Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the 12th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Luke: Verses 49 - 56
49 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Interpreting the Time
54 He also said to the crowds, “When you see ha cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Jesus makes a statement in today’s Gospel that seems totally out of character for Jesus. Today’s Gospel reading comes from the Gospel according to Luke. Within that Gospel account there are more than a dozen references to peace. The Christmas message of the angels wishes peace to God’s people. After Simeon saw the infant Jesus, he was ready to depart in peace. When Jesus sent out His disciples, He instructed them to bless people with peace. Jesus often healed people and then dismissed them with the words: “Go in peace.” The proclamation of peace is an important part of Jesus’ message. That’s what makes today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke seem out of place.
Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” Jesus then went on to describe the depth of the division that He brings. He said, “For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” We call Jesus the Prince of Peace and rightly so. How then is it that the Prince of Peace has come to bring division?
This reading is especially confusing in our age of tolerance. Our culture tolerates obscene behaviour that violates not only the laws of God, but even the laws of nature. A person can cheat on his wife, steal public funds, you name it, and readily receive forgiveness from society. BUT you can't label someone as divisive. NO! Being divisive is the unforgivable sin. One of the very few persons our modern culture still condemns is the person who is divisive. So what does our culture do with the Jesus who came to give, not peace, but division … even to the point of dividing households and families? What do we do with a divisive Jesus?
To begin with, we should remember who Jesus is. The Holy Spirit inspired John to write: [1 John 5:20] We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. The Holy Spirit also inspired the writer to the Hebrews to say: [Hebrews 4:15] We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. These verses and many others tell us that Jesus is the sinless Son of God. He actually is God in human flesh. He is true and He imparts understanding.
So, today’s Gospel tells us that the sinless … Holy God in the flesh … Jesus Christ … gives division. That means that our culture is wrong when it insists that it is always wrong to be divisive. For the sinless Son of God clearly states the He gives not peace, but division. That means that … sometimes … being divisive is the right thing to do.
We see this throughout the accounts of the Gospel. Some people approached Jesus like the blind man near Jericho who [Luke 18:38] cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus was always ready to forgive and heal such people. The Bible describes Jesus’ reaction with words like this: [Matthew 9:36] When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Then there were the people who came to Jesus with an ulterior motive. For example the temple authorities [Mark 12:13] sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. Jesus responded to people like this with divisive words. For example: [Mark 12:24] [He] said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? Jesus actually told them they were wrong and that they were Biblically ignorant.
We see in this example that the real source of division does not lie with Jesus. The problem is with people who reject the unity that Jesus offers. The true source of division is the people who reject Jesus’ teachings. As they do this, they divide themselves from Jesus and from those who believe in Jesus. That division will not respect families or friendships or any other boundary of society. It is not that Jesus wants this division. Instead, Jesus is simply warning us of the division that will happen in this sinful world.
This division is especially strong in our current culture. That is because we are willing to sacrifice truth for the sake of peace. We are willing to tolerate all sorts of evil for the sake of “just getting along.” We do not base our decisions on what is right, but on what is pleasurable. We are more interested in what makes us feel good than in what truly is good.
The really sad thing about this is that there can be no real peace without truth. Jesus said, [John 8:31–32] “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So it is Jesus Himself who established truth as the source of freedom and He taught that the truth that frees us is found in His very Word … the Bible.
Christ’s attitude toward the truth also caused the famous American Evangelist, Adrian Rogers, to say, “It is better to be divided by truth, than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than to speak a lie that will comfort and then kill. It is better to be hated for telling the truth, than to be loved for telling a lie. It is better to stand alone with the truth, than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately die with the truth, than to live with a lie.”
The devil, the world, and especially our own sinful nature despise the truth. They despise the truth because the truth states that we are fallen sinners. The truth is that each and every one of us sins many times every day. That means each and every one of us earns God’s eternal punishment every day. The truth is that there is nothing that we can do to rescue ourselves from this condition. This is a terrifying truth that we would rather ignore.
The problem with ignoring the truth is that ignoring the truth does not make the truth go away. Although the truth of our sin is terrifying, ignoring this truth is the most dangerous thing we can do.
When we ignore the truth of our sin, we also ignore the truth of the Gospel. The truth of the Gospel tells us that God Himself took on our human flesh and entered our world in order to rescue us from our sin. Jesus Christ who is one with God the Father took on our flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. From this very conception, He lived a perfect life … a life totally without sin. Then, in spite of His perfection, He submitted to the sacrifice of suffering and death on a cross. By His perfect life and His holy sacrifice, He rescued you from the punishment of your sin, and earned the eternal joy and bliss of His eternal presence for you and all humanity. This is the truth of the Gospel.
We know that the Gospel is true because even though Jesus died on the cross, He did not remain dead. When His friends went to the tomb to finish the burial process, His body was gone and during the following forty days, He showed Himself to hundreds of people who touched Him, spoke with Him, and ate with Him.
The devil, the world, and especially our own sinful nature will do anything to hide this truth from you. They will label you as divisive, narrow-minded, bigoted, hateful, and so forth. They will tempt you to surrender the truth just so that you can get along. In this way, they hope to rob you of the truth that saves. They say that they are trying to create unity when they are really trying to create division … especially division between us and God.
Jesus warns us about the deception of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature by telling us the truth that unity with God will cause division with the world. God does not cause these divisions. It is the false doctrines of false teachers who cause the divisions. As the Holy Spirit inspired Jeremiah to write in our Old Testament reading, “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.’” Everyone who expresses an opinion without checking it against the Word of God is a false prophet. They are the true dividers.
Jesus gives us hope against these divisions. He said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” The fire in this verse is the fire of God’s wrath that will fall on Him. The Baptism is His crucifixion. These words teach us that Jesus knew there was a cross waiting for Him in Jerusalem. They also teach us that His love is so powerful that He was eager to endure that cross in order to earn forgiveness for us. This is the forgiveness of sins that He offers to all humanity.
The Holy Spirit wants to pour the truth of the Gospel into us in order to establish and strengthen our faith so that we will live with Jesus into all eternity. There, in eternity, there will be no division for we shall all be perfectly united with Jesus Christ. Amen
The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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