Isaiah 9:6 calls Jesus the Prince of Peace.
In Luke 2:14, we hear the angels singing, “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” And many love the image of Jesus carrying a baby lamb, gently in His arms. That’s why His words in our Scripture today are shocking. Let’s look at them together in Luke 12:49-53.
Luke 12:49-53
49 “I have come to set the world on
fire, and I wish it were already burning! 50 I
have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden
until it is accomplished. 51 Do you
think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people
against each other! 52 From now on
families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in
favor and three against.
53 ‘Father will be divided against son
and son against father;
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother;
and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’[a]”
Jesus’ words in verse 49 are startling. “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning!”
In
Scripture, fire often represents judgement, purification, and the Holy Spirit. The prophet Malachi foretold Jesus using the image of fire when he said: “But
who will be able to endure it when he comes? Who will be able to stand and face
him when he appears? For he will be like a blazing fire that refines
metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches clothes.”
Jesus’ very existence confronts our lives. When He enters our world, hypocrisy is exposed, sin is confronted, and hearts are revealed. You can’t avoid it. When He draws close it burns away the fake facades we wear like masks. He reveals who we really are.
So, some try to avoid the Fire. They stay far away. They hide in the shadows, running from the Truth. The Pharisees had a great public image. Everyone looked up to them and though they were model citizens, the most holy in all the land. However, their public image masked a lot of private sin and wrong attitudes and selfish motives. Jesus' teachings exposed their hypocrisy. So they tried discredit Him. When they couldn't, they tried to kill Him, thinking that would hide their duplicity. But Darkness can never overcome the Light. (John 1:5) The Crucifixion only turned up the heat even more to burn the farce they called “peace”.
Peace is a word people love to hear. We pray for “peace in the middle east”. “Peace” was the slogan and logo of the 1960s—used by people on all sides of the conflicts. Ironically, “peace” is usually the reason powerful politicians justify going to war.
They drop bombs on each other until one side submits and there is “peace.” So what exactly is peace? What does that even mean?
According
to our faith, “True peace is life made right with God.” The Hebrew word for peace in the Bible is Shalom. It means wholeness, completeness, harmony, a right
relationship, and well-being under God’s blessing. Peace is the perfect state in which Adam and
Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before they sinned. It is the condition humans have been
trying to find ever since we lost it, and it is the perfect peace God has been
working in our world to restore as well.
But true
peace, shalom, is always built upon a right relationship with God. Apart from peace with God, all other peace is inferior and temporary or invalid. It sounds good, but it does not deliver real harmony or wholeness. And it does not last.
Jesus is
the “Prince of Peace”, because He came to restore complete wholeness to the
world through a right relationship with God.
He came to bring us back into the perfect peace of the Garden of
Eden. But to bring us back to God, all
our other idols and false gods and fake peace must be burned up in the fire of
God’s refining flame.
The Pharisees and teachers of religious law, as well as the Romans, said Jesus was “disturbing the peace”. And it’s true. He was disturbing their peace so He could re-establish true peace. In Jerusalem, they killed Jesus on a cross in a vain effort to protect their way of life—which was just a fake kind of peace that rejected God to benefit people in power at the expense of the weak.
But you cannot escape the refining fire of Jesus’ Truth. His very existence demands everyone choose with whom they will live in peace. Will you be on God’s side or the side of someone else? Will you follow Jesus unconditionally as Lord, or will you follow some other
lord? No one can remain neutral. It is not one
of the options.
And we see from Jesus words that our surrender to God leaves no room
for compromise. It is an unconditional surrender. “Families will be split apart… Father
will be divided against son and son against father; mother against
daughter and daughter against mother…”
Why? Because these close relatives sometimes
choose differently—one for the Lord and the other for someone or something else. And the truth is, you may experience this in your
life too, if you end up differently aligned with Christ than the people you love.
Jesus
absolutely did come to bring peace—peace with God. But when people must decide whether to receive that peace, it inevitably
creates division.
Before we think too much about divisions out there in the world, we should probably ask a harder question. Where have we made peace with things in our own lives that God never intended us to live with? Because the truth is, many of us have made a kind of false peace with our brokenness.
We make peace with sins we know are there but don’t want to confront. We make peace with bitterness we’ve carried for years. We make peace with habits we know are unhealthy. We make peace with relationships that are wounded but never healed.
We tell ourselves, “This is just the way I am.”Or “This is just the way life is.” Or "This is just the way the real world works." And over time, the brokenness begins to feel normal. It becomes familiar. It becomes comfortable. And strangely enough, it begins to feel like peace.
But it isn’t peace. It’s just settling. It is selling out.
It’s learning to live with the darkness rather than stepping into the light.
And this is exactly why Jesus says He came to bring fire. Because sometimes the most loving thing God
can do for us is to disturb the false peace we’ve made with sin.
Jesus refuses to leave us comfortable in the things that are destroying
us.
He comes like a refining fire. Fire is
uncomfortable. Fire burns.
Fire exposes what is real and what is fake.
But fire also purifies.
The fire of Christ burns away the lies we hide behind. It burns away the idols we cling to.
It burns away the broken patterns we have learned to live with. Not to destroy us, but to heal us.
Because on the other side of that refining fire is something far better than
the fragile peace we try to manufacture for ourselves. On the other side is true peace.
Peace with God. Peace that restores what
sin has broken.
Peace that brings us back into the wholeness God created us for in the first
place.
And that leaves each of us with the same question Jesus placed before
the crowds.
Will we hold on to the false peace we have built for ourselves?
Or will we surrender to the refining fire of Christ and receive the true peace
only He can give?
Because Jesus didn’t come simply to make us comfortable. He came to make us whole.
