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Matthew 17: 10-13 | King James Audio Bible KJV | Daily Bible Verses Advent, Saturday Week 2
10 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?
11 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.
12 But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.
13 Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.
The disciples Peter, James and John have just witnessed the Transfiguration on the mountain. They have seen the glorified Christ, and now they are puzzled, because they have been taught that Elijah would come before the Messiah. These are the verses from the prophet Malachi, which are the last words of the Old Testament:
5 ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
The scribes have taught, and the disciples have understood, that the text has referred only to the coming of the Messiah. Now they understand that Elijah has come again as John the Baptist, who has himself prepared the way for Jesus.
John the Baptist, like Jesus, came to reconstruct society, to bring people back to a true relationship with each other and with God. This was a reflection on the Roman occupation, whereby the occupying power corrupted natural community and family relations. John has been punished, and put to death, for his teachings. Jesus will suffer the same fate.
For many, the Christian mission remains to fulfil Christ’s purpose in reconstructing society. In doing so, they may find themselves ranged against the ‘occupying power’ of modern social and economic ideologies. We may think of contemporary beliefs and practices which fracture families and so which lead to neglect, poverty, violence, addiction, loneliness, despair, loss of faith… As Christians, we are called to try to do what we can, while to overhaul the system entirely might seem near-impossible. Still with faith we stand witness to Christ’s core teachings. We pray that the world may follow.
14 Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;
15 And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.
16 It is burned with fire, it is cut down: they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.
17 Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.
18 So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
19 Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. (Psalm 80/79)
Jesus presents to his listeners an ideal of Christian purity, upon which we must act. There is a judgement, and there the sowings of the evil one will be burnt. It is that within us which is with God, with Jesus, which will shine for all eternity [ … ]
The people who have been fed through the miracle of the loaves and the fishes now seek Jesus and are mystified that he should not be near. They have seen that there was only one boat and that the disciples of Jesus have gone alone into the boat to pass across the Sea of Galilee. The events that have taken place overnight, as Jesus walked across the water, would have been completely beyond their comprehension [ … ]
Jesus speaks in parables when he has something important to communicate. The meaning of a parable may seem obscure or in need of explanation. Jesus does give interpretations of the parables to his disciples. We are encouraged through the parables to see our world in new and perhaps unexpected ways. The parables encourage us to think more deeply about Jesus’ teaching. They are, above all, a challenge – even an anarchic challenge – to everything we think we know [ … ]
