CONTINUING THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH

THE PROPHETS, THE APOSTLES...NOW US!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Now, anybody here not know me? Okay, so everybody knows it, so that you know why I'm sitting. Okay. Um Elisha is a very important, Elisha and Elijah, that twin uh prophets, very important in biblical history. Elijah is the one, and you'd know by the activities, the one, the prophet who got into conflict with Jezebel. Jezebel married, she's an outsider, she's a pagan, I don't know where she's from, but she married an Israelite king, and he allowed Jezebel to bring in polytheistic culture into the temple. And of course, Elijah was not happy because the prophets always represented God and the law. So Elijah had this big conflict with Jezebel, and they got into a war of wills and power. So Jezebel, I mean it goes on, but Jezebel says, okay, listen, you think your God is right? I'll match you against my priests, and we'll have a we'll settle this. So Jezebel brings a bunch of her priests out, who are pagans, and Elijah comes. Elijah calls, I'm reducing the story, but Elijah calls upon God, and all of her priests die. They're killed immediately. Now, Elijah is in trouble. So in his ministry, he's running. He's running from Jezebel and the armies. He's running, running, running, and is hidden. Now, early on in his ministry, he worked with Elisha. The names are colors, but they're not the same. And he continued his ministry and he taught Elisha. And how he taught Elisha, metaphorically, is he put his garment over Elisha. That's a symbol of passing on the ministry. So he put his garment on Elisha and he kept proclaiming the God Yahweh, the God of the Jews, as the only God. And of course, that got both of them in trouble. This scene that you see here today from the book of Kings, very interesting. The book of Kings in the scriptures, and this too, is about the misdeeds of the kings, not the accomplishments. You would think they were, oh, the book of Kings is about all the great kings of Israel. Not so. It was written to bring to highlight the ministry that they failed at. They were supposed to watch over God's people and do what's right. And one king after another, the book of Kings in the opening sessions tell you this, one after another failed. So therefore, the prophets were very important because the prophets would point the people back to God. And that's how Elisha and Elijah get famous. Elijah, this is very interesting. And if you see any medieval scripts or drawings, Elijah didn't die. You heard what happened today. May not have caught it, but he was taken up in a fiery chariot. And because he represents God and God's will, we're waiting for him to return. The Jews do that very graphically on the night of the Passover. They go through the Passover, they go to set the tables, set the foods, and all the, they get the haggadas out and all the foods that are special to the Passover, and they open a door in the room that they're in. The door is open for Elijah to return on his fiery chariot. If he doesn't return, close the door after the Passover, and we wait again. So right now we are with the Jews, waiting. We don't wait for Elijah necessarily, we're waiting for the return of Jesus Christ in glory, the second coming. The Jews are waiting for Elijah. And Elijah's role was to bring in the Messianic kingdom, to bring in the Messiah. So we're close to the Jews in that faith-filled expectation that the Messiah is coming, we don't know when, and that we should be prepared for him. And in the meantime, we we follow the example of, well, Jesus' gospel tells us right across the board how to behave, how to pray. Very important. But in the meantime, we're with Elijah and the Jews, waiting for Christ to return in glory. And in the meantime, what are we supposed to be doing? Well, we go to Jesus, we carry on, we pray, we get close to God. We pray for, you know, last night they they had news about the G summit on radio and TV. When we see that on TV, they are the people we have to pray for, the leaders of the G Summit. And even the leaders who were not there, but are strong characters on the world stage. We're supposed to be praying for them constantly, just like the Jews were supposed to pray for their king, and their kings sometimes failed, but they didn't give up hope. They kept praying, and the Messiah would come, and they prayed in the meantime with the prophets who pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of the Jewish system. So we are waiting right now. You heard that gospel from Matthew. You're very familiar with it because we hear it every Ash Wednesday. How to pray. Praying humbly before God, going into our rooms and praying to God. Now, what we do here, basically, if you were a literalist, is wrong. Because we pray out loud, we sing, we wear fancy clothes. Um, and Jesus is saying to the Jews, don't pray like that. When you pray, go in your corner and pray to your father in private. And what do we do? During the collection, we pass up baskets, we collect the baskets, and Jesus says, now, when you're going to give to the poor, don't even let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. So we take what Jesus says with a grain of salt, and we we have incorporated it into our liturgical ceremony, only to give honor to God, of course. So we've we've sort of adapted what Jesus is saying. But the heart of what Jesus is saying, the same ministry that Elisha and Elijah passed on to the scriptures, the heart of what Jesus is saying, connection with God, to be one with God, to pray to God. See behind me the beautiful shrine dedicated to Jesus and Mary for June. Great. The bishops of the United States dedicated the United States to the heart of Jesus, the sacred heart. Great. Good reason for us to pray, to get closer to God, to be one with Christ Jesus our Lord. He came to give us a direction to show us the way. Yes. The prophets helped in the Old Testament how to show us the way. But right now we have the way. And that's Jesus. And he teaches us today in the scriptures, pray. And our, you know better than I do, maybe, uh, our world desperately needs prayer. Our leaders need to be prayed for. I don't care which public uh what side you are on, you know, uh politically, it doesn't matter. Because the leaders on both sides need to be prayed for, as well as the independence, as well as the local leadership. So think about that as we come together in the Lord's name, how important it is for us to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ in our way as we pray for ourselves, our families, and our political leaders. Thank you for joining us, Friends of the Word, the weekday word, at St. Cecilia's in Clearwater, Florida. Join us anytime at friends of the Word.org.