By Nicole Johnson
When I read this story of Jesus healing the leper, I wonder at Jesus’ instructions to the healed man. “See that you tell no one?” The man had been healed of leprosy. Like his friends and family weren’t going to notice?
“Fred, what in the world happened to you?!”
“Oh, nothing. Just the same old, same old.”
I’ve always been curious as to why Jesus told people he healed not to talk about the healing. And he said it often. If he healed someone or had some sort of dramatic encounter, many times he admonished that person not to tell anyone what had happened.
It hardly seems fair to have such a life-changing experience and have to keep it to yourself. And with Jesus’ goal of having all men know of the love of God, wouldn’t it seem he would ask those who had been touched by him to shout it from the rooftops? But he rarely did. Often the ones who had received from him did broadcast it boldly, but not because he directed them to do so. No, more often than not, he asked them to keep it to themselves.
Why would he do such a thing?
Perhaps grace is most life changing when kept to ourselves for a time.
Before a company goes public by offering their stock for purchase, it must first go through what is called a “quiet period.” The SEC governs this, and during that time key executives are not allowed to talk about the company’s numbers or discuss the performance of the company at all. What they have to regulate is people in the company hyping a stock before the offering. Hopefully this keeps consumers from making huge mistakes by believing in a company that might not be worth investing in.
Maybe there is a thought here worth pondering: before we go public, maybe we should first go private.
Too often in our evangelical desire to communicate the incredible grace of God, we do a disservice to that grace by forgoing any “quiet period.” We miss the internal gifts that would come from having to keep something so valuable to ourselves before we share it. The idea is not that we don’t ever share what God has done for us; it is that we learn some lessons in the quiet period of grace before we try to communicate it to others.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t tell others about what Jesus has done for us, but perhaps we should take the time to ponder what exactly it is that he has done before we face the world with the news. Often the pondering produces the kind of the depth that will sustain us when the public offering begins to take its toll. Otherwise, we might end up like the seed that immediately sprouts up without sending down deep roots and soon withers in the heat of the noonday sun.
Personally, I’m a little suspicious of people who come on too strongly in their communication, of anything really. Whether it’s the gospel or Tupperware, I’m generally turned off by hype and overzealousness. My attorney husband is fond of saying, “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on your side, pound the podium.”
A second thought about why Jesus might have asked those he healed not to tell anyone about it is that he didn’t want people comparing their stories or their healings. Isn’t it human nature to compare? To want the same thing someone else has even though our situation might be different? Perhaps
Jesus wanted to avoid that all together, reminding us that it is grace that he does anything for us at all.
Grace is a one-of-a-kind experience. It’s not one-size-fits-all. Remember how many different methods Jesus used to heal people? He hardly ever did the same thing twice—in fact, I’m not sure he ever did. Sometimes he used mud, sometimes a loud voice to heaven, sometimes a set of instructions, sometimes he just sent people on their way—each encounter being unique to the person and the circumstances.
A number of years ago in an original drama, I portrayed a cashier working at convenience store near a local fishing spot. About seven in the morning, an old man came into the store and got an iced tea. The man discovered upon checking out that he’d forgotten his wallet. He bemoaned the fact that he’d left it on his dresser and turned to put the tea back in the cooler. The cashier waved him out the door with his iced tea and told him she’d take care of it, and not to worry about it. On his way out the door, she admonished, “But don’t you tell anybody I did that!”
About 2 p.m. that very afternoon, another man comes in and puts an iced tea down on the counter. He reaches for his money and pulls his empty pockets inside out. “I can’t seem to find my wallet,” he mutters a little too conveniently. The cashier doesn’t even smile as she tells the young man to get on his way. He snarls at her, saying that she shouldn’t be giving away iced tea if she doesn’t want everyone to have it.
Maybe that cashier was a lot like Jesus. Maybe Christ didn’t want to offer what he had to people who expected it. Maybe he wanted to show us that grace ceases to be grace if it is expected or demanded. It can’t be calculated, predicted, or measured, or it becomes something else that Jesus wasn’t offering.
Grace has to be free, unexpected, and undeserved to really be grace.
But don’t tell anyone.
Excerpted with permission from Infinite Grace: The Devotional, © 2008 Patsy Clairmont, Mary Graham, Nicole Johnson, Carol Kent, Marilyn Meberg, Sandi Patty, Jan Silvious, Luci Swindoll, Sheila Walsh, Thelma Wells. All Rights Reserved.
