Luke
12:49-53
"I have come to bring fire to the earth"
Luke
12:49-53
Last Sunday’s Gospel brings us some shocking message
from Jesus who said that he has come to bring fire on earth and divide the
people and families not unite them. It may be very confusing that Jesus says
that but if we look around us we see the truth in what he said.
Yes, everywhere there is pain, suffering and
injustice. God tells us to do good but good seem to be always losing and evil winning
with so sight of God’s intervention. We want God to come and deliver us from
our pain and suffering but He seems to ignore us. We pray and continue to do
good but yet we seem to lose all the time. Everyone however rich and mighty has
problems and there is no happiness. In fact if we look around nobody is really happy.
For many one tragedy follows another. Those
we love so dearly leave us, our families are divided, our children ill-treat us
and our siblings and friends turn against us.Our lives are set on fire which
continues to burn us.
Well Jesus says life is not going to smooth sailing,
especially if we are to follow him. It is full of torments, trials and failures.
He had demonstrated this in his own brutal death on the cross. He spoke the
truth, helped the poor and preached justice but he was crucified in the most
cruel way.
To me life is a big test of our endurance in doing
right in an environment of wrong and evil. It is a test of how strong we are in
standing up for good against evil. It is a test of our will to stand against
the evils in the world – greed, selfishness and lust. Despite all these trials,
Jesus says he loves us and his word is the hope we have, that God loves us
despite all the setbacks he makes us go through. It is the unshakeable trust in
God that should make us soldier on when everyone leave us to continue our arduous
journey all alone.
Gospel, Luke
12:49-53
'I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I
wish it were blazing already!
There is a baptism
I must still receive, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!
'Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on
earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.
For from now on, a household of five will
be divided: three against two and two against three; father opposed to son, son to father, mother
to daughter, daughter to mother, mother-in-law to daughter-in-law,
daughter-in-law to mother-in-law.'
