Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Thank you for your prayers for a good vacation! The Lord blessed our time as family, esp. in getting to hang-out with my future-son-law (Simon Volkmar marrying Danielle on September 14th) who is preparing to become a Lutheran pastor in Germany with the

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

Jesus Saves and Then Division, Division, Division

(Luke 12:49-53)

Pastor Espinosa

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. “Welcome back from vacation pastor. You’re just in time to preach on Luke 12:49-53!” As one commentator described it: “It is not a pretty picture. Human beings would like…constant peace among men. But it will never be so. It is a grim picture which Jesus gives us (Buls, Series C Luke-John Sundays after Pentecost, 41).” A particular word is highlighted in our Gospel this morning and might easily be construed as that which paints this section of Jesus’ teaching as down-right depressing: “division.” Jesus says three times in this short pericope:

 

Verse 51: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”

 

            Verse 52: “For from now on in one house there will be five divided…”

 

Verse 53: “They will be divided, father against son and son against father…[etc.].”

 

There is an immediate need to clarify what our Lord Jesus is not saying. He is not saying that His purpose for coming was in any way to harm any person. “Hence Jn. 12:47: ‘I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.’ That Jesus comes to bring about the ruin of any man is a thought which is wholly foreign to the New Testament (Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2, 60).” Though it must be said that our Lord did indeed come to destroy something (but not any person):

 

1^st John 3:8b: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”

 

To destroy the works of your arch-enemy…not you! Our Lord was and is teaching that upon accomplishing His saving work, there would be “a temporary though necessary transition (ibid, 60)” in the world that would consist in people being divided. The word itself is straight-forward and simple: it means what it says. As a result of the saving work of Jesus, people come down on one of two sides: people are either for Christ or against Christ, period. Some see and others are blind; some are lost, some are found; some follow Him, others reject Him. And this divide will be evident even within families who otherwise share the most important things in life, but ironically will not always share what is most important.

 

In Matthew’s parallel account, the Lord says that He came to bring a sword (Matt 10:34). Think about it: if a sharp sword does its job, then division is the inevitable result. Jesus was describing how people would respond to Him. And while it is politically correct to avoid religious division, such universalism is in itself proof that what Jesus prophesied has happened and is happening.

 

Saint Paul was straight-forward about the necessity of what happens — even within the visible church — in the wake of the saving work of Jesus:

 

1^st Corinthians 11:18-19: “^18…I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, ¹⁹for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”

 

Division is also the result of real discernment and a condition in which (by God’s grace) you are kept protected from false teaching. Reza Aslan’s best-selling book Zeolot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth which hit #1 on Amazon.com heaps praise on Jesus for being a bold revolutionary whose crucifixion shows the man of history as opposed to the resurrection which shows the Christ which for him is essentially a fabrication of the church. In making his case, I read his criticism of the words recorded in 1 Cor 15:4: “that…he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” Aslan argues that while this may be what the Christian tradition teaches, that it is not what the Old Testament taught and that the words “in accordance with the Scriptures” are inaccurate. This is the reason he writes that the Christians had such a hard time convincing the Jews of their message.

 

Aslan writes this way because at the end of the day: while he would again give Jesus all kinds of praise as a man, he rejects that Jesus is the resurrected Son of God. Jesus has come and has divided. Psalm 16:10 in the Old Testament states: “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.” St. Peter preaches on this Scripture in Acts 2 and says of it: “[David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption (verse 31).” The Old Testament Scriptures do teach the resurrection of the Christ, and Aslan misdiagnoses the primary reason why Christ is rejected. More on this in a second.