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.

The passage that immediately preceeds this reading is the transfiguration of christ on the mountain. As they come down the mountain they ask the quesion about why the scribes say that Eliajh must proceed the messiah. They are confused because they have just seen Jesus in all His glory, and His devine nature and His claim to the title messiah, are not in question at all. Further, they saw Elijah on the mountain at the transfuguration, and they did not see Elijah annouce the coming of the Lord in his firey chariot. This is why Jesus reminds them that Elijah has already come, and he is John.

But why this confusion. It stems from a misundertanding of the scripture, by the scribes, and the unexpected nature of both Jesus and John. The scribes believed that the messiah would come and gather all of the tribes of Isreal, restore the kingdom, bring justice to the world. And they believed the that Elijah would arrive first on a firey chariot announcing the coming of the Lord.

Jesus and John did not come this way. John cried out in the wilderness, like Isaiah prophesied, making straight the way of the lord. And Jesus arrived as a suffering servant here to die for the salvation of the world as Jeremiah and Isaiah prophesied. The jews, on the other hand, were looking for a firey chariot and a conquering king, and totally missed the arrival of the true Lord.

So why did they get this wrong. Well I believe it is because the prophets of the old testament were, despite their knowledge, simultaneously prophesying both a proximate, and a distand comings of the lord. The first coming was Jesus, the meek, suffering savior, here to teach us how to live and to come to know and love the Lord, and the second coming will be the last judgment, and the time that justice is dealt out, and the kingdom is restored.

This second coming will likely have Elijah arrive on a firey chariot, and Jesus the conquering king will arrive, and the vision that the scribes predicted will come to pass, but that will not happen for some time still to come.

The jews were (and still are), waiting for the second coming of christ, and totally missed the first coming. You as a christian are privledged to know the Lord in his first coming, and if you stay in His grace you will hopefully be restored to His glory in the second coming. But do not fall away, or you will feel the judgement that is dealt out at the end. How you love Jesus in this life will determine how you live with Him in eternity.

Oh lord, help me today to get closer to you, to know and love you better, so that when you return, I will be in friendship with you and that we can be together in eternity amen.