Christian Art | King James Audio Bible | KJV | Daily Bible Verses Advent
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)
As Jesus died on the cross he would have looked like a leper. He had been scourged. Front and back, his skin would have been a bloody mess of welts, cuts and bruises. Being himself without sin, he died in the image of some of those most abject whom he came to save. Truly the self-sacrifice of our Lord was complete and extreme [ … ]
Our Advent prayers recall Jesus and Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, the story of the Nativity as handed down to us especially through the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is such a wonderful, intimate story, of Mary and Joseph, two people whose lives would have been otherwise utterly obscure, lived out in a remote province of the Roman Empire, far from the centre of things, to whom something extraordinary is happening [ … ]
Saint Gaudentius of Brescia (c. 5th century) was a bishop and gifted preacher in Northern Italy, a contemporary and friend of Saint Ambrose. His teaching on the Eucharist reveals the rich sacramental theology of the early Church—faithful to Scripture, shaped by apostolic tradition, and full of pastoral insight. This passage draws us deep into the heart of Christian worship: the Eucharist. Here, bread and wine become the very body and blood of Christ. Through this transformation, the faithful participate in the Paschal Mystery—Christ’s Passion, Resurrection, and glorification [ … ]
