Fire? Division, not peace? Hypocrites? Why does Jesus have to say such things? I mean, I suppose I could just skip all those things he says like what we just heard him say. Not my Jesus. Not my Gospel. My Jesus would never talk like that. I would be doing all of you a lot of earthly good if I passed over such words in silence, so that we never even knew Jesus says such things. The Bible says so many things we don’t really like, that we don’t agree with. We love the love; we aren’t crazy about the judgment and punishment, which means we aren’t crazy about the righteousness—there you go. Pastor and biblical scholar William Barclay noted that “[h]owever much we may wish to eliminate the element of judgment from the message of Jesus it remains stubbornly and unalterably there.”[1]

Righteousness isn’t really our thing. We like the love without the righteousness, the holiness, hence the world we live in. The polite thing, of course, is to ignore all the unpleasant—might we even say unfortunate? —things Jesus says. Alternatively, we could dismiss it with scholarly erudition. There are scholars and professors whose aim is not to explain but to explain away what the Bible says. The Bible says it, but I don’t like it, I don’t believe it, so the Bible must be wrong. Thomas Jefferson just took a knife and cut out of the Bible the things he didn’t like, didn’t agree with.

I’m not here to be any earthly good, as you figured out months ago. I’m here, up here, reading to you from this book, speaking to you about what we read in this book, God-willing, to do you some heavenly good. Our time on earth is short, comparatively speaking. The time God promises those who entrust their lives to Him in Jesus Christ stretches on beyond our ability to reckon: eternity.

Jesus says things that make us wince because he is telling us the truth: God tells us the truth. Some parts of the truth we like; we aren’t too sure about other parts of the truth. We’re human. We’re fallen. In Christ, we are redeemed: the Holy Spirit’s power is now actively at work in us, restoring us, preparing us for glory beyond our wildest dreams, beyond our most deeply whispered hopes. The biggest obstacle to attaining that glory remains, as always, us.

Jesus says to those listening, the mixed crowds and his own disciples, that he has come to set the earth on fire (12:49). The earth is cold, beloved: cold-hearted—look at how people treat each other. We need to have our hearts warmed. Jesus comes to start a fire. We need to be purified, the impurities burned away. My heart is not pure. My thoughts are not pure. I need that weekly confession we make together here during worship: one of the first things we do. How about you? When we come before God to offer Him our worship, our praise and devotion, we must acknowledge that we’re not coming here clean: we’re tracking our mud onto His white carpet. He doesn’t drive us away, and He wants us to admit what we’re doing. Fire purifies, burns away the impurities: the Spirit consumes the dross, burns it away, as it refines the gold God gives us. We will shine with Christ, one day, brothers and sisters, have no doubt!

You and I know, though, that fire does a lot more than give warmth and purify. Fire consumes. Fire destroys. Jesus comes to give warmth and to purify. Jesus comes to consume and to destroy. Jesus went to the cross as our redeemer; he rose from the grave as our savior; he ascended to the Father as our king; he will come again as judge, and he will do perfect justice. We hear so much about justice, these days. If you hunger and thirst for justice, hunger and thirst for Christ. I know there is much beauty and kindness out there, and in here, our hearts. There is also much wickedness among mankind. God will burn it away. He will burn it away in Jesus. Jesus not only forgives sin, he destroys sin—on that day the Father only knows, there will be no more sin.

Jesus does come to bring peace—the angels announced it outside Bethlehem: the joy of Christmas. And this peace the angels sang comes after the fire. The fire brings the peace. We can’t get to the peace without the fire. That’s what my Bible reading shows me. Read the Bible and come and tell me what you’re learning, there. Peace comes after, after the cleansing, after the division that tears families apart. We hear about broken families; indeed, the family seems as if it may very well be broken here in America, another symptom of the world we live in: fallen, big on love but not so hot on righteousness. We know about broken families. Maybe you came from or you are in a broken family. Surely, Jesus will knit our families back together? Surely, Jesus comes with peace and love? He does, oh yes, he does—and the peace and love come as a result of the judgment, the cleansing, the division. The family Jesus knits back together, by grace through the power of the Spirit, is the family of God.

Beloved, let’s not be shocked that Jesus says he hasn’t come to bring peace to the world (12:51). He has come to bring God’s peace to those who receive and believe the Gospel, the Good News. We get confused about peace, as we get confused about so many of the most fundamental, the most important things: confused about love, confused about justice, confused about faith, confused about peace. The world likes us confused; sin wants us confused.

Peace is not the absence of conflict. There is a “peace,” a supposed peace, that resolves nothing, that merely covers over conflict. Whoever said ignorance is bliss didn’t get it quite right; ignorance is peace: ignore it and you have “peace.” The peace that followed World War One was such a peace; so, too, the peace that followed World War Two: no, our armies and navies were no longer battling, but the root causes of conflict remained: retribution, thirst for dominance, control, power. The root cause of all conflict is sin. Jesus exposes it. Jesus exposes every heart, and we see for ourselves, in Christ, where loyalties lie.

The peace Jesus brings now, and will bring fully on that day known to the Father only, brings true resolution, brings God’s justice, stability, brings true flourishing; our response is and will be thankful joy, ongoingly: hearts full of unending love for God who purifies.

Jesus uses words very similar to the words God spoke through His prophet Micah, when he speaks of fathers in conflict with sons, and sons with fathers, mothers with daughters, and so forth (12:52-53; see Micah 7:6). When God gets into a family, reality emerges from the sedimented layers of unreality. Were your parents glad or mystified that you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Are your brothers and sisters all happy that you know Jesus? Have your children followed in the faith, really? Some of us may be able to answer yes, some are forced to answer no. Some of you will have to admit that your parents weren’t very religious: Jesus didn’t mean that much to them. Some of you will have to admit that your brother or your sister thinks it’s really weird, even a bit stupid, for you to talk about Jesus and loving Jesus and all that, and they don’t want to hear about it. And some of you—is this the hardest? maybe, I think—some of you will have to admit that your son, or your daughter, doesn’t have room in his or her heart for Jesus. It hurts! Jesus brings division. Jesus brings hope, absolutely, and Jesus brings division: in Jesus, we learn where loyalties truly lie.

Why does Jesus say these hard things that hurt? Why can’t it all be peace and love? Look into your own heart, and you’ll see the answer, staring you in the face. Jesus isn’t the only one, living there.

Jesus says he has a baptism to receive, and that he is distressed until it is over (12:50). I suspect you know what he’s talking about. Yes, he was baptized by John in the waters of the Jordan: this was his consecration, a further step into his purpose: at the hands of John, the Father sets apart the Son to go to the cross. There, at the cross, on the cross, the love we love and the righteousness we aren’t crazy about meet, and bring peace, peace with God. That’s the baptism Jesus means: that awful plunge into—what? —into death? I don’t think Jesus was afraid of death. If he was afraid of anything (if we can use that word about Jesus), if he was reluctant about anything, it was about sin, becoming sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.

So many of my clothes, my shirts especially, are stained. I didn’t think I was that sloppy! I hate getting a stain—clothes are expensive. I try to get the stain out, of course, but it’s a laborious process, and, in my case, it doesn’t always work. Have you ever gotten mud spattered on white pants? One time, many years ago, my dad knocked his coffee, his hot coffee, over onto my white pants at a restaurant. I need to stop wearing white pants. How about mustard on a white shirt? How about blood? Our kitten decided it was time to relieve his bladder: it couldn’t get to the litter box, so it hunkered down over my work pants. The pants are green, not white—I have learned some things! —and I got to them right away, but what if I hadn’t? Ugh!

If we, who are stained through and through, still wince at getting yet another stain, how much more the one who had no stain? Jesus had no stain, never one, and his Father sends him, tells him, that he will be covered by, soaked with every conceivable stain, every sticky, reeking, bloody stain: no wonder Jesus was in distress until that baptism was complete!

But we hear some of what Jesus says and kind of wish he didn’t say such things, or at least that we didn’t have to hear such things. Preacher, talk about love more, patience, kindness, hope, charity, compassion, grace! Sisters and brothers, every week, that is exactly what I am talking about. I am talking about these according to what the Bible says of them. This is a book entirely about love, patience, kindness, and hope, compassion, and grace, set in a world of lives lost in disobedience, ruthless self-seeking, brutality, and despair.

Jesus calls those listening, mixed crowds, and even his disciples, hypocrites (12:56). Stop, Jesus! There’s a problem, here, though, that needs to be cleared up. We hear this word hypocrite and think of someone putting on an act: people who claim to believe things they obviously don’t. Beloved, there is a difference between putting on an act of piety, holiness, faith, and genuinely struggling the way Paul speaks of his struggles: doing what he does not want to do, not doing what he does want to do: flesh and spirit at war in him (Rom 7:14-25). Anyone here know something about that?

Jesus’ key charge against the Pharisees wasn’t that they didn’t really care about holiness and living in obedience to God. Jesus wasn’t accusing them of being liars. He agrees that they believe they are being faithful. He accuses them of not truly knowing God. They claim God yet do not truly know God—thus, hypocrites. If you don’t know God, you can’t be truly holy or truly obedient. They know the world but don’t know God. They can judge the signs well enough to know what’s coming, regarding the weather, but they have blinded themselves to the signs of what’s coming, spiritually (12:54-56). They have convinced themselves of their own righteousness, because they live a certain way and refrain from certain things and don’t associate with certain people—that’s all well and good, but salvation is not in those things. God’s favor is not in those things. We know and love God when we know and love Christ; we know and love Christ when we know and love this book.

Everyone who doesn’t understand who Jesus is and what Jesus is offering is on their way to trial. They are so confident in their virtue that they are allowing themselves to be dragged into court. Jesus must have had some legal education, because he says don’t let yourself be dragged into court! Settle! Settle now, while there’s time (12:58).

In front of God, without Jesus, no one has a strong case. In front of God, without Jesus, we are all in the wrong. Christ took all our stains upon himself at the cross so that—so that—in him, we would be right with God. Apart from him, we are all in the wrong. We have no case. A weak case is no case at all. Judgment comes, and the one at fault will end up in prison until the last penny of the fine has been paid (12:59). What do you possess that could be sold to raise the money to pay the fine to the last penny? What is so valuable among all your valuables? And to whom would you sell it? Who could afford to pay you all you will need, to pay that fine to the last penny?

You, though, have already settled with God. Do we need to hear such preaching? I do. I still do. Maybe you do, too: only you can answer that. And how many, beloved, how many people out there need to hear a Word of life, still? What shall we say to them? If you take away anything, today, from what I’ve been saying, I hope it will be some sense of something you might say, might share, that you might feel a little more eager for sharing the Gospel with a neighbor, speaking a timely Word. Ask them, invite them, urge them, plead with them to settle now, before all rise, and court is in session.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

               [1] William Barclay. Gospel of Luke. Daily Study Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975. 169.