Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him

Sir 48,1-4.9-11; Ps 79,2-3b.15-16.18-19; Mt 17,10-13
15 DECEMBER

The mystery of Christ Jesus is not only pure glory, exaltation, triumph and elevation. It is a mystery of cross, suffering, pain, persecution, rejection and delivery to pagans. Christmas is the first step towards Calvary. All the prophecies proclaim him the man of sorrow that knows well the suffering. There was no suffering that did not fall upon him. He took upon himself all the faults of humanity. He has expiated all the pains due to sins without measure and without limits of men. It is enough to meditate on a passage from the Lamentations and all the suffering of Jesus is before the eyes.

I am a man who knows affliction from the rod of his anger, One whom he has led and forced to walk in darkness, not in the light; Against me alone he brings back his hand again and again all the day. He has worn away my flesh and my skin, he has broken my bones; He has beset me roundabout with poverty and weariness; He has left me to dwell in the dark like those long dead. He has hemmed me in with no escape and weighed me down with chains; Even when I cry out for help, he stops my prayer; He has blocked my ways with fitted stones, and turned my paths aside. A lurking bear he has been to me, a lion in ambush! He deranged my ways, set me astray, left me desolate. He bent his bow, and set me up as the target for his arrow. He pierces my sides with shafts from his quiver. I have become a laughingstock for all nations, their taunt all the daylong; He has sated me with bitter food, made me drink my fill of wormwood. He has broken my teeth with gravel, pressed my face in the dust; My soul is deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is; I tell myself my future is lost, all that I hoped for from the Lord. The thought of my homeless poverty is wormwood and gall; Remembering it over and over leaves my soul downcast within me. But I will call this to mind, as my reason to have hope: The favours of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent; They are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness (Lam 3,1-22).

By affirming Jesus, albeit in a veiled way, that Elijah has already come and it is John the Baptist, he declares that He is the Lord to whom John has prepared the way. But he was not recognized by the leaders of his people. He finished his life with beheading. Not even Jesus will be recognized as Lord, God and Christ. He too will have to suffer greatly through the work of the chief priests and the elders of the people. Jesus is the Redeemer and no redemption takes place without the effusion of blood. This is a universal rule. Ransom must be paid for with one’s own blood, one’s suffering and both physical and spiritual pain. Jesus knows this from eternity and He has offered himself freely to pain, to passion and to the cross. Whoever wants to redeem might never do it by compulsion and imposition. He might only do it so by a gift, the fruit of a will that wants only to love and for this he also renounces his own life in favour of his brothers.

Then the disciples asked him, “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.

Every one of Christ Jesus’ disciples must jealously guard this truth in his heart. There is no love without voluntary surrender to the cross, to suffering, to contempt, to insults, to spitting and to every injustice. Jesus asks his disciples to embrace the cross and the suffering of poverty, hunger, crying, nudity and every lack of things on earth. For Jesus the model of his true disciple is Lazarus the poor man, covered with sores, seated before the door of the rich man with only one desire: being treated like the dogs of the man who wore purple and fine linen and ate lavishly. Thinking of building a Christianity without the cross on earth, without suffering, sickness, hunger, nudity, persecution and martyrdom, is a utopia. This is not the Christian hope. Our hope consists in only one certainty: that the Lord will never preserve those who trust and obey him from all evil.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, help us to be true witnesses of the mystery of Jesus.