Mark : 9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,
9:3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
9:4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
9:5 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." 9:6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
9:7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"
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In some Christian denominations, especially in America, they hold a view of the notion of the so called rapture, that before the end time tribulations the believers will be snatched away to Heaven to save them from the tribulations. This phenomenon of the mass rapture is imaginary. There is no Biblical support for that, though many tried to justify it mainly from Paul's letters.
Rapture is a version of the ascension, and though ascension happened occasionally, nothing indicates in the Scriptures that a mass rapture will happen anytime and anywhere, like crowds of Christians will be disappearing into the thin air, when time comes, in order to save the believers from the end time tribulations.
Nonetheless, the second book of the Kings tells the story of the ascension of Elijah. How with Elisha he crossed the Jordan river barefoot, and that Elisha was able to see the Heavenly Chariots. As it is written in the chapter 2 that “Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground. When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you." Elisha said, "Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit." He responded, "You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not." As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, "Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!"
The text indicates that even just to see what is happening was an exceptional privilege of a prophet like Elisha the student of Elijah, who practically took the place of his master, anointed to be the prophet by the double share of Elijah’s spirit. However to be taken alive to Heaven is also an extraordinarily exceptional occurring, happened to a very few, like Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, probably to Moses, and maybe to some others, but even Prophet Elisha was buried when he died.
There is a second century tradition from the sages that in Heaven there is a well structured hierarchy among the angels based on the number of flights required by each to arrive at his destination. It was taught that Michael, in one flight; Gabriel, in two flights; Elijah the Prophet, in four flights; and the Angel of Death, in eight flights. During a time of plague, however, when the Angel of Death seem to be ubiquitous, he arrives everywhere in one flight.
Beside the warning of the plague, this teachings counts Elijah among the angels, as God turned him into a person of angelic characteristics, which is not impossible to conceive as Jesus himself states in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12 that “When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. ”
Thus, according to the tradition. Elijah with his heavenly characteristics acquired an angelic attire and theoretically was or is or will be able to show up anywhere, anytime to anybody. In many Hebrew folk tales and other stories Elijah is a regular hero or appearing as a guest giving advice, sharing wisdom, and his return to announce the final redemption is still awaited in every generations of Israel, as even in Jesus time was commonly held, that before the Messiah comes, Elijah must come first.
It was taught in the old tradition again that a second century community leader, Rabbi Yosei said that regarding the ban of praying in ruins, that “I was once walking along the road when I entered the ruins of an old, abandoned building among the ruins of Jerusalem in order to pray.
I noticed that Elijah, of blessed memory, came and guarded the entrance for me and waited at the entrance until I finished my prayer. When I finished praying and exited the ruin, Elijah said to me, deferentially as one would address a Rabbi: Greetings to you, my Rabbi. I answered him: Greetings to you, my Rabbi, my teacher. And Elijah said to me: My son, why did you enter this ruin? I said to him: In order to pray. And Elijah said to me: You should have prayed on the road. And I said to him: I was unable to pray along the road, because I was afraid that I might be interrupted by travelers and would be unable to focus. Elijah said to me: You should have recited the abbreviated prayer instituted for just such circumstances.”
According to the Gospel, Jesus hinted that Elijah came in John the Baptist, when John started his mission along the Jordan river, calling for repentance and to prepare the way of the Lord. It can mean of course as Elisha took the role of the main Prophet of Israel from Elijah, so John took the role of becoming a herald of the immanent redemption, exaxctly from Elijah.
A famous writer, Robert Graves even assumed in his semi-famous novel entitled King Jesus that when Jesus talked to Elijah and Moses on the Mount of the Transfiguration, Peter mistook the spiritual figure of John the Baptist for Elijah, and the spiritual figure of Simon son of Boethus, a long serving High Priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, for Moses.
Of course that the New Testament is very clear about the spirit visitors of Jesus on the very Mount of the Transfiguration. Robert Graves, of course, was not present when it happened, beside that, that a mid XXth century novel and the Gospel just do not have the same weight in describing of this event.
It is supposed to be more than obvious that Robert Graves almost abused his right to have writer's imagination to give a speculative account of what might have really happened on the Mount of Transfiguration.
However, on the other hand it is also hard to say that the account of the event provided by the Gospel is some kind of investigating journalism waiting for being nominated for a retroactive Pulitzer Prize or it is like an attempted BBC documentary. Because its genre is the so called hagiography, like story-telling wrapped in mysteries and embellished with miracles.
Robert Graves might have had the agenda to present a fictional-historically imagined King Jesus, albeit a real royalty with a tragic end. Meanwhile the Gospel story has the aim to depict the world savior Messiah Christ in Jesus.
Nonetheless, it might have been obvious for the writers of the Gospels, that beside the Elijah role that John played as a forerunner of the Christ, also the very Elijah must personally appear in the Gospel, as a real connection to Jesus, and as a partaker of a Jewish story we call the Good News aka the Gospel, where Elijah is the Herald of the Redemption and the incoming Kingdom of God with the Messiah King.
It is conceived by the early Church, that as the Old Testament testifies about the New Testament, the ministry of Jesus was based on the ministry of Moses and Elijah. That is why the Church maintains that also the Old Testament as well is the Word of God, acknowledging what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well that “You worship that which you don't know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.” He also said to the disciples that “Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things.”
We have to know the full scriptures in order to have old and new treasures together, and to pray that may Elijah visit us too to herald the redemption and the immanence of the Salvation, which was and is and will be presented to the whole world in Jesus, according to the will of the Almighty Father of all, the Creator God, by the Holy Spirit, now and always, Amen.
