37. Mark 9:9-13: The Question of Elijah
We always have to come down from the mountain. That’s an
inescapable truth in following Jesus. In fact, having the mountain-top
experience of all mountain-top experiences has only confused and complicated
James’, Peter’s, and John’s sense of following him. And these kinds of
experiences often have the same effect on us. We want to stay there and freeze
the moment making it our spiritual experience all the time.
At least our trio has the excuse of going through this before
the resurrection of Jesus, which he intimates will help clarify what this
mountain-top moment really means (v.9). And this time Jesus’ injunction to
silence is kept. Probably because they knew they did not know what he meant by “rising
from the dead,” so they had nothing to tell anyone (v.10)!
If we don’t understand the
source, we can always consult the interpreters. Jesus’ inner three turn to the “scribes”
to raise the matter with him. “Why must Elijah come first?” they ask. Jesus
answers “to restore all things” (v.12). Then he adds “and how is it written of the Son of man, that he
should suffer many things and be treated with contempt?”
“The Son of Man,” again. That’s our clue that Jesus is taking
another run at redefining messiahship. David Garland explains:
“One can punctuate Jesus’ answer in 9:12
as a question, which then gives his response a quite different slant. Jesus
replies, “Is it true that, when Elijah comes before the Messiah, he will
restore all things? How then has it been written of the Son of Man that he
should suffer many things and be rejected…?” This response implies that the
heart of this generation is too hard; the powers that be, too entrenched; the
wiles of Satan, too keen. Besides, God’s plan, hidden in the Scriptures, calls
for humiliation first, then vindication. John, as Elijah, has been imprisoned
because of a grudge and beheaded on a whim, and he lies dead and buried.
Eschatological expectations have been fulfilled in totally unanticipated ways.
Elijah does come first and has already come, but they did to him whatever they
wished. The disciples, however, still question if Jesus has got it right. How
can the Messiah be rejected and suffer? Jesus answers that their expectations
are all wrong. Elijah goes before the Messiah in the way of suffering and
death.”[1]
With his assertion that Elijah
has come (John the Baptist) and been mistreated and murdered with contempt
(6:14ff.), treating 9:12 as a question seems justified. As well as the reminder
that God’s plan moves from humiliation to vindication. This I suspect, is one
reason why Elijah appears with Moses in the transfiguration. If the historical
Elijah, a type of John the Baptist, is vindicated and exalted, how much more will
the Baptist himself receive such treatment?
Coming down the mountain to
rejoin the regular patterns and rhythms of life, the humdrum, the holy, and
sometimes the horrible, our intrepid trio learn (or maybe not) that life on the
mountain-top is a life to come. Life today is lived in the valleys and villages
of injustice, foreign oppression, demon possession, excessive taxation,
poverty, and the like. As we follow Jesus through those valleys and villages of
pain and need we enact that suffering servanthood that he enacted in that
divinely redemptive pattern of humiliation followed by vindication. Or at least
we should. And it is Mark’s burden to persuade us to do just that.
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