Revealing What Cannot Be Concealed

If you don’t want people to recognize you, all you need is a baseball cap, sunglasses, and hoodie. Or at least this is what action movies would have us believe as Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, Peter Parker, and more have all avoided detection with some variation of this disguise. 

But what if you’re the incarnate Son of God beginning your ministry as the Christ in a time when baseball caps, sunglasses, and hoodies have not yet been invented?

In the opening chapter of Mark’s gospel, we’re repeatedly told that Jesus didn’t want people to know who he was:

Jesus rebuked and silenced an unclean spirit who had announced who he was (Mark 1:21).

Jesus would not allow demons to speak because they knew him (Mark 1:35).

Jesus charged the cleansed leper to say nothing to anyone (Mark 1:43).

We also see that Jesus’ attempts to keep himself hidden were as ineffective as you’d expect a hat and hoodie would have been:

Mark 1:28 …his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

Mark 1:33 …the whole city was gathered together at the door.

Mark 1:45 …people were coming to him from every quarter. 

In contrast to Jesus trying to keep his identity a secret, Mark’s very first sentence is designed to do the exact opposite as he immediately proclaims exactly who Jesus is:

Mark 1:1 – The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark wants his readers to know that Jesus truly is the Christ who is the Son of God. So, why does Mark highlight Jesus’ attempts to conceal himself if he’s writing to reveal him? Mark uses Jesus’ failed attempts to hide himself to help us see that Jesus truly is who Mark says he is. Despite Jesus’ desire to be discrete, he simply could not. 

Jesus’ authority in teaching (vs. 22), his authority over demons (vs. 27), and his ability to heal (vs. 34) and even cleanse a leper (vs. 41) were met with such amazement that it was clear that someone unlike anyone else in history had arrived. Jesus’ inability to conceal himself reveals the truth Mark proclaims about him. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. 

As we begin this sermon series through the book of Mark, I’m confronted with the fact that the amazing stories of Jesus’ teaching and miracles have become so commonplace to me that I am not amazed by them. This has me wondering: if amazement in Jesus’ day made it so that he could not be concealed, does my lack of amazement hinder my effectiveness and willingness to reveal him to others?

I simply cannot imagine what it would have been like to witness these events for myself. But isn’t this exactly why Mark wrote? Mark writes so that we would be drawn into this story in such a way that we’re driven to imagine and to meditate on what we read so that we might consider and be amazed by what Mark records.

My prayer for myself and for our church as we journey through Mark is that we would do just that and with the same effect we see in Mark 1. May we encounter these stories with a renewed amazement so that what is revealed to us will be something that we cannot conceal from those around us.

~ Andy Barker grew up in Boston, Ma. and relocated to Charlotte in 2008. He currently serves as an elder at LIFE Fellowship. He and his wife Melanie have five children and have attended LIFE Fellowship for ten years.