Sermon Tone Analysis
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Luke 12:49-56
The Revised Common Lectionary sometimes has a very awkward passage selection.
In this case, the passage begins in the middle of a discourse by Jesus.
If one has not read the previous portion of the discourse, one might not understand this passage as one ought.
Since this passage deals with the importance of spiritual discernment, it is important that we be properly informed.
The lectionary passage from the previous week ends with Luke 12:40: “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
Beginning with Luke 12:41, Jesus elaborates further.
Jesus answers Peter that the parable he had just spoken was for them and not all people directly.
He desires that they be wise and faithful stewards who will teach others in the LORD’s house to properly discern the truth of the Gospel.
Jesus warns all who have been given authority in His house as stewards to be gainfully employed and watchful.
Jesus is going to return and expects everything to be in order.
the stewards who are drunken and mistreat His lesser servants will be severely punished when He returns.
The return of Christ is central to the understanding of what Jesus is saying here.
It is at this time that the faithful stewards will be rewarded and the faithless punished.
Those who have been entrusted much shall suffer the greater punishment.
This morning’s text begins with the warning that Jesus had come to bring fire upon the earth.
And Jesus declares that He wishes it were already kindled.
This is a shocking statement considering that preaching emphasizes the love and long-suffering.
But the Greek is very strong here and cannot be softened.
Fire is often used in Scripture to denote God’s judgment.
Jesus is more than ready to execute final judgment.
We do proclaim that Jesus will being all things into judgment at the Last Day.
But Jesus places this judgment at least in part to His own life on earth.
It would be a mistake to not discern the ongoing judgment of Jesus Christ.
Jesus continues to shock us in this passage by referring to a baptism He needed to be baptised with.
We know that Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist at the beginning of His ministry, so this reference to baptism must mean something else.
John also mentioned that Jesus would baptize with fire.
We think of this as the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
I think this is a true statement as far as it goes.
If one looks at preaching in the Apostolic age, the message is “Repent or else!”
As Paul says in Acts 17:30 to the Greeks on Mars Hill in Athens, God had winked at their ignorance.
They were now being told the truth, and they needed to immediately repent, or else.
Paul told them that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead made the last judgment certain.
It is this Jesus who will judge all.
But here, Jesus seems to be talking about a third baptism.
He was already filled with and led by the Holy Spirit.
So this baptism refers to something else.
The context indicates this baptism to be His suffering and dying on the cross.
Jesus had endured much weariness in His earthly ministry.
He know what lay ahead for Him which was to be rejected by the chief priests and elders followed by death from crucifixion.
As hard as earthly life might be, virtually all of us would like to procrastinate crucifixion.
But Jesus seemed eager to embrace it.
This sacrifice was to save those who believed and would believe on Him.
For these, He was eager to go to the cross to free them from the bondage to sin and death.
But there is another side.
No one would any longer be able to make excuse.
Those would have to embrace the fullness of eternal judgment.
There is grace to the believer, but the promise of wrath to those who do not believe.
This very hard passage gets even harder when Jesus now says that He had not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword.
We think of the heavenly host at Jesus’ birth singing “Peace on Earth!” Does not Isaiah 9:7 call Jesus the “Prince of Peace.”
What’s with the violence here?
Perhaps we need to finish the heavenly hosts message.
In the King James Version we read “Good will to men.”
This seems to be a universal declaration of good will to all.
However we must first realize that the word “hosts” properly means “armies”.
The second is that the statement is better rendered “upon those whom His favor rests.”
The offer might be of peace being made available to all, but it is only effective upon those who would come to believe.
The promise of peace is universal, but also conditional as well.
Jesus now clarifies what He means by the sword.
Those who follow Jesus will be treated in the same way He was treated.
A disciple is not above his master.
Those who would mistreat Jesus would mistreat them as well.
Earthly families and associations would be strained and fractured.
Christians would be ostracized by even their own families.
The peace of family and work relationships would rupture even to violence.
One should think that if a Jewish family cast a family member out as an “apostate” that they would hod a funeral for that person.
then it was up to the father or eldest brother to make this symbolic death a reality.
Some places still have honor killings today.
This is not to say that God is in favor of breakups of earthly families.
It is His will that all of them would repent and follow Him.
But the reality has often proved otherwise.
But in these cases, God gives the believer a new family to belong to.
However, we cannot paper over how painful these family ruptures are.
Jesus experienced rupture in His own earthly family.
John 7 states that His own earthly brothers did not believe on Him.
At one point in His ministry, they came with His mother Mary to take Him away as a madman.
Be sure that Jesus in His earthly existence knew this pain.
And He is able to comfort us in our pain as well.
The good news is that James and Jude and perhaps others came later to believe on Him after the resurrection.
May this be true for us as well.
Don’t give up hope.
But the best thing we can do is to remain firm to our convictions and not compromise.
Jesus now refers to the forecasting of the weather and being able to discern the face of the sky.
It was commonly held that when clouds arose from the west, that is the Mediterranean Sea, that a shower was coming.
But a wind blowing from the south meant hot weather in Palestine.
This was a pretty good rule of thumb, but the failures of weather forecasters to predict the weather is proverbial.
Even with all the satellites and forecasting computers, they still get it wrong too often.
But Jesus isn’t interested about forecasting the weather here.
Even a dullard having read these verses can discern that.
We need to discern what Jesus means by this comparison.
What would it have meant to those who heard Jesus speak that day?
What does it mean for us?
Jesus is speaking to more than His disciples.
the text says He spoke this to the people.
These people were Jews for the most part if not all.
But this does not mean that they all held to the same ideas.
there were Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and other sects of Judaism that may have been represented.
There was a general expectancy that this was the time for the Messiah (or Messiah’s) to appear.
the land was under Roman occupation.
They looked to Scripture and to teachers of the Scripture to examine the Biblical prophesies to discern those times.
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