Conforming (phase 2), Who is Jesus? What quality do I long and pray for? - AtaDc (step19), session 4b

And the disciples asked him, "Then why do the scribes say that first Eli'jah must come?" 

He replied, "Eli'jah does come, and he is to restore all things; but I tell you that Eli'jah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands."  Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist. - Mt 17:10-13

John the Baptist being the fulfillment of this prophecy always struck me as a reach, but I think it is one of those things that we must believe before we can understand it. There is no record of John doing the kind of miracles which Elijah did, but again, such works from a prophet served primarily to prepare hearts to receive his message. John seems to have had a significant following, and he was blessed to proclaim the imminence and then the coming of the Messiah, a thing for which Elijah himself likely longed greatly.

But the thing that strikes me again in this passage is how our desire to avoid suffering contrasts with Jesus' acceptance of his. Jesus understood the unbreakable relationship between suffering and glory, and we want the latter without committing to the former. It was obviously not easy for him, not in anticipation and obviously not in the unfathomable actuality, yet he never shrunk from the task at hand. I am certain this is another way in which I should be seeking to conform my life and attitude to those of Jesus, and I rebuke the fear that begins to stir when I consider what that might mean.

I think of the example of a friend who begins to make the difference in a bunch of young people's lives. She has suffered through the challenges of being certified for the work to which she is called, and now suffers through the labor pains of bringing forth lessons that will reach these young minds with the knowledge and learning methods they will need to become the fully-equipped sons and daughters whom God dreams for them to become. There is wondrous glory to come, and perhaps she gets a glimmer of it already, like a Transfiguration moment.