Are you very good at keeping secrets? Did you ever have a friend who entrusted you with something personal that was really, really important, that they wanted you to keep secret? Maybe it was when you discovered there was a child on the way, and you couldn’t tell anyone yet. Kind of hard, isn’t it!

Consistently throughout Jesus’ ministry, with few exceptions, he told people he healed (and even his disciples) NOT to tell others who he was or the things he did. Theologians have come to call this the “messianic secret.” We are never told why in the gospels, but I guess the best reason is that it allowed Jesus to preach and teach and heal longer than he could have otherwise; in this way he had more control of the timing of when things would fully unfold.

But with what is generally considered to be the beginning of Jesus’ final week, Jesus rides into Jerusalem for the feast of Passover on a donkey, with crowds of pilgrims crying out “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:9).

And it really didn’t bother Jesus. In fact, in so doing he fulfilled prophecy and was openly proclaiming that he was the Messiah (for those who paid attention to such things). Later, in the temple when some children were crying out the same thing, it irritated some of the religious leaders and they asked him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” This is how he responded: “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” (21:16).

The secret was out! and those words set in motion a series of events in the most tragic and wonderful week in all of history.