If you’d rather watch or listen than read, you can find this on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/fVFgBOd5NYA
Luke 12:49-59. If you don’t have a Bible handy, read it here.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2012%3A49-59&version=NLT
It’s a tough one. Read it for yourself. OK, let’s talk.
You know how we can feel truly happy but also deeply sad at the same time? When someone’s child gets married I imagine there would be some of that. They are happy for them – especially if they have found someone who loves and appreciates them. It’s a celebration. But it’s also the end of a chapter in their relationship and it hurts to see them leave. When someone we love has suffered through illness and finally goes home to Jesus, it’s devastating but also comforting. Life is full of happiness that hurts and sadness that comforts. Being a human on this planet is weird.
Jesus can identify with those kinds of feelings. He came to provide a rescue plan so that people could spend eternity in his presence experiencing life as it was designed to be. He loved humans and our world so much that he was prepared to go through horrifying things to make it happen. He also knew that this precious nation through whom he had chosen to reveal himself and into which he chose to be born would be torn apart by the message he brought. Some would believe him and willingly give their lives to spread his message. Others would be so vehemently opposed to it that they would take the lives of those who followed him. Even within families and homes, people would be divided. Jesus, whose birth brought peace on earth and goodwill to men, also knew that his ministry would divide people. And, in this moment, he just wants to get it over with.
He goes on. He is frustrated that people aren’t understanding who he is and what he has come to do. The signs are there. So many prophesies were fulfilled in the birth, life and death of Jesus. If they had taken a closer look, they should have been able to figure it out. Jesus was the messiah they had prayed for, but many just couldn’t see it. Jesus says, it’s as obvious as knowing which direction the wind is coming from, but people are still missing it. And it would divide them bitterly.
He appeals to them to think with their own minds. Yes there are judges who can make decisions for them, but his listeners have minds too. He appeals to them, Judge for yourselves what is true. If you rely on those in authority to make every decision for you, you could pay a very high price.
When each person ultimately stands before God, the only true judge, at the end of their lives, we won’t be able to point at others and say, “but he said….” We will answer for what we knew and what we should have been able to figure out. They, and we, need to pay attention to the scriptures that explain who the messiah will be and what he will do. Just as in the parable about the servants who were left to take care of their master’s home, we are responsible for our own behaviour in proportion to the information we had available. In the case of the nation of Isreal, it was all there in the scriptures they had been given.
