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In Christ, Mark

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The disciples asked Him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He was talking to them about John the Baptist.

Matthew 17:10-13

They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.

And they asked Him, “Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.”

Mark 9:10-13

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The prophets had foretold about Jesus and yet when He arrived He found Himself suffering from an identity crisis. He was unrecognized as people weren’t quite sure who He was.

You’ll recall Jesus asking His disciples this questions a few devotions ago:

“Who do people say I am?”

 The response given reinforced the fact that people didn’t really know who Jesus was.

“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

Of interest, no one pegged Jesus as the Messiah, the One the prophets of old had predicted would come, or the Savior of all mankind, the Lamb of God who had come to take away the sins of the world, even though John the Baptist had proclaimed Him as such when Jesus’ ministry began.

Speaking of John the Baptist, we see that he too had suffered from an identity crisis among the public. Look at Jesus’ words again here:

The disciples asked Him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He was talking to them about John the Baptist.  Matthew 17:10-13

Before we get into these verses, we need to go back and look at some words from the prophet Malachi:

“I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.” Malachi 4:5

The teachers of the law, those considered educated scripture experts, read this verse to mean Elijah would appear to usher in the coming of the Messiah. In other words, Elijah would come first before the Messiah had arrived and as far as anyone in the Jewish circles knew, Elijah had not yet appeared and so the Messiah had not yet come. All were still waiting for Elijah to reappear.

There was only one problem with this waiting.

You see, Elijah had already come but he was unrecognized. Look at these words from the Gospel of Luke:

“…he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke 1:17

Who is speaking these words?

None other than the angel Gabriel who appeared to Zechariah, a priest who had been chosen by lot to burn incense in the temple as the people prayed outside. You’ll recall that Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, was considered too old to conceive and bear children but God was ready to work a miracle in the couple’s life. Elizabeth would become pregnant and bear a son who they would call John and who would later be known as John the Baptist.

So how is John connected to Elijah?

Gabriel tells us when he said:

“…he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah…”

John was the Elijah to come, the Elijah Malachi prophesied. And yet he was unrecognized as such.

Go back to the words of Jesus today and the disciples question regarding the teachers of the law:

“Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

How did Jesus respond? Did He contradict the assertions of the Jewish religious scholars?

Not exactly. In fact, we find Jesus in agreement with them to an extent as He responds to His disciples’ question:

“To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things.”

Jesus wanted to make it clear that Elijah would come and “restore all things” but then added the news that brought everything into focus:

“I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished.”

John the Baptist was the foretold Elijah to come, the one who would usher in the coming Messiah, Jesus, but the people did not recognize Jon for who he was. Instead, he was murdered by Herod at the request of his daughter who we know had been manipulated by her mother Herodias. They wished to kill John and in doing so, they had beheaded the Elijah they were still waiting for.

And since Jesus’ disciples were well aware of what had happened to John, Jesus used the moment to remind them that the same fate was awaiting Him:

“In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.”  

John had been killed, unrecognized by those who put him to death.

Jesus would soon suffer the same destiny, wrongly arrested, falsely accused, brutally beaten, and then nailed to a cross to die like a common criminal, all because the Jews failed to recognize who He was.

Sadly, today Jesus still goes unrecognized and unacknowledged by the people He chose to die for, those He willingly paid the price for on Calvary’s cross. This holiday season, let all of us proclaim the name of Jesus, the Savior of the world coming in the form of a babe lying in a lowly Bethlehem manger, the One who is the real reason for the Christ-mas season.

Amen.  

In Christ,

Mark

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