Saturday, December 10, 2011

Matt 17:9a, 10-13

I looked up the bit of this gospel that was edited out - not censored, I imagine it was for clarity. Because this is the conversation that Jesus had with Peter, James, and John on the way down from the Transfiguration mountain (or The Other Mountain, as referred to in this blog). So what do they want to know upon seeing the wondrous sight of Jesus's divinity alongside the two greatest patriarchs?

Why do the Scriptures say that Elijah must come first?

What Jesus says is actually not an answer to their question, I notice. What He says is that Elijah has already come but must suffer as the Son of Man must suffer. At this point in the gospel, that's becoming an increasingly relevant forewarning. Elijah will come and restore all things.

Considering the context in which I talked about John the Baptist's way and Jesus's way yesterday, I wonder about the order - Elijah must come first. Why must Elijah come first? Why did we need to start with John the Baptist?

After all, many believed and followed him but many didn't. For some reason, today I am resisting the idea of John the Baptist as a kind of primer - the first coat over the Jewish nation to prepare them for Jesus's...over-layer...man, this metaphor got away from me. No wonder I'm resisting it.

But if you think about their different approaches - John lived in the desert, he renounced the world. He got himself a clean slate - a place and even a whole life removed from the nonsense and noise and confusion of living in the world. And there came the clarity to spot Jesus at once - to spot the Son of God in the cousin he's known all of his life, just as he did in the womb before the world came to cloud our spirits.

We are meant to go out into the world, yes, but we have to have a place to start from. We have to have a desert we have been through, that we can return to to get our bearings. If we are going to eat and drink with sinners, then we have to have figured things out in the desert. We have to be able to separate the truly important things from the noise.

So Elijah has to come first. Before we can move in the world finding ways to help those around us and work toward the Kingdom of God, we have to go to the desert and get our bearings. Remind ourselves, over and over again, that the things of this world are transient and unimportant. That we are called to more important concerns. That we do not need all the nonsense and noise.