Monday, 28th Week of Ordinary Time

Matthew 17:1-13
The Daily Office

Matthew, the Gospeller most concerned with preserving continuity between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, is the most explicit in identifying John the Baptist with Elijah, the greatest prophet of Israel.  Elijah never actually died, but was taken up to Heaven in a whirlwind.  And the Jewish people looked to his return before the Messiah.  Thus, Matthew emphasizes that this expectation was in fact fulfilled, though in an unexpected way.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” Mark Twain.  And so it is with the history of God’s revelation.  Elijah himself did not return, but someone like him did.  John was indeed a prophet who looked to “restore all things,” as Jesus says in today’s reading.  J.B. Phillips translated it as “begins the world’s reformation.”  Elijah was a white-hot voice of reform in a time when Israel worshipped other gods, and Israel’s king flouted the basic demands of social justice.  So John angrily denounced the Jewish rulers of his time for flouting the law of Israel.

We will always need Elijahs, voices of reform and repentance.  But note that the Transfiguration comes after Jesus has predicted his death.  In that voice from the cloud, “listen to him,” Peter, James and John, are put on notice that what God will most reveal in his beloved Son is God’s love, not wrath.