How different is our opinion of publicity and Christ’s. In journalism classes I learned that advertising is what you pay for. Publicity is free and could be worth much more than paid advertising. You’ve heard people say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. If your name, cause, message or church is recognized in the marketplace that’s what really counts. To be known at any cost and by the greatest number of people is the goal. In our day, magazines and talk shows feature vacuous people famous for being well known. Their great achievement invites the world’s fawning admiration.
“Leave here” – the backwater of Galilee – and go to the big city of Jerusalem whose swollen festival population will give You the greatest possible exposure. Do it, they urge, “so that Your disciples may see Your works that You are doing.” That unsolicited advice of Jesus’ own brothers would be an air tight argument in most Christian circles. Contemporary church leaders would see the good sense of their logic: “No one does anything secretly when he himself seeks to be known publicly.” The largest possible platform and publicity you couldn’t pay for!
Jesus attends the overcrowded celebration, but without fanfare, entourage or announcement. He goes by Himself. “Not publicly”. He sneaks in almost and goes intentionally unnoticed. The path of publicity is not his method. His methods grow out of His nature.
Our methods spring from who we are too. Most Christian advertising sounds no different than advertising for any other product or service. Promising much it likely delivers little. It sounds the same because the people using it operate with the same assumptions about publicity that Jesus’ dopey brothers did.
The Savior seems strangely inattentive to the well connected and self assured. The observation that those who imagine they are well have no need of a physician is daily confirmed by the reality that most moderns give little time to Christ. But, He does have a preferred method for drawing the lost and broken to Himself. “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” Such an all inclusive statement indicates that the drawing force will be almost irresistible. It will work every time it’s tried.
To lift Him up I have to remove myself from the place of prominence. Until that painful surgery is self performed, we will continue trusting in publicity to do the King’s work.
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