Second Week of Advent - Saturday - 'Elijah has already come'

 Readings: Sirach 48:1-4,9-11; Psalm 80; Matthew 17:9.10-13

John the Baptist must have cut a strange figure in his day. No matter how many and various the attempts to sanitise his image, he is for many of us, an extreme character. Yet, he is a character who fulfils a vital role in salvation history. But however ‘obvious’ he may have been, the disciples in today’s Gospel could not immediately equate John with another, equally extreme figure of scripture, Elijah. Elijah, ‘whose words were a flaming furnace’, and who was destined to return and ‘to turn back the hearts of fathers to their sons.’

Following Jesus down the mountain after his Transfiguration, the disciples ask him; “Why do the scribes say that Elijah has to come first?” Jesus replies: “I tell you that Elijah has come already and they did not recognize him but treated him as they pleased.” Like the scribes, the disciples presume that the literal Elijah, who was translated into heaven, would return as forerunner to the Messiah. They do not immediately see John the Baptist as a ‘type’; one who would precede the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah, and prepare the way for his coming (Malachi 3:1, 4:5).

The disciples initial blindness to this fact is echoed in the wider people, Israel; ‘they did not recognize him’. Not only did they not recognize him, but he was treated cruelly and killed for his pains. Like Christ he was destined, ‘to suffer at their hands’. With Jesus to explain, the disciples were to understand all this, unlike the ‘scribes’. A clear implication for us is whether we are to be disciples or scribes. Are we to grasp the message of Christ and prepare earnestly for his coming or are we to reject his words and ultimately him. Further to this we can indeed, try to be ‘types’ of John the Baptist, and make others ready for Christ’s coming. We can try to share in the Baptist’s ministry and, ‘make straight the way of the Lord’ (John 1:23) However, in doing so, we must be prepared for others to see us as strange and extreme, and be prepared for the cruelty and rejection of the world should it come.