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.
In some ways John the Baptist was very recognizable as a new Elijah figure, the fulfillment of the promise about which we read in Sirach:
You were destined, it is written, in time to come
to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD,
To turn back the hearts of fathers toward their sons,
and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob.
The angel who appeared to Zechariah himself associated John the Baptist specifically with this prophecy.
and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared (see Luke 1:17).
John for his part very much dressed and behaved in a way that would be evocative of the memory of Elijah. Yet the powers that be, powers who knew the prophecy that Elijah would come again, refused to see it as fulfilled in John. They read the Scriptures according to the letter only and not the Spirit. The letter brought death whereas only the spiritual interpretation would lead to life (see Second Corinthians 3:6). The letter alone, without the Spirit, is always subject to being co-opted by the ego, the selfish and sinful part of us, and abused to prevent us from hearing what God intends. This seems to be what happened in the case of John the Baptist. They demanded an overly literal fulfillment, the return of Elijah in the flesh, and refused to recognize that the same greatness of prophetic spirit, the same mission now at its climax, was present in John the Baptist. Fundamentalism did not help them to reach the truth, but rather to subvert the truth to cling to their own self-image. No doubt they imagined something spectacular where Elijah would come again with all sorts of impressive and miraculous displays of power just as he had once done. This would have been great entertainment, no doubt. Perhaps in their imagination that felt sufficiently unthreatening. But the prophecy itself said Elijah's mission upon his return would be different.
To turn back the hearts of fathers toward their sons,
and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob.
The Church wants to teach us to read the Scriptures in a way that takes seriously the historical basis that is always important, but without losing sight of all that spiritual implications of the text that only the Spirit himself can reveal. Following the lead of the Spirit, by the guidance of the Church, is not a cop out opposed to some hard literal facts. It takes history seriously, does not suggest that original Elijah was just some poetic invention, but refuses to let the Spirit be limited to that level. It is in fact what allows the Word of God to continue speaking to us even today when the history is in the past. Following the Spirit necessarily calls us out of ourselves, beyond our preconceptions, leading us to recognize what God is doing here and now. Because of this it prevents the mistakes that led to the condemnation of John.
May the Spirit himself intervene in our lives to help us to read and interpret the promises of Scripture according to the mind of the Church, to be open to all of the dynamism contained therein, and not limit the Scripture to merely human ways of reasoning. He continues to promise more than all we can ask or imagine (see Ephesians 3:20).
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