'I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I,
if it be already kindled!'--LUKE xii. 49.
We have here one of the rare glimpses which our Lord gives us into
His inmost heart, His thought of His mission, and His feelings about
it. If familiarity had not weakened the impression, and dulled the
edge, of these words, how startling they would seem to us! 'I am
come'--then, He was, before He came, and He came by His own
voluntary act. A Jewish peasant says that He is going to set the
world on fire-and He did it. But the triumphant certitude and
consciousness of a large world-wide mission is all shadowed in the
next clause. I need not trouble you with questions as to the precise
translation of the words that follow. There may be differences of
opinion about that, but I content myself with simply suggesting that
a fair representation of the meaning would be, 'How I wish that it
was already kindled!' There is a longing to fulfil the purpose of
His coming and a sense that something has to be done first, and what
that something if, our Lord goes on to say in the next verse. This
desirable end can only be reached through a preliminary painful
ordeal, 'but I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I
straitened till it be accomplished.' If I might use such an
incongruous figure, the fire that is to flash and flame through the
world emerges from the dark waters of that baptism. Our Lord goes on
still further to dwell upon the consequence of His mission and of
His sufferings. And that, too, shadows the first triumphant thought
of the fire that He was to send on earth. For, the baptism being
accomplished, and the fire therefore being set at liberty to flame
through the world, what follows? Glad reception? Yes, and angry
rejection. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell
you, nay! but rather division.' The fire, the baptism, and the
sword; these three may sum up our Lord's vision of the purpose,
means, and mingled result of His mission. But it is only with regard
to the first of these that I wish to speak now.