Unlimited: Elijah Has Come
Jan 11, 2021 1725
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?
Herbert Katundu
Aug 8, 2023
May the Lord help me focus on the Cross, and forget about my own interests
JASON ANDREW TOPPIN
Jan 11, 2021
PRAISE JESUS FOREVER
Ketchakah
Dec 12, 2023
Elijah has come, And he is gone. This is the lesson. Elijah is the OT. It was important, but now it is gone. It is the News that Jesus brings us that is important now. Followers of Jesus need to let go of the ways of the past. The ways of a culture and religion that no longer applies. God wanted the OT included in the bible not as a reference for us, but as a baseline, something to remind us of what we have left behind. For the follower of the way of Jesus, it has no longer any relevance. We only deceive and confuse ourselves by including it in our worship. As long as people hold onto the ways of the past, (like the disciples in this story) they will never understand the gift that Jesus has brought to us. We are born a-new. The old ways have died and are no longer needed. The sooner people understand this, the sooner God will provide that which we need to know Him. Ahoh