “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” But maybe an old saying about Saint Francis of Assisi can help us: “if only people had followed brother Francis instead of praising him, he might have changed the world.” To be fair, some people did follow brother Francis, and he did change the world, and how much more is this the case for Jesus. But what was lost through the disobedience of people who merely praised Jesus was certainly, at some level, their own following of Christ, since praising disobediently is certainly not following. But perhaps more was lost, too, since praise without following distorts the heart of the Christian message, since it is first of all a message to be lived out and only subsequently to be proclaimed. Flipping this order necessarily empties the message of some of its genuine meaning, which can only come through lived reality, the reality of Word made flesh, not words multiplied.