Luke 12:49-59 “The Present Time”

Jesus tells the crowd around him that He is going to be throwing fire to the earth. And, to be sure, the word is "to throw." That is scary. If you listened to those words and were not even a little bit frightened, then you perhaps you have never found yourself in the middle of a fire that is passing over the earth. Jesus tells us again and again to have no fear, but human nature being what it is, how can we not react with trepidation at such words? The Son of God is throwing fire down upon our world!

Now that Jesus has grabbed our attention and has our hearts beating faster than they should, how are we to actually interpret what he is saying to the crowd and to all of us today?

First, we have to understand from the context of the previous passage that Jesus is still talking about the end of days. Some will call this the apocalypse or the Second Coming of Christ. Jesus is talking about the future. When we look at the bible and see what happened at the time of the Pentecost in Acts 2, that is fifty days after Jesus death at the Passover, then we see the tongues of fire coming down over the people. This must be what Jesus was talking about to his disciples here.

I used to be a firefighter and have set many backfires and practiced such controlled burns. I remember one fire I set that in about fifteen minutes only all that was left was steaming out a few hot spots. Once the fire was out and I could walk on the black burned areas safely, I noticed that the overgrowth had hidden an unbelievable amount of junk. There were rolls of chicken wire, metal roofing panels, paint cans, barbed wire, car batteries, wheels, and you name it. The area had been used as a junk heap. Fire gets rid of the junk, or at least makes it visible to us again. It can be seen as a kind of cleansing act.

My point is this, when it is time for Jesus to come to reclaim this earth for God, he is not coming with a two-stroke nylon whip line cutter. He is coming with fire to clean this place out again. This world is just too junk to do it any other way!

Jesus follows up his statement about bringing fire with the line: “Oh but if were just kindled already!” It sounds as if Jesus can hardly wait for this fire to come. I want to remind all of you that Jesus himself was baptized by water at the River Jordan by his cousin John. We know him today as “John the Baptist.” Well, what happened after Jesus came up out of the water? John 1:29-34 tells us that John saw this: “I saw the Holy Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’”

Although we are naturally afraid of fire, we should see what Jesus is claiming to be really just like a second baptism. This is the time when the Holy Spirit comes over a person’s life, and it seems as if everything is changed. This is the baptism of fire. This is the Pentecost experience.

As is to be noted in Acts 2, this kind of spiritual baptism does catch on like fire. On that day 3,000 people were touched by the Spirit. And their story seems to be that they were baptized first by the Spirit and then received the water baptism of john afterwards.

Now, we like to think of Jesus as the “Prince of Peace.” We can read also in John 17:22 that we are all to be one in Christ. That is the theme of the Aha Mokupuni here in November at the Marshallese Church. We are all to be united in the common cause before us. Yet, Jesus tells us here that he has come to sow divisions among us.

Excuse me now for throwing philosophy at you, but I think Jesus is talking about what is known as “Natural Law.” Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was the first philosopher to bring out this idea that our natural state as humans is one of “war.” He noted in his book Leviathan that “Men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all.”

That being said, Jesus is pointing out that the world will be divided among those who continue to war with one another, and those who will accept God’s awesome power over their lives and thereby chose to live in peace. Yes, Jesus is the “Prince of Peace” except to those who reject Him in his place as Lord of Life.

So, let me be perfectly clear here: The division that Jesus brings is between those who accept him and those who do not. This is the division of those who will be saved, and those who will not. And, sadly, that division will run straight through our families as Jesus points out: Mother against daughter, etc.

Best to see this fact in the raising of our children! Our children when they are born are born to the Natural Law and will naturally choose to be obnoxious in their own self-interests. They will cry when wanting to be fed. They cry when they are sleepy. They will throw a tantrum when you try to put them down to sleep. They experience no power to “overawe” them and subject them to a different law until that time that the mother or father decides to discipline the child. If the parent never disciplines the child, then the Natural Law will always be in place.

Consequently, the child will be in essence in a natural state of war. This is not good for the child. Some think that disciplining our children is cruel. Yet, giving a child an overawing authority takes that child out of the natural state of war and finally gives them peace. If you want your child to have peace in his or her life, then you will have to discipline that child to create a sense that there is something greater than their own immediate desires in this world.

Here is a sincere question: Do you fear God’s judgment? Jesus turns out to the crowd. He had been just speaking with his disciples and those who were perhaps overhearing. Now he charges everyone one of the thousands that are gathered around him. Jesus says: “You know what is coming!” He tells them that they know the weather by which way the winds are blowing. If it comes in from the south it will be warm. That is just like us here! WE prefer the cooling trades.

Helen was just in Scotland. She complained about the cold were she was one day in a text to me. Well, Scotland is the same latitude as Alaska. If you go to Alaska or Scotland, then you must assume that you will be cold. Jesus is right. We have to know what is coming. We have to know the direction we are to go. We have to prepare.

You know what? I must be able to judge for myself. We need to see what is plainly being seen by God! When we mess up, we need to ask for God’s understand and forgiveness. We need to repent. All of this means that we make a judgment about our own lives.

Our Christian tradition, that is Calvinists of congregational ilk, we pride ourselves in the notion that we do make our own judgments. We do not refer to a bishop, arch bishop or a pope. We struggle among ourselves with our different understandings and backgrounds what faith in Jesus actually means. We share those ideas openly and to many that looks like "disagreement." But really, the only disagreement is between those who accept salvation and those who do not!

Thomas Jefferson once said: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.” Our natural law in this country that we love so dearly is one of deceit and division unless we all take to heart that a just God is coming. Jesus overawes our lives. In this we find our peace when we proclaim Jesus as that Prince of Peace and forsake the natural law that leads to destruction.

“We must believe that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends towards justice.” Thank you Theodore Parker for that amazing quote. Let us judge for ourselves today how we should live our lives in awe of the divine justice that is coming.

Amen.