Luke 12:49-56 (NRSV)
Read Luke 12:49-56 on biblegateway.com
Verse 49"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! Verse 50I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Verse 51Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! Verse 52From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; Verse 53they 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."
Verse 54He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. Verse 55And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. Verse 56You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Devotion
Jesus came to bring fire to the earth. Fire brings judgment and cleansing. How difficult this word is to understand, since the word about Jesus is that he came to us to save us from our sins. And yet these two things, salvation and judgment, are not separate, but part of a whole. God’s salvation for us begins with God judging everything that we would put in the place of God. All of these things are futile and empty (Romans 1:17; 8:20). They lead to death, not life. And it is God’s will that we die to these futile gods, not so that we are separated from him, but so that we die to ourselves and the arrogance of putting ourselves in the place of God. This is the first step in our salvation.
Prayer
Dear God, help us to understand that suffering does not mean that you are far from us, but that Jesus was baptized in suffering so that you are with us even in the suffering and dying of this world. Amen.