Bible Passage: Luke 12:49-53
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: August 14, 2022

Bulletin August 14, 2022

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

If I begin by saying, “The world is burning,” how do you understand what I have just said?  You may understand me very literally and assume that I am referring to what is happening in California and parts of Europe with those huge, uncontrolled wildfires that are burning.  Or maybe you understood what I said as a metaphor.  You think that I am referring to the political climate in our own country where tempers are flaring and much inflammatory and incendiary rhetoric is being tossed about.  Or you think international politics and you think of the “fire” that is “burning” in the Ukraine, or the smoldering situation between China and Taiwan that seemingly could burst into flame at any time.  These are all ways we might understand that the world is burning.

But in saying that today, we are not speaking environmentally or politically.  We are speaking theologically.  We are thinking about the fire mentioned in our text today.  For our text tells us The World is Burning…and Jesus is to Blame!

 We don’t have to go searching very hard in our text to find this truth!  It is the first thing out of Jesus’ mouth!  I came to throw fire on the earth. (v. 49)  Open, honest admission from Jesus.  “I came to set the world on fire.”  He even admits his eagerness to start the fire.  And how I wish it were already ignited. (v. 49)

 It wasn’t burning yet when Jesus spoke these words because the “spark” that was going to ignite the fire hadn’t happened yet.  Jesus said, But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is finished. (v. 50)  You say, “I thought Jesus was baptized already.”  He was.  Jesus is here using baptism in a different sense.  “Baptism” was used to refer to a time of intense suffering for a person.  The baptism Jesus is talking about is his own suffering and death.

Jesus even admits to being “distressed” until it is over.  I wonder if we always realize that.  Jesus was stressed by what he knew was coming.  Not stressed in a sinful way that includes a failure to trust in God.  But being “baptized” with the sins of the world, and facing the justice of God for them, was stressful for Jesus!  We see that stress coming through on Maundy Thursday night in the garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus even said to his disciples, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.  He lies on the ground with his face in the dirt and cries to his Father to do it another way, if possible.  Let us never think that this was “easy work” for Jesus!

And how distressed I am until it is finished. (v. 50)  Jesus will carry this stress until it is finished.  At 3 o’clock on Good Friday afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice for all to hear, It is finished!  (John 19:30)  He had completed the work.  Sin…all sin of every human being who ever would live on planet earth…was paid for.  From your most shameful sins to the ones you are not even aware you commit.  He had provided the ransom payment that could free every man, woman, and child from shame and guilt, fear, death, and hell.  His distress was gone.  His baptism was over.  A fire was ignited.

The risen Lord Jesus huddled with his disciples.  He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. (Mark 16:15)  The gospel.  That word means “good news.”  Jesus told his disciples to take the good news of his death for sinners and run with it!  Jesus thus threw fire on the earth.  A fire spreads and changes everything it touches. The gospel is like that.  It spreads and changes everything!

In our text Jesus talks about what that fire can do even in homes and families.  Do you think that I came to bring peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division. (v. 51)  He then describes a family divided.  A father, mother, son who is married, and a daughter.  And Jesus has become the dividing line in this family.  Jesus has come between a father and a son.  Jesus has come between a mom and daughter.  Jesus has come between a mom and her daughter in law.

Some of you know all too well what Jesus is talking about.  Maybe some of you moms and dads have been told by your children  not to try to talk to them anymore about Jesus.  They have even given you the ultimatum. “If you talk about Jesus, we are not coming for Christmas.”  Maybe they have even threatened keeping the grandkids from you if you talk about church or Jesus when they are around.  Your heart is broken.  The division Jesus speaks of is all too real and all too personal.

This kind of division is evidence of the carnage sin has caused in this world.  The fact that Jesus is so hated is evidence of the depravity of human nature since the fall.  So great is the enmity of natural man against God that their hatred of Jesus is greater than their natural affection for family!  That humans could somehow hate the very one sent from God to save them defies all logic.  But then, there is nothing rational or logical about sin.

Why did Jesus tell us this?  So that we’re ready when it happens.  So that we don’t panic if it happens to us, in our home.  So that we don’t “overcorrect” and imagine that somehow we can make Jesus and the cross palatable to fallen man.  We cannot. The cross is an offense and the smell of death unto death until the Holy Spirit converts a person.  And that is what we hope and pray for those who live as enemies of the cross of Christ.  We pray for their conversion.

The world is burning.  And Jesus is responsible.  Sometimes, sadly, the Gospel fire burns a hole right between people.  But Jesus comforts us:  Amen I tell you: There is no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who now at this time will fail to receive one hundred times as much: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children…and in the coming age: eternal life. (Mark 10:29-30)

Amen.