Fire from heaven.....or What have you done with my Jesus?

"I will bring fire from heaven"

Actually, Jesus says he will 'throw down' fire from heaven.  Reminds me of all those comic illustrations with God throwing thunderbolts down on  unsuspecting people.  Kind of gives me the chills.  Which of course leads to the question, "What have you done with my Jesus?"  Where is that compassionate, calm, kind man who pulled children into an embrace and blessed them?

Just possibly our memory fails us.  Remember how Mary sang about her coming child?  He would lift up the lowly and bring down those in high places.  This coming Messiah would re-create the Divine Creation so that all could experience authentic life - a time of great shalom. That kind of re-arranging requires some heavy duty power - or in this case, fire.

What will that Great Shalom look like?  Will there be hunger?  Will some be stopped at the gate because of their race? their gender? their age? their nationality? their disability? No.  It will be the great feast where all are invited to the table to be filled with good things.

So how do we get from where we are today - to where God's great passion will be fulfilled?  Fire.  Fire is how Luke describe the Divine Passion, a passion that burns away impurities, reassures us of God's presence, and leads us away from death.  The fire of divine love is at work everywhere in the world - in the marketplace, in the temple, in our homes, at weddings and funerals and political rallies.  The Fire of God is working on both sides of any issue, any battlefield, to bring ALL people into life and peace.  Jesus' fire works on me as well as my neighbor and enemy.

This, of course, is judgment.  Systems that oppress are judged; people that oppress are judged; practices that oppress are judged - and re-shaped with the fire of divine passion.  Hunger.  Poverty.  Discrimination.  Abuse.  Our blind spots, our dead spots, our evil spots are burned off!  The power of the Divine Creator is more formidable than any opponent - just check out the empty tomb.

Jesus comes, with the power of the divine passion, to bring life to everyone - not just those we think are worthy, and many whom we think are not.  In order for there to be peace, there must be justice.  It is a justice that those who are powerful and privileged in our current system will resist.  In 1917 women who were silently demonstrating for women's suffrage were imprisoned.  In 1963 fellow citizens of African descent who demonstrated for equal rights were beaten and imprisoned.  It was all legal; but it wasn't justice.  Just look at the cross.

In our baptism, in each of our confessions, and in the challenge of daily life, we offer up to God those portions of our lives that disturb God's Great Shalom.  We offer up those portions of ourselves that bring us and others some measure of death.  We lay it all before the Divine Fire knowing that the fire which destroys, creates and the fire that creates, destroys.  We seek the Spirit's strength so we might walk in humility and gratitude, with compassion and forgiveness......all, so we might know peace.

This is the cost of discipleship.  It brings the peace that passes all understanding, a gift from Jesus.

All that fire

"Were not our hearts burning within us?"


It's one of my favorite quotes from the Bible and it comes from Luke's story of two people walking the road to Emmaus.  A  stranger joins them on this journey and pretty soon the stranger is talking scripture (the Hebrew scriptures or what we Christians would call the Old Testament since that was all that there was).  It turns out that this stranger is the risen Jesus and he is connecting the dots in the scriptures .....which, I would guess firmly point to him as God's Messiah.  When the two companions finally figure it all out, one says, "Were not our hearts burning within us when he opened to us the scriptures?" Apparently, God's Word and fire are not uncommon. Luke 24.32

In the book of Exodus, Moses encounters a bush that is burning but not consumed....the famous 'burning bush' story.  As Moses comes closer to inspect this phenomena, a voice says,  'take off your sandals.  You are standing on holy ground'.  Yep, that was God, calling Moses to be God's servant and the liberator of the Hebrew people.  Exodus 3.1ff

The prophet Jeremiah is another example.  In the 20th chapter, after having endured consistent and nasty responses to his faithful preaching, Jeremiah has had all he can take.  "You have enticed me, and I was enticed" Jeremiah cries.  [There are some very interesting variations on the translation of that word 'enticed']

If you have read all the previous 19 chapters you would probably agree with the crowd; Jeremiah, who is known as the weeping prophet, is a buzz killer.  As a result, he was called names, called out, ostracized and pushed around, and just because he is doing what God called him to do (see chapter 1), that is, to speak the words that God put in his mouth.  No one likes the message, so they want to get rid of the messenger.

Jeremiah wants to get rid of the Word of God that is constantly coming to him; he wants to retire from his job as prophet.  So he says,  "If I say, 'I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,' then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot."  God's Word was a fire in his bones.  Wow.  Jeremiah 20.9

When the disciples gathered after Easter for the feast of Pentecost, the Spirit of God came among them like tongues of fire with a tongue of fire resting on each one present.  Soon everyone was speaking and hearing languages they didn't otherwise know.  Hmmm  Acts 2.3

When was the last time God's Word lit a fire in your belly?  When did it compel you to speak?  When did God call you to be a servant and liberator of others?

I would guess there are times when a gentle nudge is no longer enough to get God's people moving.  Sometimes it takes a little heat, applied wherever God believes it will do the most good.

Have you felt the heat lately?

Burned to a new beginning

Wild fires are reaping their annual destruction out West; acres of forest and folks' homes in the path of the fire storm are being lost.  In this we see both endings and beginnings.

Fire helps forests regenerate; it contributes to the life cycle of a forest and enables some frail flora to get a new foothold.  That's what the experts tell us.

People, on the other hand, do not consider the complete destruction of all that they own to be a necessary part of anyone's life cycle. They have no desire to test the potential of new beginnings by having everything turned into ash.  I wouldn't eithe,r even though we all know that there will be new beginnings - there simply has to be.  They will re-build their homes and their lives and most will take away some learning from these terrible days of loss.

In the Old Testament, God manifests both power and presence through a pillar of fire which protected, guided and reassured the Israelites on their flight out of Egypt.  That old pillar of fire said God was there, God was powerful, and God knew their plight.  This is exactly the kind of assurance most of us can use when it looks like everything we value is turning to ash.  I wouldn't mind a smaller version of that old pillar of fire when the forces of this world are taking their toll on my life.

However, I cannot forget that God's fire was also pressing Israel forward, into unknown land with unknown outcomes....with just a bunch of promises and a picture of what it was going to be like.  The fire may have protected them from the Egyptians who were following, but it also kept Israel from going back to the land of captivity. It was forward or nothing at all.

That's where we are headed with this God - forward, into the unknown, away from captivity to the forces of this world and onto a place - a promised place - where God is leading us.....even if it often feels like God is simply keeping the heat on our backsides so we don't change our minds.  Scares me sometimes; enthralls me the next.  Let us go forward, then, together.