Friday, September 10, 2010
[Christ and his disciples are coming down from the mountain, where God's voice has told them that Jesus is his son.]
His disciples asked him, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come before the Messiah?"
And he answered, "Indeed, Elijah must come, and restore all things. But Elijah has come already, and they did not know him, but did with him whatever they wanted to. They will make the Son of man suffer the same way."
Then the disciples realized that he was speaking about John the Baptist.
The scribes' belief comes from the Book of Malachi. Almost nothing is known about the person whose words are recorded in this Book. Malachi — which means "my messenger" — may not even be his name, but rather a title of respect.
As witty classics professors sometimes put it, the Greek Odyssey was written either by Homer or by somebody else with the same name. We actually know even less about Malachi than about Homer. We can state for certain, however, that the Book of Malachi was written either by Malachi, or by somebody else with the same name, or by somebody else with a different name.
There has been much conjecture, by both Jewish and Christian scholars, about his identity. Most scholars place the date of the book around the 5th Century BC. Many think that he was actually the same person as another prophet, Ezra and Mordecai being two favorite possibilities. Or he may simply be, like Homer, a person about whom nothing is known today, other than his words. His words, however, are considered authentic divine prophecy by most mainstream Jews and Christians, just as they were by the Hebrew scribes in Christ's day and age.
Malachi prophesied that Elijah would return to earth before the day of judgment, and the Israelites believed he spoke God's true word. This was interpreted to mean that Elijah would precede the Messiah. As he so often did, Christ reminds his followers that his coming is not a rejection of the first covenant or Judaism. Rather, he is the fulfillment of it. Christ implicitly embraces Malachi's prophecy, and tells us that it was fulfilled by John the Baptist.
Some authorities use the word "reincarnation", others seem to avoid the word. But many times, theology and human speculation can obscure the important point: Christ fulfilled the Old Testament. His life and work were part of a continuous realization of the promises made to Abraham and Moses.
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