who was coming after him who will baptize with water and with fire.” Jesus said to His disciples, “I have seeded you with fire.” In the Book of Revelation, the writer tells us that the appearance of the Christ will be with “eyes like flames of fire” (Revelation 1:14).
Jesus Christ was himself the torch that ignited the flame that came into the world. In Luke 12: 49, we capture an insight into the very heart of Christ himself. He seems to be saying that he has feelings of reluctance in what he must do, but he also discloses a sense of impatience. He cries: “Oh, I would that the fire had already come, that it was already kindled.” In Christ we recognize that the fire is not truly kindled until his death comes. Jesus knew the baptism that awaited him--the baptism of fire--was suffering, crucifixion, and death. He did not go toward that crisis enthusiastically, but reluctantly and, yet he knew that through that crisis experience would come the refiner’s fire of judgement. Jesus knew the opposition and persecution which his gospel would create.
But how startling the claim seems to sound from Christ. “I, a Galilean peasant, will set a fire on the earth that will burn with a raging fury.” But he did! This same Christ brought the fire of heaven down to earth in the incarnation of his spirit. This very Christ, when his body was broken, set loose a fire that has raged down through the centuries to bring men and women to Christ. He is literally the torch that transforms lives. His death was the baptism which launched his kingdom.
Fire as Metaphor for Judgment
Think with me about some of the metaphors for fire which we find within the Scriptures. Fire is sometimes used as a metaphor for the judgment of God. Fire in the Scriptures is often symbolic of the consuming, terrible wrath, and judgment of God. The Book of Hebrews, the twelfth chapter and the twentieth verse, tells us that God is a consuming fire. In our day and age, we spend a great deal of time, which is very important to do, talking about God as a God of love. But I am convinced that sometimes our understanding of the love of God has made God’s love like mush. There is no depth or substance to it. There is no understanding of the disciplined side of love which is judgment. Any parent who really loves his or her child will give them a sense of disciplined love. They will not offer to them the freedom to be and do anything they might want. We have to understand that there is responsibility which goes with one’s actions. Love from God’s perspective carries judgment with it. Sometimes, as we encounter the power of his holiness, our sinfulness does stand in judgment and needs to be transformed and changed.
Fire as Purifying
Fire in God’s judgment is seen as purifying. When your spirit and mine encounter the grace and love of God. God doesn’t say to us: “0h, it’s o.k. It doesn’t make any difference what you do or what you say.” God comes and says to us: “Be holy as I am holy.” We are challenged to seek to be like God. Our lives are encountered by is spirit, and we are lifted up to be purified so that we may be more like he is.
When ore is placed in fire, impurities rise scum-like to the top and are ladled off. Ore is purified by the process of burning. As we come into the burning presence of God and stand in his judging grace, we experience the power of redemption which is transforming and purifying. God then points us in a new direction because we have become new creations.
Fire as Revealing
But fire is also revealing. I love to watch wood when I throw it into the fire. You can tell something about what kinds of oils, acids, and other ingredients are in the wood by the way it burns. Elm burns very slowly because it is damp. Green sycamore is like a rock and is almost impossible to burn. Balsam or hemlock, when placed in the fire, explodes sending sparks in every direction as though they want to take somebody with them in their demise. White paper birch sends up a yellow flame. Apple wood sends up a multi-colored flame. Hickory, the hardest wood of all, sends forth a very hot flame. The flames reveal the ingredients of the wood in their process of burning.
The burning of wood reveals something of its inner nature. I have walked with some persons through their fires of difficulties, pain, suffering, and turmoil. I have seen revealed in the lives of so many within this congregation inner strength, faith, and courage. In the times of testing these people have revealed a deep abiding faith. When our church experienced its great ordeal by fire, many of you were present then, and you have shown a strong inner fortitude, a deep faith, and continued faithfulness in your support of this congregation. Fire reveals something of our inner nature.
Fire Providing Light
Fire sometimes provides light. In England, for example, when persons refer to a flashlight, they call it a torch. Their “torch” throws a light on a path so one can walk in its light. Fire is a source of light and guidance for direction in our lives. Christ becomes the supreme fire of light. From his presence we find light to walk in the world.
Christ as a Disturbing Fire
In the metaphor that Jesus used about fire in Luke 12: 49, it is depicted as a disturbing force. The torch of Christ in the world comes as a disturbing force, as fire often is. It comes with consuming power. It comes demanding loyalty to him. He says, “I am the way.” You must realize, he says, that if you commit your life to me, it is a narrow way. It may cause, Jesus says, separation from families and friends. Sometimes it may cause misunderstandings and rejection, because the Christ who comes as a disturbing force in our lives, challenges us to follow in His way and to be like Him.
When I was a summer missionary in Hawaii, while I was a student in college, a young man, who was Japanese by birth, committed his life to Jesus Christ and accepted Him as Lord. When he made this decision, he was no longer considered a part of his family because of his commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord. It was costly and disturbing to him. Do we have this kind of commitment today?
In one of his books, Karl Barth wrote powerfully about the spirit of Christ as fire in the world. He observed: “Oh yes there is much smoke upon the earth, smoke of fervid, urgent love for God and man; smoke of quiet, sincere faith; smoke of anxious, unshakable hope; smoke of profound, progressive ideas, ideas so exhausted that they reach that beyond which we cannot think; smoke of noble, courageous zeal for the good; smoke of universal movements for the betterment and re-creation of temporal circumstances. Who would dare to ignore this rising smoke? … Where there is smoke there surely is a glow, always and always the glow that Jesus has started. But smoke is not fire, even if there is ever so much smoke.”4 There is a great deal of smoke today. But I sometimes wonder where is the fiery zeal that Christ has called us to have. It is not always very evident.
When I was a graduate student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, I had an opportunity to preach several times in a church not too far from campus. The church was in a declining neighborhood. The church building was large and probably seated about 800 people. But on Sunday morning when they met to worship, they would have only about fifty people gathered there. It was a difficult church to try to preach in, because they had pulled so much into themselves and took no interest in their community around them. Their chief thought was simply to preserve their building and church as it was at that particular moment. The church was dead because they had no desire to be any more than they were. They were content and had no desire to change or grow.
One Sunday while I was preaching there, the fire alarm went off in the church building. Someone went immediately to see if there was a fire. Finally, someone came back and told us that there was no fire. It was only a false alarm. But I started thinking. I wondered if God’s spirit sought to break into the lives of those people, if they would be as disturbed as they had been when the fire alarm went off that day. For most of us, if God’s spirit really touched us in a service of worship, we would be as surprised as though a fire alarm had gone off. It would be unexpected, and in no way would we have sought it. We come repeatedly to worship without expectation or looking for the spirit of God to come into our lives. But there was no fire in that church in any way!
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