When Jesus asks the disciples who they say Jesus is, Peter offers “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And after commending Peter, Jesus orders them “not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.”
I don’t think I ever noticed this quite so starkly. Jesus is asking what people say. Then what the disciples say. Then he’s like You can’t say that. You’re right, just don’t say it.
This, of course, is how we read it. What we say about it.
It is easy from our perch to affirm Peter’s statement—that Jesus is the Messiah—we’ve built an entire theology around it. Our tradition is predicated on this being true AND something we tell other people about.
I am more and more convinced that this is the paradox at the root of God. That we aren’t supposed to talk about things we can’t not talk about. And that the reason isn’t that we are to be secretive or that we’re terrible at keeping secrets, but that our words are incomplete, our certainties too convicted, our hopes too narrow, and our dreams too small. For in this claim, that Jesus is Messiah, rests truths, distortions, and expectations, only some of which are real.