not to tell this to anyone.” Why not? If he is the Messiah, why not announce it? There are different reasons for Jesus’s reticence in different parts of the Gospels, but here the plain reason is what they mean by messiah. What the crowds understand by this word is so bound up with triumphalism, sovereignty, and reign without the cross that in some ways Peter’s confession clutters up the expectations. Jesus is more likely to acknowledge who he is without cavil when he is talking to people in the pagan,