Unlimited: Elijah Has Come | Good News Unlimited
Unlimited: Elijah Has Come
May 10, 2024 1751
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.
And they asked him, “Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him” (Mark 9:9–13, NIV).
If you had just witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus, what would you be thinking and talking about? It’s interesting how Peter, James, and John react to having witnessed the transfiguration.
God gave them an incredible privilege through this experience. But instead of responding with gratitude, or learning the very important lesson that God wanted them to learn, they started arguing about theology! They were still too full of the religion of the Pharisees.
The Jewish religious teachers taught that Elijah had to come back to earth before the Messiah. So, in the thinking of the disciples, how could Jesus be the Messiah if he had come before Elijah, whom they just saw.
And they certainly couldn’t understand what Jesus meant when he talked about “rising from the dead.” They threw around different ideas of what this could mean, all of them over-spiritualised, because they couldn’t get their heads around the possibility that Jesus meant just what he said.
The disciples argued about the minutiae of prophecy, instead of absorbing the majesty of Christ which they just witnessed, and what it meant for their lives. Because of it, they weren’t prepared to understand the most important lesson of all that Jesus was teaching them, about his crucifixion and resurrection! What a tragedy!
But we do exactly the same thing.
Jesus wants to point us to the Cross, while too often we’re interested in other things.
Jesus wants to get deep within our hearts, while we want to focus on head knowledge.
– Eliezer Gonzalez
Eli’s Reflection: If you get the core right, the rest will follow. How is it with your life? What is Jesus saying to you now? Are you pushing Him away?
