October 24, 2024

Luke 12:49-53

Here Jesus is realizing that he has “come to set the earth on fire…”  Fire is painful but also purifying.  Jesus would like to get it over with – the anticipation is anguish.  “There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!”  A baptism is a purification and a rebirth.  Fire burns all before it.  All concepts disappear in the blaze. 

This does not bring earthly peace, but rather divisions. Jesus is realizing how controversial his teaching is, that it will cause great division, even within families.  His message will never rest easy; the fight must be ongoing.  (Glass broken, windows splintered.) 

Just as Jesus suffered at Gethsemane in his humanity, here he is suffering from realizing what will happen, setting the earth on fire, dividing families, and the baptism he must undergo.  As Jesus carries out his mission, he is at the same time realizing who he is and what must happen – as both human and the Son of God, as we so often see God better in the rearview mirror, for him time was going both backwards and forwards and meeting excruciatingly, in “anguish,” in the middle. Crucified not just in space but in time, at the crossroads, pinned and unable to move or evade.  The human mind so often tries to evade and to find comfort.  The suffering of Christ was profound.  Amen.