Text: How glorious you were, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! Whose glory is equal to yours? (Ecclesiasticus 48.4)
We stand in awe of Elijah, the first of the great prophets. When King Ahab married Jezebel, and allowed her to promote the worship of Baal, it was Elijah who led the challenge, calling Israel back to the worship of the one and only true God, and to the observance of the high standards of morality enshrined in the law of Moses. The three-year drought, which he foretold, and the subsequent contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, demonstrated Yahweh’s superior power over nature gods like Baal. It was Yahweh, not Baal, who lit the fire under Elijah’s sacrifice, drenched as it was, and Yahweh who answered the prophet’s prayers, bringing the drought to an end with torrents of rain. In a later story, Elijah’s condemnation of Ahab for the seizure of Naboth’s vineyard stands forever as a landmark judgment protecting the rights of the little man, the ordinary citizen, against the corrupt use of power for personal gain. Ahab did not himself raise the trumped-up charges against Naboth, nor did he personally take part in the rigged court case which led to the stoning of the hapless victim by a lynch mob – Jezebel’s henchmen did all the dirty work – but Elijah was fierce and forthright in his condemnation of Ahab, because he perceived that he had coveted that vineyard, and he was ready enough to walk in and take possession of it, when Jezebel had cleared the way for him. No wonder Elijah was revered as first and foremost in the long line of Israel’s prophets.
In 21st century Hampstead we are not tempted to worship nature gods. We have a reasonably good scientific understanding of what causes floods and drought, and even if we cannot change the weather, we can at least predict it, and take steps to protect ourselves against all but the most extreme events. But there are other gods we worship. We don’t call them gods, but we pay the tribute of our respect to those who have wealth, good looks, power and high rank, and we invest time and energy in seeking these things for ourselves. In doing so we may not offend against Mosaic or Christian standards of morality as crassly as Ahab and Jezebel. We may not pursue our dreams of wealth and celebrity as recklessly as Anna Nicole. But we may be tempted to cut the odd corner ourselves, or we may turn a blind eye when someone else cuts the corners for us and our investments benefit. Elijah would still have plenty to say to our generation.
On the mount of transfiguration, Jesus was seen with Moses, the great law-giver, and Elijah its greatest prophetic enforcer. Their presence at Jesus’ side reminds us that they also appear together on the last page of the Old Testament, where the prophet Malachi conveys God’s command to remember and observe the law of Moses, and with that command his promise, that before the great day of the Lord comes, he will send the prophet Elijah to preach repentance and reconciliation. ‘He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.’ (Malachi 4.6). Our first reading, recalling the main events in Elijah’s life, concluded with an echo of this prophecy:
At the appointed time, it is written, you are destined to calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in fury, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. (Ecclesiasticus 48.10)
The book of Ecclesiasticus was written about 200 years before the birth of Christ, and gives us some insight into the climate of religious thought which prevailed in Jesus’ own time. The prophets had fallen silent, but they had left hanging in the air the expectation of a great day of the Lord’s judgment, a culmination of all history, to be ushered in by the reappearance of Elijah, recalling the people to the worship of the one true God, and to the highest moral standards in the observance of the law of Moses.
In tonight’s gospel reading, Jesus says both that Elijah has already come without being recognised, and that he is coming and will restore all things (Matt 17.11-12). The disciples understand this as a straightforward reference to John the Baptist, but there is something of an elision of roles here. Like John, Jesus is to be put to death, unrecognised by his tormentors, but it is He rather than John who will fulfill the prophecy of restoration, albeit in a most unexpected way.
On the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus has been flanked by Moses and Elijah, all shimmering with light. But as the vision fades, he immediately warns his disciples that he must suffer and die. Soon this image of shimmering glory will be overlaid by another, more powerful still, in which the same Jesus is once again raised high, not now on a mountain with Moses and Elijah beside him, but on a cross; not now in shimmering light, but in thick darkness, and flanked by two malefactors. Elijah has come, not in great power to sweep aside the evildoers, burning them like stubble as Malachi envisaged, but in self-imposed weakness, submitting himself to the apparent power of evil men and women, suffering at their hands in order to wonderfully restore all things.
At the end of Elijah’s life, his successor Elisha has to go with his Master to the very end of the road, if he is to receive the double share of his spirit that he asks. Jesus’ disciples don’t have that tenacity. They fall asleep when Jesus is wrestling with his destiny in the Garden of Gethsemane, and when he is arrested they run away. Of the three disciples closest to Jesus, perhaps only John is still there, with Mary, at the foot of the cross, when Jesus dies. But their fear is forgiven. They have gone with him as far as they dared. Beyond a certain point none of us can be accompanied as we slip into the darkness. But it is in and through that act of sacrificial self-giving in obedience to his Father’s will that Christ’s undefeated spirit is set free to breathe new life, new love, new power into the little group of bewildered disciples who will be so transformed by His Spirit dwelling within them, that they will indeed become the agents of the promised restoration of all God’s people. And this restoration reaches beyond the national vision of the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus, beyond the restoration of the tribes of Jacob or Israel, to the creation of a new Israel, a new community of God’s children throughout the world, in the Church of which you and I belong.
How glorious you were, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! Whose glory is equal to yours? We have seen whose glory outshone Elijah, first on the Mount of Transfiguration and then on the hill of Golgotha. Now we are awe-struck when we consider the power that streams from the Cross to fill and empower the new people of God.