24 October 2013 - fire on the earth

24 October 2013 - fire on the earth

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!

What is this fire?  Is it destruction?  After all, it presages division in today's reading.  But no, it is the power of the Holy Spirit, by definition creation and life!  Just as John the Baptist says, Jesus "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." It is precisely in this that we experience the new life in Christ and the power of his resurrection.  But first, before the Spirit is available to us, there is a baptism which Jesus himself must endure:

There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!

Our baptism in the Spirit is predicated upon the baptism of blood which Jesus experiences on the cross.  Only after this does he pour out his Spirit upon us.  His Spirit is the living water which flows from his side on the cross.  We must be like trees planted in that stream.

He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.

If we first receive the baptism of the Spirit we are empowered to stand with Jesus in the winds of difficulty which drive the chaff away.  We are empowered to stand with him even unto a baptism of blood.

"You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with,
We are filled with his Spirit and so are able to embrace his cross.  The cross is an invitation to the world.  As such, it divides those who accept it from those who don't.  And since to accept his cross is to surrender our very lives and wills to him it is divisive indeed.  Yet we are able to face any divisions which being his follower causes. 

From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;

We know that there is no profit in lawlessness and sin.  We know that "the end of those things is death."  Death is "wages" for sin.  It is the thing earned.  It is our due.  But the alternative, eternal life in Christ Jesus, is a gift.  We see this gift the most profoundly as Jesus gives himself for us on the cross.  We see the blood and water pouring forth for us.  His obedience is fire which purifies our disobedience.  His love is the water of life which washes us of our impurity and sin.