Today we are reading from Mark 9: 9-13:

9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean. 11 Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” 12 He said to them, “Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt? 13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.”

One of the things that is so important to see about this passage is that everything about Jesus is grounded in the history of the Old Testament.  Elijah is to come before the Messiah.  That is what they are taught in Jewish history. That is what they are to know will happen. 

And that Elijah has come – John the Baptist.  The prophecy has been fulfilled.  What was taught is true, it has happened.  

Jesus, His birth, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His return, these are not things that magically appeared out of thin air, but they are things that have been foretold since the very beginning when God said that an offspring of Eve would crush the head of the serpent.  This is what is foretold from the very beginning. 

So, for us as Christians, that means this, we must read the Old Testament as well. Its story is our story. And for us to better understand the New Testament, we must know the Old Testament. Everything that happens in the life is Jesus is grounded in the history and in the truth of the Old Testament.  

Today, let’s know the totality of all our story. Let’s know the historical scope of what God has down through Jesus Christ. 

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