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spent1304
The Word Ablaze
Text:
Luke 12:49-53
Date: Pentecost XIII
8/29/04 keygen dap 5.3
I
don't recall if I came up with this sermon title last summer before
or after the theme of the upcoming convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod was revealed, “Ablaze,” “One Mission: Ablaze.” While many
of us thought it a bit odd, the image of fire in the Bible has two
sides to it. Its primary meaning is the fire of God's wrath and
judgment against sin. The prophet Malachi writes, "Behold,
I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. And the
Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger
of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says
the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and
who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and
like fullers' soap” [Malachi 3:1-2 (ESV)]. John the Baptist said
that when the Christ would come he would “baptize” the people with
the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3:16). And when he didn't see
the fire—the heavy hand of judgment in Jesus' ministry—he questioned
whether Jesus was the One or should he look for another (Luke 7:18-19).
Jesus spoke of hell as “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43). On the other
hand, at Pentecost fire and the Holy Spirit are associated (Acts
2:3). One side of fire is wrath, judgment and destruction. The other
side is conversion, purification and commission to a holy task.
When Jesus says today, “I came to cast fire on the earth,” he has
in mind to teach his disciples the darker side of life as a disciple,
of commitment and what it means to be a member of his kingdom, a
theologian of the cross. The message of peace on earth is not received
without conflict. “Do you think that I have come to give peace on
earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
This
division is the conflict between nothing less than sin and righteousness,
between rebellion and reconciliation, between death and life. The
banner and standard is the cross. As the salvation of the world
required the “strange and dreadful strife” [LW 123:2] of the pure,
holy and atoning, bloody sacrifice of no one less than the Son of
God himself on the Cross, so saving faith implies also the dying
of the sinful self through repentance, turning from sin, renunciation
of the devil and all his works and all his ways; a turning to the
Way, the Truth and the Life and following Jesus regardless of the
cost. As Jesus uses the word “baptism” to refer to the ordeal or
trial of suffering and death he must endure for us, so to be baptized
in him with water and the Word is to be joined to his death and
resurrection, the old, sinful self thrust under the water to be
drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and a new man emerging
and arising to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “when Christ calls a man he bids him
come and die.”
People
today, especially in these syncretistic times, have been lulled
into the dream that, since they think all religions are equally
valid, and since I certainly grant everyone else the freedom to
believe what they will, that I, likewise, will be allowed to believe
in Christ if I want to and everyone else ought to just leave me
alone. That is, to quote an old song, to dream the impossible dream,
however. For one cannot be a faithful Christian and keep silence!
The First Commandment allows for no other gods, and the command
to witness, to acknowledge Christ before men, to preach the gospel
to the whole world means to bring the crisis of the exclusive claims
of Christ to everyone, an offense of greater proportions today than
ever in our lifetime.
When
Jesus speaks of the fire he came to cast on earth he says, “and
would that it were already kindled!” He knows that the fire of God's
judgment was to be poured out on him as the atoning sacrifice for
the world on the cross. When he speaks of the baptism or ordeal
that awaits him he says, “and how great is my distress until it
is accomplished!” That word “accomplished” identifies his passion
as his destiny, the very reason for his coming into our world.
When
Jesus stepped into that River to be baptized by John, the wildfire
began. For there he identified himself in solidarity with all fallen
humankind. There he began the road of his destiny to be our substitute
under the wrath of God. It was then in his baptism of blood on the
cross where he so identified himself with sinners that he took all
the wrath and judgment of God on our sin upon himself. There is
the water baptism and the blood baptism, as Saint John writes in
his First Epistle, “This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus
Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And
the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the
blood; and these three agree” [1 John 5:6-8 (ESV)]. Testify to what?
The Spirit, the water and the blood testify to Jesus' identification
with all of sinful mankind to such a degree as to be the world's
only Savior and Redeemer.
As
Luke lays this out for his readers he shows the relationship between
the sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper in our identity
with and life of following the Savior. Baptism proclaims Jesus'
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