God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon today is
entitled Distress, Division, Discipleship, and my focus is Luke 12:49-53.
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they
said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet
are standing within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may
your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus
loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
If pain or suffering is affecting my body or mind, I am
distressed. If I am in a state of danger or desperate need, I am distressed. If
I am a ship without power or taking on water, I am distressed. It’s bad news if
my business or administration is distressed, but good news if my furniture or
jeans are distressed.
The word distress means a circumstance that causes anxiety or
hardship. It comes to us from the Latin word distringere meaning to draw
apart, compel or coerce. Dis means lack of, opposite of or apart, and stringere
means to draw tight or press together.
In our Gospel today, Jesus is greatly distressed. Other
translations state that Jesus was afflicted, burdened, constrained, consumed,
pressed and pent up. Why? Jesus opens his message by telling his disciples that
he came to cast fire upon the earth. In itself, this is not unusual. Fire is
mentioned over 600 times in the Old Testament. We all know the danger and
destruction fire brings, but I never associated fire with distress, as Jesus
does in our Gospel. Fire destroys and purifies, and the fire of God’s wrath
laid on Jesus led to his death and destroyed the power of sin and hell. Jesus
first received this wrath when he entered the water of baptism by John in the
Jordan River. He continued to stand under that wrath until it was satisfied in
his crucifixion. So, Jesus knew that he was to bear this fiery wrath and
end-time judgment, and his distress expressed his desire for it to be accomplished.
In our Bible study of Isaiah, we read in chapter 49 that the
Prophet was distressed. The antidote to distress is to rest in God’s promise,
and to allow the Father’s work to be done. The Father’s work, as well as that
of the Son, was completed when Jesus was upon the Cross. Jesus, on his way to
Jerusalem (see 9:51), knew the outcome of his journey’s end and the horror that
awaited him in Jerusalem. He was to be the holocaust or the whole burnt
offering – offered up for the sin of the world. So, until that moment arrived,
Jesus would be distressed.
Next, division. Most of us learned division in third grade. We
memorized flash cards and completed homework assignments. We know that division
is the act of separating into parts, portions or shares. Military branches and
multinational corporations have separate divisions. Communities have
subdivisions, and our homes are divided into rooms. When we divide, we force
apart or separate. We sever the union or connection. Our nation was once
officially divided (Civil War) and remains unofficially divided over numerous
issues.
Was Jesus’ intention to force apart families? Was he trying to
get people to choose sides? Was he attempting to segregate believers from
unbelievers? In this passage, Jesus moved from distress to speaking about the
divisive effect of his suffering and death, which would be the kindling of the end-time
fire and baptism that lead to his coming in judgment. Furthermore, the divisive
impact of his presence in the world would continue through the ministry of his
apostles after his death, resurrection and ascension.
In speaking about the fire Jesus came to cast and the baptism
with which he had to be baptized is about his destiny in Jerusalem. This
baptism brings division, and it seems rather ironic because he was supposed to
bring peace. That is what Zechariah prophesied in chapter one. “In the
tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to
shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our
feet into the way of peace.” Throughout his ministry Jesus did bring
peace to sinners and sick people. He commanded the disciples to announce peace
as they went off in pairs. When he entered Jerusalem, the crowds sang his
blessings and of peace in heaven and glory in the highest! Even his first words
after he rose from the dead offered peace to his disciples. So, how do we
reconcile all these passages of peace with the division his baptism would bring?
Peace between God and man is made possible because of the fiery
wrath placed on Jesus crucified. And yet, his baptism into death would cause
division and conflict among people. The theology of the cross brings peace with
God and absolves those marked with the cross in Baptism, but that mark also brings
antagonism and animosity from the world.
We read of this division clearly in Micah (7:6). Jesus repeated
this division in chapter 14, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his
own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and
even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”[1] Later, he spoke these
words, “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and
relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be
hated by all for my name’s sake.”[2]
The division between the disciples of Jesus and those who do not
accept his baptism occurs immediately after his ascension and continues today.
Yet, we do not stand alone. We do not walk alone. We are in this together
because of Christ crucified, because of Christ’s baptism into death and everlasting
life. And that brings me to my third point, discipleship.
I have examined this word in previous sermons, and most likely,
if you are listening (or reading) this sermon, you are a disciple of Jesus Christ.
You became a disciple of Christ, a Christian, when you were baptized, for that
was the moment when you accepted God the Father’s Word for you spoken through
Jesus and His Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through Christ’s Paschal
Mystery – His suffering, dying, death, descent into hell, and resurrection – 2022
years ago, you were saved. At whatever moment in your life that you were
baptized, you accepted God’s Word – his promise of salvation – which is your
participation in that same Paschal Mystery. So, while you have faith in Christ,
which saves, your baptism is your formal declaration to accept that promise.
Citing Christ’s commands about baptism in Matthew 28:19 and Mark
16:16, in which He instructs the Eleven Apostles to baptize and teaches that whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved, Luther’s Small Catechism states
that Baptism effects forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and
gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of
God declare.
The Catechism goes on to teach that the Old Adam in us
should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and
evil desires, and that a new person should daily emerge and arise to live
before God in righteousness and purity forever. For Christians of the first
five centuries, this would have been most important. They needed to guard
themselves against falling into the worship of Satan, which included all kinds
of idolatrous and superstitious practices. The worship of the devil was found
everywhere. People were deceived by dreams of demons. They plunged themselves
into pools thinking the waters would bring healing from their diseases. They
believed in signs, astrology and predictions, wore amulets and practiced magic.
People of the first centuries desiring baptism went through
rigorous training. They prepared for it by attending daily teaching from the
bishop. They were assigned a personal sponsor who showed them how to live in
the world as a Christian. They publicly denounced Satan and all practices
related to him and professed the Creed until they memorized it. They stripped
off the “old man” like a soiled garment robe and put on the new tunic Christ
offered them. Only then were they ready for baptism itself. Only then were they
ready to call themselves Christian.
We find in the earliest teaching of Christian baptism the
destruction of the old and the creation of the new person which was achieved by
Christ’s death and resurrection. So, one who was baptized was not only purified
from sins and received the grace of adoption, but also became an antitype of
the Passion of Christ. Symbolically, the baptized person was no longer the old
Adam, but his counterpart – Christ. In short, to be a Christian in the ancient
Church, you had to go through hell symbolically as Christ did. You had to die
with Christ in order to live with Him.
I mention all of this because to be a disciple during the time
of the Apostles and the early Church, you not only separated yourself from
Satan, sin and the ways of the world, but most likely, your own family.
Embracing Christ through baptism meant rejecting the ways of the world and your
own identity. Remember that only recently have people in this culture been able
to identify themselves. Traditionally, your family was your identity. Your
native ethnicity was your identity. Society identified most people, but
Christians broke free of that and identified themselves as Christ in the world
realizing full well that identification with Christ could result in the same
death, but also the same Life He lives.
So, what does all of this talk about how disciples experienced
baptism in the early Church have to do with you and me? I was musing recently
that becoming a Christian should not be as easy as getting a membership card to
Costco, Sam’s Club or any other preferred shopping outlet. Joining a church
should not be as easy as showing up. Being a disciple of Christ today should be
no less challenging than it was for people during the Church’s first centuries.
Those Christians went through hell. Christ literally went through hell. We should
be willing to do the same.
We don’t have to go to work in the Church in Ukraine or any
other war-torn country. We have enough strife here. We don’t need to separate
ourselves from family, but maybe question and choose practices and values that
better resemble Christ in the world. Think of St. Monica’s influence on her
son, Augustine. Not all of us are called to sell everything, give to the poor
and follow Jesus in poverty, but as Christians we may want to re-evaluate how
we spend our money and time. We may want to begin by following Martin Luther’s
practice of remembering our own baptism daily so that the Old Adam die with all
sins and evil desires, and the new you emerge and live before God in
righteousness and purity.
With that, I close with a prayer that is printed in the bulletin
and projected on our screen. I am asking you to recite with me Martin Luther’s Remembrance
of Baptism.
Lord God, heavenly Father, we give you thanks for the wonderful
gift of baptism and the many gifts that come with it: forgiveness of sins, the
Holy Spirit, and eternal life through your Son Jesus Christ. In your grace and
mercy, preserve us in faith that we may never doubt your promise, but find our
comfort in you in all temptations. Send us your Holy Spirit that we may renounce
sin and always continue in the righteousness given us in baptism, until we
receive eternal salvation by your grace.
My friends, nay the peace of God that
surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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