Jesus, A Cosmic Crisis
Proper 15, Year C
Photo: "Fire 0.1" by Marcus Obal.
Introduction
Jesus, along with his forerunner John, shared the belief of their Jewish contemporaries that a coming “Day of the Lord” bringing judgement and salvation would usher in the end-time Kingdom of God.¹ But they were also unique in two significant ways.
First, they proclaimed these events were immanent (“at hand”). Second, this whole complex of events orbited around Jesus’ personal presence – who he was, what he said and what he did. Thus, a note of urgency and gravity surrounded their ministries.
The presence of the Kingdom in Jesus presents all who encountered him with a crisis. Our lives and world are determined by him and our response to him. The ongoing proclamation of the Kingdom of God in Jesus the Christ still creates this crisis.
Jesus came proclaiming the gospel in the flesh bringing crisis to Israel; as the risen Lord he comes proclaiming the gospel by the Spirit through the church bringing crisis to the nations; he will come in glory bringing final cosmic crisis. These three “comings” are one.
Jesus Christ the Lord comes... comes creating a cosmic crisis recentering all time and space around Him. The Father sends the Son in the power of the Spirit and so crisis comes to the heart of world history and to the hearts of all those who inhabit it. It comes here, now.
Jesus’ Vocation of Judgement and Salvation
Fire! As Jesus nears Jerusalem and the climax of his earthly ministry, he gives a passionate statement about completing his mission. "Fire I came to cast on the land and how I wish it were already blazing!
Pyromaniac - someone with a compulsion to set things on fire. Jesus the pyromaniac? Not exactly a comforting image! Typically, we think of a person like this as merely destructive. But Jesus does not long for the ruin of his people, rather their judgment and salvation.
The fire of God’s judgement is the fire of God’s love.² God’s wrath is God’s response to all that defaces and dehumanizes our lives and world. Judgment is an intricate part of what it means to set the world aright. If salvation is to come, judgement must inevitably come as well.
Baptism! As Jesus nears Jerusalem and the culmination of his ministry, he gives another passionate statement about completing his mission. “Baptism I have with which to be baptized and how compelled I am until it is accomplish!”
Baptomaniac - someone with a compulsion to undergo baptism (yeah, just made that up). Jesus the baptomaniac? Not exactly a comforting image! Like fire, baptism is an image of undergoing an ordeal, a deluge of judgment. But again, not for the sake of ruin.
In Luke Jesus’ public ministry began with a baptism and now he is compelled to complete it in another. Both baptisms are done on the behalf of God’s people in light of coming judgment. The first at the Jordan, the last at Golgotha; the first in water, the last in blood.
Pyromaniac...Baptomaniac. Taken out of context, Jesus’ words do seem to reflect a sorta mania. But Luke’s storyline has already revealed his unique identity both at his birth and baptism. He is the Son of God and Israel’s Davidic messiah compelled by a divine mission.
Baptism for Jesus, fire on the land. As Israel’s Messiah, Jesus will undergo a baptism of judgment (death) and salvation (resurrection) in order that God’s people may undergo the fire of judgment and salvation.
We tend to place judgment at the end of time, and so it will be. As we confess, “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.” But today Jesus tells his disciples and the crowds that judgment is integral not only to his “second” coming but also his “first.”
Judgment is not only the precondition for the coming of final salvation; if salvation is already present in Jesus’ life and work, judgment is already present when this salvation is rejected.
So, if the kingdom of God is at hand, then not only is salvation at hand but so is judgment. Jesus presents all who encounter him with a crisis. Our lives and world are determined by him and our response to him. Even now he brings division (cf. Lk. 2:34-35; 3:9, 17).
Jesus, a Family Crisis
Aware that this may not fit with his disciples’ expectations Jesus asks us, "Do you think that I came to bring peace to the land? We say, “well yes Jesus, after all you’re, ‘the Prince of Peace.’ You said, ‘Blessed are the peace makers...’ Jesus, you're a Mennonite, right?”
“We were here at Christmas when we heard Luke’s angels proclaim at your birth, ‘Glory to God in the highest & on earth peace...’ - not fire! We were here at Easter when you greeted us with your Easter message, ‘Peace be with you.’ You're about peace from beginning to end.”
Just about the time we think we’re scoring an “A” in catechism class, Jesus rather bluntly answers his own question, “No!... No, I tell you, but rather division!” Is Jesus confused? Changing course? And division, really!?
With all the divisiveness in our society over politics and religion, sexuality and marriage, vaccines and masks – to name just a few; who wants to come to church and hear Jesus talk about more divisiveness? We can stay home and get that on CNN or FOX.
I think it was Albert Einstein who said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Jesus isn’t abandoning a mission of peace; it is simply more complex than we might imagine. Peace will come, but only through a time of division.³
Jesus says this division over him will literally hit home, bringing a rupture in even our most cherished and intimate of human relationships – the family. When some family members follow him, and others do not, he is a family crisis.⁴
Now as then, disciples need preparation for this hard truth. How could the dissolution of family ties, one of God’s own “social constructs” (or “institutions”) be sanctioned by God? Can this be “a man of God” if he divides the people of God?
Jesus’ words here and elsewhere make it foolish to say, as some do, that “the church is founded on the family.” In such a project, Jesus is caught up into the service of the family rather than the other way ‘round. “Family values” becomes but another name for idolatry.
Jesus refuses this project. The family does not save, it needs saving. Only Jesus saves. Jesus is not anti-family, but all our legitimate loves must be reordered to the love of God, even if it means a breach in our most cherished relationships (e.g. Lk. 9:59, 61).
Many of us know firsthand this is painfully true. We sit in church without our spouse or children or both. I don’t know if you’ve ever notice, but that’s many of us on any given Sunday. This is a hard truth.
At the present time, reconciliation with God can mean alienation from people. And when it does, especially in our families, we can often beat ourselves up wondering what went wrong. Today’s text may be oddly comforting. “What went wrong? Well...maybe nothing.”⁵
Jesus Gathers a Holy Family
Jesus understands. Luke hints at this early on when, at twelve, Jesus is lost for three days and nights. When found, his mother says, “Your father & I have been anxiously looking for you!” But he responds, “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house/business?” (l.k. 2).
Jesus may be a source of division in his own family and ours, but from Luke’s larger storyline we learn that, while this crisis in our families will no doubt remain painful for us, we are not without family. For he is gathering a holy family around him. For example...
Jesus’ mother & brothers once came to visit him but cannot do so because of the crowd. When someone tells Jesus, “Your mother and brothers are outside waiting to see you,” he says, “My mother & my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Lk. 8:21)
Another time a woman in the crowd yells out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Lk. 11:27)
The family Jesus is gathering around him is not defined by biology but by those who “hear the word of God and do it,” i.e. by discipleship to Jesus.Jesus makes God our Father, himself our brother and us siblings of one another.
This is not simply, as sociologist might say, a “fictive kin group,” it is that but much more. It is a family of divine-human communion brought about by the Holy Spirit. And it’s here we do well to return to the beginning of our text where there was talk of baptism and fire.
At his baptism on the cross the Son of God suffers family alienation yet again. He is God-forsaken by his Father on our behalf. He again seemed to be lost for three days and nights. But all along he was about his Father’s business; suffering judgment for our sake and our salvation.
This is described in Luke’s sequel, Acts. It opens with Pentecost when the risen and ascended Lord sets the land on fire, beginning in Jerusalem and then to the ends of the earth! He baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and fire, just as the Baptist had promised (c.f. Lk. 3:16-17).
Like the burning bush, God’s people can now receive the gift of God’s holy presence without being consumed. Rather we are purgated/sanctified with the fire of God’s holy love. The Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son.
So though the baptismal gift of the Spirit we are made a holy family, given a share in the relationship of the Father and the Son. The first Epistle of John puts it simply and boldly, “Come have fellowship with us! And our fellowship is with the Father and the Son.”
Those baptized in the name of the one God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are made a part of the Family of God – a place of Holy Communion. So, brothers and sisters, come to the Family table - the Lord’s Table, and give thanks!
See “Jesus and Judgement: The Eschatological Proclamation in Its Jewish Context” by Marius Reiser.
2. God’s judgment and love (wrath and mercy) are neither competitive nor contradictory. God is holy love, God’s wrath and judgment are not fundamental to who God is but are various manifestations of this holy love toward that which defaces and dehumanizes our lives and world. (In theology this way of putting things refers to aspects of divine simplicity and impassibility).
3. Jesus sees this division in light of his Scriptures. He goes on to allude to the prophet Micah (ch. 6) who long ago described a time of tribulation characterized by family divisions that would precede the end of exile and the coming of God’s Kingdom. See, “Jesus, The Tribulation, and the End of Exile” by Brant Pitre.
4. The family here will not only refer to what we might anachronistically call the “nuclear family,” but also extend to Israel. Jesus will be the source of a division in the people of God as well. But note Reisner’s way of understanding this. “[Jesus] reckons with a division running through Israel itself...But he never surrendered his claim to the whole of Isreal. Even when he had to know that the larger part of Israel had closed itself against his message. His refusal to be satisfied with this inviting solution ultimately led him not only to go deliberately to his death, but to regard it as a “ransom for many,” that is the unbelieving part of Israel.” (Reisner, p. 313)
5. Maybe! Douglas John Hall says, “we suffer with Christ (in faithfulness to Christ) we suffer under Christ (because we are unfaithful to Christ), and then we suffer because we aren’t sure which it was.” I.e. was I a saint or a jerk?