Saturday in the 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, December 14, 2024

Matthew 17, 9; 10-13

As they were coming down from the mountain, the disciples asked Jesus, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He said in reply, “Elijah will indeed come and restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased. So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

The fourth chapter of the Book of the Prophet Malachi opens with this: “For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”  Malachi then consoles the faithful for “the Sun of righteousness shall rise” (Malachi 4, 2) for them.  The chapter then closes with, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse” (Malachi 4, 5-6).  The Prophet tells of the overthrow of the wicked by the Lord when he comes.  Malachi calls him “the Sun of righteousness”, for he who reigns in the heavens will come down to earth to fulfill the Law so that we might know how to live holy lives.  But before he comes down, one in the figure of Elijah the Prophet will appear on the earth in order to preach repentance from sin.  Why in the figure of Elijah?  Because he was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, rebuking sinners even at the cost of his life, and showing the emptiness of pagan worship.

“Elijah will indeed come and restore all things.”  He will correct the religion of the Jews, according to St. John Chrysostom, teaching the people not to trust in the Pharisees and scribes who distorted the Scriptures for their own benefit.  Now, the Lord says, on the one hand, “Elijah will come” and on the other, “ he has already come”.  When Jesus says that he has already come, he means John the Baptist, who came in his figure.  But when he says that he will come, he means that Elijah in person will come down from heaven along with Enoch (who was also taken up while still alive), to preach in the last days of the world.  The Fathers believed that Elijah and Enoch were the two witnesses of Revelation 11, 1-13.  

“They did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased.”  The Pharisees and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem did not recognize John as Elijah but as a rabble-rouser because he called them to account.  Rather than examine their lives and repent they took their own righteousness for granted and they persecuted John.

“So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.”  The Lord adds this statement to what he has to say about John in order to show that just as the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin failed to recognize John and harassed him, so these same people would fail to recognize Jesus as the Son of Man and cause him to suffer.  

My we be the means of unbelievers coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.