God’s Passion for Creation

A little girl was quite distraught. She had heard her dad talking about the Sunday service (she was in Sunday School) and she couldn't believe how violent the service was. You see, the choir had "murdered" the anthem. The organ had "drowned" the singers. And having to listen to the sermon was "killer."

Luckily we do not have that problem here. Our choir sings quite beautifully. Elaine, what you do on the organ is some of the best that I have ever seen or worked with. And as far as the sermon goes… Well you can make the call on that one.

While our experiences at church generally are nonviolent, there are times when we have to deal what some challenges and difficulties that we may rather not have to deal with. These can be in a variety of areas over a variety of topics and while we may rather place our heads in the sand and pretend that there is no problem, sometimes we have to address them.

Of course those tend to be on the business side of church life. And while that is important and I do not want to take away from its importance, for the most part we do not have to face those kinds of things while we are in the worship service. However, from time to time in the worship service we do find ourselves faced with a theme or a text that may put us a little bit on the uncomfortable side. I think today we find ourselves with one of those texts before us.

Jesus said, "You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" There are some Gospel lessons where it is really difficult to say, "Praise to you, O Christ." Do you know what I mean? In the service we hear the Gospel lesson and then the reader says, "This is the Gospel of the Lord." And the congregation responds with "Praise to you, O Christ." Seems kind of odd doesn't it? I mean Jesus' words can sound really quite harsh. Does it make you a little uncomfortable? I mean wouldn't you rather hear something more along the lines of "Have no fear little flock, for it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."?

That is nice. That sounds much better. And yet, we do not have the luxury of being able to simply pick and chose which scriptures we want to acknowledge and study and which ones we want to ignore and pretend that they do not exist. But then, neither do we consider them only by themselves. One of principles that we as Lutherans use as we read is study God's word is that Scripture interprets Scripture. So as we are studying a text, even a difficult one, what we will ultimately find is a meaning that is in line with the rest of the Scriptures. It's actually a pretty cool thing. So let's take a moment and together take a look at this text.

You may or may not be aware, but the church has its own calendar. Each year is broken up into different seasons. There is Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and the Sundays after Pentecost. Each season has a different theme or emphasis that goes with it. The seasons of Advent through Easter take us through the life, death resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The Sundays after Pentecost, where we are now, focus on the teachings of Jesus and how they are applied to the life of the church. The theme today is that believing in Jesus can be divisive. And yet, we still do believe.

Luke 12:49-50

There are a couple of images that we see in play here. Fire and baptism. The fire here is a reference to judgment. The baptism here is a reference to Jesus' death on the cross. This is why he came. And yet, even for Jesus the experience of the cross was no walk in the park. Remember when we see him in the Garden of Gethsemane? What is he doing there? He is sweating blood. What is his prayer there? Father, if possible, remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

To understand the seriousness of this we have to understand the seriousness of sin. We live in a world where we are no longer allowed to talk about sin or to call anything a sin, unless we are using it as an adjective to describe chocolate cake. You've seen the commercials where they say that it is "sinfully" delicious.

But the reality of the matter is that sin is serious business. My hunch is the reason we don't talk about it anymore is because the way that it has been talked about has not been very loving or gracious. But the solution is to change how we talk about it, not to stop talking about it. So as we talk about sin and the reality of sin, we do so with humility, because we too are sinners.

And we need to understand this reality, not so that we can walk around feeling guilty or sorry for ourselves. But so that we do not lose sight of our need for Jesus. Sin breaks apart and destroys relationships. The relationships that we have with God and the relationships that we have with one another.

Sin has corrupted the creation and introduced into it things, that were never intended to be a part of the creation. Sin introduced into the creation things that prevent it from being whole. Sin introduced into the creation things like death and destruction, brokenness and separation, injustice and sadness. Sin breaks apart the creation and separates us from one another and us from God.

This is real and serious business. Not because God is petty or because he is a prude who does not want people to have fun, but because of the effects that sin has on his creation. So he comes in judgment, not to punish or get revenge, but to heal and restore. It is not like God is saying, "You hurt my feels therefore I will destroy you." But God, out of his great love for his creation will not allow it to remain affected by sin the way that it is, and so he comes to destroy the powers of sin, and death and the devil in order to renew and restore his creation.

When Jesus talks about being "distressed until it is complete," he is not just talking about being nervous, but we also see here his desire for the renewal of and restoration of the creation. Ultimately this is all motivated by God's love and his working to make his creation right. It cost him dearly. Jesus willingly offered up his life. And because he did this, then you and I are able to know forgiveness and reconciliation with our God. It is ours it is real. It is certain. We have it for the sake of Jesus.

This is why Jesus is known as the Prince of Peace, because he brings us peace with God and peace with one another. Since we know this about him, and we believe it about him, it is also why these next verses can cause us a little bit of difficulty.

Luke 12:51-53

So if Jesus is the Prince of Peace, how do we reconcile that with the statement above? How is it that the two go together? For starters we need to realize that Jesus is making a distinction here between "peace" as the world sees it and understands it, and even as the majority of people in his day would have understood it. He is making a distinction between that and real and true peace.

You see, the majority of people in his day were looking for a Messiah who would give them peace from the Romans and from their military enemies. They are looking for someone to come in, takeover and make things right. Yet, what Jesus offers is so much greater. He offers peace with God. Those of us who are sinners, and have been separated from God by our sin, because of Jesus are reconciled to God. We are restored to him, forgiven of our sins, we have peace with God.

And yet, our own sinful natures do not like this or want it. Sin will not take this one lying down, and so will fight against this idea. Because this is the case, there is irony in the peace that Jesus brings, because it is not like the peace that the world gives. And because of the sin in our lives and in our world then, we see the reaction to the prince of peace, not peace but division.

For the original readers of Luke's gospel, they would be experiencing this kind of thing directly. As the Spirit worked in people's lives and gave them the gift of faith, it created problems in their families. I have a friend who grew up as a Jew in a Jewish home. Good family made up of wonderful people. This friend became a Christian and this presented a great difficulty for them. One of the things that we spent a good amount of time talking about was this dynamic of what it would mean for them in their family. Because for them, they were really running the risk of being completely cut off. That is not peace, but division.

In this case, peace would mean denying Jesus, but accepting Jesus runs the risk of experiencing division in our families and places of work, at school and out with friends.

So what do we do with this? How do we make sense of it? Jesus says,

Luke 12:58-59

You see, Jesus is talking with people that should understand who he is and what is going on, but they don't. Their focus and understanding are off. When it comes to Jesus, we who have his name on us, we who carry his name are to live our lives and conduct ourselves in manners worthy of that name. That is what is meant by the image here. Don't wait until it is too late. Live life now, do what you can with what you got. Try to work out the issue before you get to the judge, because once you get there, and the decision is made it will be too late to change it.

So we live our lives now. We do the best we can with what has been entrusted to us. We are not just to sit around and wait for Jesus to come back, but we are to live our lives giving witness to his great love, mercy, forgiveness, restoration and reconciliation.

I think as we talk about sharing our faith, standing up for Jesus and all that other kind of stuff, it is easy to get all worked up and nervous. We feel like we have to be sales people and put pressure on those we love or even complete strangers and no one enjoys that. We can sum this up best in talking about love. As we love and care for each other and our neighbors we are bearing witness. Now this will not always be easy. And as we deal with the ramifications of our sinful natures being involved there may even be some division. But we move forward in love and faith, knowing that in doing so we are standing up for Jesus and living as his called people in this place.

And we do this knowing that he is with us, and loves and forgives us, and so no matter what we face, we can face it confidence, and our Prince of Peace will give us his everlasting peace. Amen. And now may the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.