The Prophet, the Monk, and the Human Struggle against Death

The holy prophet Elijah is probably the most popular prophet in our church. And this despite the fact that he is one of the biblical prophets who does not even have a book named after him. What we know of Elijah we know mostly from the Books of Kings. I'm quite fond of him myself. I named my oldest son after him and John the Baptist. But why is he so popular with us? Is it only because on this day we get to have our cars blessed with his fiery chariot? I think there's more to it than that.

I think that one reason Christians may have traditionally loved Elijah so much is that he, though he lived long before Jesus Christ, seems to live rather like a Christian monk. The prophet has something of the monk about him and now the monks have something of the prophet about them. 

Good monks and nuns keep alive the prophetic spirit in the Church with their radical commitment to life in Christ and death to the world. This demonstrates to the world God's will for our lives. Monasticism is God speaking to the Church about how the Church should be living.

And the Prophet Elijah is a type for monks. He was the first of the prophets to embrace the life of virginity. And he lived an ascetic life of fasting and obedience to God and such a radical commitment to the prophetic message God had given him that he even embraced life in a deserted wilderness for it.

He is also rather like John the Baptist, our other early model of Christian monasticism. They both went into the wilderness, and fasted from ordinary food, and wore garments of coarse animal hair bound with leather belts. When John the Baptist went into the wilderness and behaved in this fashion, many believed that he was Elijah who was to come. Even Jesus says that John the Baptist comes in the spirit and the power of Elijah.

This was important because Malachi had prophesied that Elijah would return as the herald of the coming Messiah. This prophecy of Malachi is fulfilled in John the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord. In our troparion today, we call Elijah the second forerunner of Christ. John, of course, is the first

The Messiah whose coming they herald turns out to be not only the deliverer of Israel from its enemies but also the deliverer of all of us who struggle from our last enemy of death. Elijah is important in this human struggle against death because Elijah is one of only two who never experiences death. The other is Enoch.

It is very rare to see an icon in the church of someone who has not experienced death.  Yet on the tetrapod today is Elijah. Notice that his background is red rather than the usual gold. Red for the fire of the fiery chariot that took him deathlessly into heaven.

Some say that Elijah will still return someday together with Enoch as the two witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation. As we await him, we honor him and remember him especially today on this his feast. Let us look to his example and to that of the monks and nuns who keep his prophetic spirit alive to guide us in a life of radical commitment and obedience to the word of God. 

Some of these ideas are stolen from Presvytera and Dr. Jeannie Constantinou: Elijah