“John has been raised from the dead”;
others were saying, “Elijah has appeared”;
still others, “One of the ancient prophets has arisen.”
The people were insistent that, "[n]othing is new under the sun." They said that this Jesus was just another example of a type that already existed, a great type perhaps, but not something really new. Perhaps he was Elijah or John or one of the ancient prophets. After all, that would limit the scope of his potential impact. Even after Elijah the world was not redeemed, it still managed to fall back into the state of disrepair in which is now existed under the authority of Rome. Even John, greatest of all born of a woman, did not himself break free of this cycle of rise and fall, growth and disintegration.
No one was satisfied with the condition of this world left to its own resources and preexisting archetypes. Nothing found within it could bring the fulfillment for which the human heart longed.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing
nor is the ear satisfied with hearing.
Herod had a sense that Jesus came from outside of existing paradigms. He recognized something genuinely new in him and wanted to see what that was.
But Herod said, “John I beheaded.
Who then is this about whom I hear such things?”
And he kept trying to see him.
Herod's motivations were insufficient to recognize that which he sought. Jesus was in fact something entirely new and unprecedented. What he was on earth to do would finally shatter the cycle of sin, break the dominion of death, and tear down the dividing wall between man and God. But Herod's heart had only moved as far as a bored curiosity and novelty seeking. He grew tired of the delights his position afforded but he did not realize how deep the problem was. He didn't realize he was encountering the utter inability of this world to satisfy. Had he done so he might have been willing to repent from his worldly pursuits and open himself to the new thing God was doing.
Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert (see Isaiah 43:18-19)
It is a difficult thing to wish, to discover that nothing in this world can truly satisfy us. But only if we discover it can we truly delight in God. Then the things of this world themselves change from being tiresome and repetitious into gracious gifts of the one who is ever old and ever new.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (see Hebrews 13:8) yet he tells us "Look, I am making everything new!" (see Revelation 21:5) This is because the timelessness of God is more and not less than the timebound world in which we live.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (see Revelation 1:8)
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