Have You Responded Rightly to His First Coming?
Introduction: Last week Mike brought a sobering message to us from Luke challenging us to question our readiness for Jesus’ second coming. In the passage that follows, Jesus makes a significant transition in his teaching. He moves from speaking about the future to speaking about the present.
Jesus confronts his audience with the reality that before his next coming, they must first respond rightly to his first coming. He shifts gears with the disciples and the crowds and redirects their eyes not to tomorrow but to today. What are you going to do with Me in the present? Our response to Jesus in the present makes all the difference about how God will respond to us in the future when Jesus returns. God’s Word for us today is to carefully consider where we stand before God in relationship to Jesus’ first coming.
In our passage, Jesus attempts to reorient the perception of his hearers. He wants us to have a proper understanding of why he came. He wants to jar our thinking about the present moments in which we live. He tells with crystal clarity what our response should be to him now.
Jesus reorients our perceptions about his first coming.
I always get a variety of answers when I ask people the questions, “Who was Jesus?” and “What was the purpose of his life and his death?” Since everyone must deal with Jesus’ life, at the very least most people will credit Jesus with being a teacher of wisdom. All the world religions do at least this much. Others might say that like Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus was a peaceful social reformer. And like our old friend, Martin, he too was killed in his prime by those who didn’t want the old way to change.
Others say that Jesus has some special relationship with God. They may be able to parrot back that Jesus is the “son of God” or the “Savior of the world.” When pressed to explain what that means, they find it impossible to give a rational answer. His purpose, they say, was to show us how to live a life pleasing to God. When I ask the follow-up question, “Then why did Jesus die the way he did?”, I usually get the answer, “I don’t know.”
What is your answer to that question? These may be some of your perceptions of Jesus. Jesus is going to answer the question Himself in the first part of our passage. Look with me at verse 49 of Luke chapter 12:
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Luke 12:49-53).
Jesus makes two statements about Himself in this passage and why he has come. He uses two metaphors—fire and baptism—in verse 49 and 50 to describe why he came.
Jesus has come to be the focal point of judgment. Fire is a metaphor used often in Luke’s gospel to figuratively refer to God’s judgment against the sins of people (Luke 3:9,17; 9:54; 17:29). Given the preceding context about the judgment that will accompany his next coming, I believe Jesus is saying that he has come to execute judgment now. And the judgment will not be completed until he experiences a baptism. Mark 10:38-39 shows us that we are to understand Jesus’ mention of baptism here to be a reference to his coming death in Jerusalem. He knew he would have to undergo this death in order to take the judgment of God in the place of people. A second characteristic of his coming is described in verses 50-53.
Jesus has come to confront and disrupt. As the focus of judgment, people are now obligated to make a judgment about Jesus. Jesus forces a choice, a choice that will bring division. A Muslim sees Jesus as a wise sage but not a Savior. Depak Chopra sees Jesus as laudable but not Lord. To choose to see Jesus as Savior and Lord will cause you to be divided from others who view Jesus differently.
In Tatarstan, there is a wonderful 25-year-old Tatar woman named Guzel, who four years ago changed her mind about Jesus. She turned from her Islamic roots and repented of her wrong beliefs about Jesus and about herself. Last November we were talking about how she acquired an apartment so she could now be baptized. Getting an apartment was vital for her since when she publicly identifies herself with Jesus through baptism, she will no longer be welcome in her home. Her view of Jesus and the view of Jesus that the mosque holds are now very different.
The portrait that is often painted of Jesus is a Jesus who was rather neutral. He was a nice man. He was never stern or confrontational. He told some good stories that teach us to be nice to people. He gently taught against racism and religious prejudice. We are not allowed to be neutral about Jesus. Who do you think Jesus is? A wise sage? A social reformer?
C. S. Lewis, the great author, Cambridge professor, and the focus of the movie, Shadowlands, wrote in his book Mere Christianity about Jesus this way:
“I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say… A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic…or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make a choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” [i]
It feels to me like Jesus is in our faces, looking at us eye to eye and making sure we get the message.
Jesus reorients our perceptions about the present time.
Look with me at verse 54:
He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” (Luke 12:54-56)
Jesus commends his audience for being astute amateur meteorologists. But then Jesus rebukes them for their inability to observe the events of the present and make correct spiritual judgments about them. Jesus wants us to see that
Today’s events demand spiritual reflection and interpretation. Jesus says to his audience and to us, “interpret this present time.” He is urging us to look at him and understand the significance of what is going on since he has come on the scene.
So far in Luke’s gospel, this carpenter has said some bold things. He has said that he has the authority to forgive sins, a privilege reserved only for God (5:17-26). He told Old Testament scholars that he was the originator of all their religious traditions (6:1-11). He has introduced a radical lifestyle for those who would follow him, a lifestyle where we are to love those who are our enemies (6:17-49).
While saying these sorts of things, he is demonstrating that he has great power and unparalleled human compassion. He touches the untouchable leper and heals him (5:12-15). The paraplegic (5:17-26), the centurion’s servant (7:1-10) and a woman who had been bleeding for over 12 years (8:40-48) each experience the power of his healing ministry. Over 5000 hungry people are fed with the contents of a little boy’s lunch box after Jesus gives thanks (9:37-45).
And in between all this, Jesus demonstrates that he has authority over death (7:11-17;8:40-56), authority over the natural world (8:22-25) and authority over the demonic world (8:26-38). Here is God on earth. In your presence. In your face. What has your attention?
Jesus calls his hearers hypocrites. This is a strong accusation. It implies that they are externally religious. They do the synagogue thing on Saturdays. They never miss church on Hanukkah or Passover. They may even frequent the Jewish bookstore on the way home and pick up some CD’s from their favorite Hebrew artist. They are not ignorant of spiritual matters. They are hypocrites because they are unwilling to interpret the times. Jesus is rebuking them for pretending to be religious but being more interested in the superficial instead of the significant.
Jesus could use the same strong language in the church today, I am afraid. There are people who are doing the church thing this morning as they have for years. But if you asked them to explain to someone how to become a Christian, they wouldn’t know where to start. If asked to help disciple someone to make wise decisions in light of eternity, they wouldn’t know what to say. But if you asked them how to time the market, they could give an elaborate plan. If asked how to organize closets like Martha Stewart, they could write a manual.
After his rebuke, Jesus tells them a short parable from ordinary life:
“Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny” (Luke 12:57-59).
Jesus puts each of us into an imaginary story where we are a guilty person on our way to court. We rightly owe some debt to another person and they are seeking fair judgment. Since we are guilty, it would be wise, Jesus says, to seek reconciliation now. Settle the issue out of court while there is still time. Otherwise, we will have to abide by the judgment of the court. In this case, if we wait, we will be locked in prison and we will be accountable for every last fraction of a penny of the debt. Jesus is trying to tell his listeners and us to see that
Today’s events urge us to settle our accounts with God. In the previous 14 verses, which we looked at last week, Jesus described the kind of judgment that will accompany his second coming. Jesus tells this parable because every one of us is the guilty person on hiw way to the judgment. Today, He gives us the opportunity to be reconciled to God and to do so out of court.
Two extremes often hinder people from being reconciled to God. One problem is that we tend to underestimate the extent of our debt before God. We have grown accustomed to not living up to our standard, so we assume that God doesn’t really expect us to live up to his standard.
The second hindrance is often at the other end of the spectrum. A classmate of mine at Trinity made an astute observation in class one day. He said that often people recognize their sin, but they believe it is far too great for anyone to forgive, especially God. They think that grace is not big enough to cover the greatest of their sin. Friend, if this is you, listen to God’s Word.
Jesus is reorienting perceptions. He wants to reorient our perceptions of him. He wants to reorient our perceptions about the present time. In the last section,
Jesus reorients our perceptions about our response to him in the present time.
Look with me at chapter 13.
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:1-5).
Some people bring up a tragic situation in order to get Jesus’ spiritual take on the event. Apparently, Pilate massacred some people while they were offering sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus anticipates that they raise this issue because they want to know why God allowed this tragedy to happen. How are they to understand this event? Was it because they were such evil people that this was God’s way of judging them?
Jesus then brings up a similar event, this time a natural disaster. A tower fell in Jerusalem and killed 18 people. No one is guilty. It is the kind of event that still happens all the time. The bus crashes and school children are killed. A tornado rips through a mobile home park. Jesus asks whether these events should be interpreted the same way. Do we assume that the reason this tragedy occurred was because the victims were greater sinners than those who didn’t happen to be in the tower on that day?
Tragic events like these continue to be difficult for us to interpret. Some people continue to interpret events like these as special judgments from God. The floods of 1993 were attributed by some Christians (not this one) as happening because states along the river had approved casino gambling. The death of gay men because of AIDS is attributed by some Christians (not this one) as God’s judgment against the sin of homosexuality.
Henri Nouwen writes perceptively,
“We spend countless hours making up our minds about others. An unceasing exchange of opinions about people close by or far away keeps us distracted and allows us to ignore the truth that we ourselves are the first ones who need a change of heart and probably the only ones whose hearts we indeed can change.” [ii]
The real issue behind these kinds of tragic events is that they expose the fragileness and mortality of our lives. In this world, death exists. It is for the most part out of our control. At this time last year, Dan Marsh wasn’t planning on having liver cancer. We cannot escape it. When death comes to a 42-year-old husband and father, it confronts us with the reality that we could be that person. And that scares the daylights out of us.
Jesus’ response to people’s perceptions of these events is very strong. To both situations, he says, “No! This is not the way to interpret these events.” Instead, Jesus turns everything upside down. His response to both tragedies is the same. “Unless you repent, you too will perish.” Regardless of the situation, Jesus says the spiritual interpretation is that …
Repentance is a universal need of the hour. Jesus reorients the whole discussion. Asking, “why did God allow this to happen?” is a good question. But Jesus’ response shows that there is a more important question. The question is, “what should I do in response to my mortality?” He reorients our whole perspective. He says that these events are to be interpreted personally. He says that what has happened invites you and me to conversion. The victims of tragedies become evangelists who remind us that repentance is our greatest response.
Repentance means to change our minds and head the other direction. Repentance means we reorient our minds about ourselves, in particular, how we understand our sinfulness before a holy God. It doesn’t matter how my sins stack up against Pol Pot or Jeffrey Dahmer. What matters is that judgment is coming and as a sinner, I owe a debt to God I am accountable to pay to the very last cent.
Repentance involves a reorienting of my thinking about Jesus. In particular, seeing Jesus not simply as a nice extra who rounds out my life, but as the only person who is capable of paying my debt to God. His death and resurrection compel me to not make him simply a prominent part of my life but the preeminent figure in my life.
The Apostle Paul writes,
“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:20-22).
With a change of mind about ourselves and Jesus, we must then reorient our lives. The prophet John challenged the repentant of his day to produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Luke 3:8). Our priorities, our goals, our actions are then to be reoriented in keeping with the direction of our thinking. Our lives will show the fruit of being reconciled with God.
We use a lot of fuzzy language about what it means to become a Christian. We tell people to “invite Jesus into your heart” or to pray a prayer of salvation or “trust Christ.” Jesus says to repent. Repentance is not an emotion. It is not simply regret over our past. It is not simply saying “I’m sorry”. Repentance is a complete reorientation of our thinking. A reorientation of our heart. A reorientation of our lives. When we do this, we become reconciled to God and gain eternal life.
In my experience, people respond to tragedy in one of two ways. One response is to take flight away from God, to be angry that God has allowed this pain in my life and hold him at a distance. The other response is to flee toward God, to seek to understand God because without him, life gets reduced to just a series of meaningless events. When I talk with those who are fleeing God, I find that though they are in flight away, deep down they would still like to know God’s love and forgiveness but often their pride gets in the way.
Jesus also desires to reorient our view of the urgency of our need to repent. He does this in verses 6-9 of chapter 13. Look there with me.
Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, “For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?” “Sir,” the man replied, “leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.”’ (Luke 13:6-9).
Jesus’ point in telling this story is that …
Repentance is the best response NOW! The owner of the tree is very patient. He waited three years for the tree to bear fruit. But still nothing came. Since the tree was not responding, the time, energy and space that this tree used needed to be directed elsewhere. The old tree needs to be discarded. The owner’s gardener says, “Let me try one more time. If nothing changes then we will cut it down.”
We are not told the outcome of the request. We do not know if the owner agreed with the gardener to give the tree another year. We know that the owner of the garden had been quite patient and possibly a little more patient. But the tree’s time was marked. We do not know whether the owner pressed even harder. We do know he had grown impatient with the lack of response from the tree. The tree should not presume the owner’s patience will last forever.
We do not know when Jesus will return. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. The time to repent is now. God is exceedingly patient. In responding to people who wondered why Jesus had not returned yet, Peter writes
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” (2 Peter 3:9-10)
God is exceedingly patient. He offers mercy and forgiveness to those who will repent of their sin and change their minds about Jesus. He is patiently waiting for you and me to change. But we must be very careful not to presume God’s patience will always continue.
The point Jesus makes from those tragedies is not that the people who died were worse sinners than you or I. His point is that those tragedies, as bad as they are, are simply warnings foreshadowing the much more terrible judgment which God will bring on all people who are not reconciled to him by the blood of his son Jesus.
A close relative of mine put off responding to Jesus by saying to me, “I will deal with these issues once my business is up and running.” Ten years have passed. Others say, “I will do it in retirement when the demands of today – work, sports, or children – are not as pressing”. Still others conclude, “I will deal with this issue after a few more nights of fun and frolic.” Every day presumes upon the patience of God. As we heard last week, being here today puts you in a dangerous place.
Conclusion: Dan Marsh died last week at age 42. Gene Petty died yesterday. What do you think Jesus would have to say about the times? Are their deaths a wake-up call to get our cholesterol checked? No! It is no accident that you are here today. It is no accident that their deaths come at this point of our messages. Interpret the times correctly. This afternoon and throughout the week, you are going to be bombarded by all kinds of messages. Doritos will be on sale at Dierbergs, now is the time to stock up. The market is tentative; Merrill Lynch will tell us to sell, Goldman Sachs will tell us to buy.
But Jesus’ message this morning is that today is the time of repentance. It is time to settle up your account. If you wait until the judgment, you will have to pay your debt yourself. God loves you and wants you to settle out of court. He will forgive your debt to him, if you will humble yourself and change directions. If you will change what you think about yourself and what you think about Jesus, he will pay the debt you owe. He will transfer funds of forgiveness from Jesus’ account into your account. He will not charge you a fee. That is a great deal.
Tags:
Repentance
Response
[i]. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 55-56
[ii]. Henri Nouwen, Here and Now, p. 60