Divisive Savior

June 15

(Luke 12:49-50 NIV) “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! {50} But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!”

(Luke 3:15-17 NIV) “The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. {16} John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. {17} His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Many people today see Jesus as one who will unite the world. But the Jesus we find in Scripture is a divider. He began by separating light from darkness and the sea from the dry land. When He came to Earth, He said He had come to bring fire -- fire that would purify as it separated the dross from gold and burned the chaff from the wheat. Jesus knew that He was destined to ignite that divisive fire and that it would come through His death on the cross. The cross divides history. It divides believers from unbelievers -- the saved from the unsaved. For Jesus, the cross divided life and death. He wished that God’s fire could be kindled in some other way, but accepted the fact that He was the kindling. Jesus knew his destiny was a destiny of suffering and division. God had set Him apart and being set apart always causes division. We serve a divisive Savior. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day