—
Sirach 48:1-14
Psalm 97:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7
Matthew 6:7-15
The Book of Sirach praises the fathers of Israel and the great men of the Old Testament; included in this list are Elijah and Elisha. After recalling the great deeds of Elijah, Sirach prophesies that Elijah will return at the appointed time to restore the tribes of Jacob. Read together with Malachi 4:5-6, we learn that Elijah returns before the day of the Lord and that he will turn the hearts of the people: of parents to their children and of children to their parents. Jesus tells his disciples that the return of Elijah has taken place in the figure of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for his coming as Lord.
Before the coming of Jesus Christ, the people of Israel are still in exile. Following the prophets, the people place their hope in the coming of a new David, who will gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel and restore the Kingdom. The return of Elijah was a sign of the beginning of that restoration.
The return of Elijah in the figure of John the Baptist can be connected to several petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, taught to us in today’s Gospel. In particular, we pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God (second petition) and that God lead us not into temptation (sixth petition). This inauguration of the coming of the Kingdom of God entails a time of great trial and tribulation, and the coming of Elijah indicates that that time has come. [In what follows, I will be using the argument of Brant Pitre in his book Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic 2005].
Although the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer is translated as «Lead us not into temptation», it can also be translated «Do not subject us to the final test/tribulation». On the one hand, we are praying to God the Father to deliver us from the daily temptation to sin; on the other, the petition refers to the final time of «testing» for the righteous, the time of suffering and trial that will precede the coming of the kingdom, the final time of tribulation. The ‘time of trial’ or ‘testing’ of which Jesus speaks is the time of Great Tribulation which would precede the end of the age and the restoration of Israel. It is this period of suffering and death, this final time of tribulation, from which Jesus instructs the disciples to pray to be delivered (see B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 152-153).
Another connection between the final time of trial and the coming of the kingdom is found in the saying, «the Kingdom of God suffers violence» (Matthew 11:12-13; Luke 16:16). Jesus says in the same passage that the law and the prophets lasted until the time of John the Baptist, until the coming of the kingdom of God. With the appearance of John, the final period of lawlessness and false prophecy has now begun. «This period of tribulation is characterized by the persecution of the righteous representatives of the kingdom – here embodied in the figure of John – and so represents and attack on the very kingdom of God itself. Thus, John marks the turning point and the arrival of the kingdom because his persecution signals the onset of the tribulation that would precede the arrival of the kingdom. […] Jesus saw the sufferings undergone in the person of John not only the dawn of the kingdom of God, but also the onset of the final time of lawlessness and false prophecy» (B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 176). In John, «the Holy Spirit concludes his speaking through the prophets. John completes the cycle of prophets begun by Elijah» (CCC, 719). With the death of John, the final tribulation had begun. During this period of tribulation, Jesus’ sufferings, as the Son of Man, will take place.
When Jesus says, «I did not come to bring peace» (Matthew 10:34-36; Luke 12:51-53), we can understand him as saying: «The time of tribulation is at hand, and I have come to unleash it». The heart of Jesus’ mission was to inaugurate the coming of the kingdom of God and bring to end the exile of the people. This entails inaugurating the tribulation that would precede the coming of the kingdom (B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 216).
The final tribulation is a two-stage event. «The first stage, which apparently had begun with the death of John the Baptist as «Elijah», would be characterized by lawlessness and false prophecy, violence and persecution against the heralds of the kingdom of God, interfamilial strife, the coming of false messianic claimants, wars between nations and peoples, and natural disasters» (B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 511-512). This first wave of affliction would signal the imminent destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, the coming of the Messiah, and the restoration of Israel from exile. Jesus’ disciples would be persecuted in both Jewish synagogues and Gentile courts and even be put to death. «Despite this grim prospect, he encouraged them to proclaim the good news of the End of the Exile to the lost sheep of the house of Israel who had been scattered among the nations, and even to the nations themselves. He exhorted them to have courage in the face of this eschatological persecution, and he promised them that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on them during the hour of trial, just as the Prophets had foretold. His call was one of endurance to the end, all done for the sake of proclaiming the advent of the kingdom of God» (B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 512).
The second stage of the final tribulation is the Great Tribulation. This would be a time of catastrophic human suffering. False Messiahs and false prophets will try to lead the elect astray in a final deception. At this moment, however, the Son of Man will be seen coming in the clouds. «At this time, the Son of Man would send forth his angels to the four ends of the earth to gather in the elect remnant: i.e., to bring about the long-awaited End of the Exile, the ingathering to Zion of the scattered exiles and the nations and the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. Tribulation would be followed by restoration, exile by return» (B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 512-513).
Jesus’ death has a redemptive value: not only did Jesus expect to die in the tribulation, but he also taught that his death would function as an atonement for the sins of Israel. «Jesus taught that he as Messiah (the ‘Son of Man’) would give his life in the tribulation (drink the ‘cup’ and be ‘baptized’) in order to bring about the release (the ‘ransom’) of scattered Israel (the ‘many’) from exile. This death, in fact, was the ultimate mission of the Son of Man. He had come to perform the messianic task of gathering the scattered children of Israel. But, in order to do this, he must be willing to pay the ‘ransom’ price, the cost of release, that would bring the lost sheep of the house of Israel back to Zion» (B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 513-514).
In his hour of agony on the Mount of Olives, Jesus knew that he would be struck down as the shepherd during the tribulation and that his sheep would be scattered in the time of testing. At the same time, he knew that this tribulation would not be the end: «rather, he tied his hope for the restoration of Israel to his own resurrection from the dead». Jesus would be handed over into the power of sinners in his final prophetic and messianic act. In this way he would bring about the goal of his whole mission: the coming of the kingdom of God (B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, Baker Academic, 514).
And so, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are praying for the definitive realization or establishment
of the Kingdom of God in our hearts and in the world; we are praying that we do not give into the temptations of daily life, that we persevere during this present time of tribulation and have the courage to announce the Good News to all nations to bring about the coming of the Kingdom of God; and finally, we pray that we be saved from and not led astray during the Great Tribulation at the end of time.
—
Readers may contact Father Jason Mitchell at mitchelljason2011@gmail.com.
