I am always grateful, Father, that You wake me each and every day. Wednesdays are different in that I need up at 4:00 am rather than 6:00 am and You are always right on time! Thank You, Father!

Matthew 17:10-13 (<<click the green)

A famous character once stated about himself,
 “I yam what I yam!” ~ Popeye the Sailor

And I believe an important Biblical character proclaimed the same thing – minus the “yams” of course!

As I read through this passage, several went through my mind and as I looked a little further into them, I found connections in both Old and New Testaments.

First of all, the disciples asked Jesus, “Why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes?” (Matthew 17:10 NLT) An Old Testament passage that many scholars point out to confirm this is found in Malachi 4:5-6,

“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers [a reconciliation produced by repentance], so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse [of complete destruction].” AMP

So beginning in verse 11 You explain, “Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, but he wasn’t recognized, and they chose to abuse him… Then the disciples realized he was talking about John the Baptist.”

An apparent complication arises when “priests and Temple assistants from Jerusalem” (John 1:19-28 NLT) came out to ask John the Baptist who he was. Right up front, he stated he was not the Messiah. But when they asked him if he was Elijah or the Prophet they were expecting, John’s answer was, “No.”

When they pressed him for an answer he quoted from Isaiah 40:3,

“I am a voice shouting in the wilderness,
‘Clear the way for the Lord’s coming!’”NLT

In reality, there is no complication. John is not Elijah; John is John doing what John was supposed to do in readying the Israelites for the coming of the Messiah – whom the religious leaders did not recognize or acknowledge either.

A big part of all the confusion is that, as we’ve mentioned before, the religious leaders were just as it implies, they were “religious” – there was no real relationship with God. They assumed they would see the original Elijah – after all, he never died but was taken up in a chariot of fire. (2 Kings 2:11-12) But they were dead wrong!

In a very real way, John the Baptist is the Prophet of the new covenant. He is the “Elijah” to come. He may not have seen himself in that light but that makes it no less true. He did what God called him to do and cleared the way for the Lord’s coming.

Lord Jesus, we may not totally understand where we fit into Your master plan but understanding is not what is important. Doing what You call us to do is of utmost importance. Help us to be faithful. Help us to be obedient. Help us to be who we are in You. Amen.

June 20th, 2018, Wed, 8:06 pm