As I was reading Luke today I ran across a curious statement that Jesus makes.
“I have come to cast fire upon 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 accomplished.”
Luke 12:49-50
We talk about the fires of revival, God releasing power through the people of God to show His love. I believe that Jesus was at least partially talking about this. John the Baptist was obsessed with the coming of a Messiah that would baptize God’s people with fire and not merely water. The revolution of the human race was what John was longing for, as was Jesus here in Luke 12. Jesus wanted so desperately to give mankind His Spirit. The kindling of the revolutionary fire would be on the day of Pentacost when manifest tongues of fire would spark on 120 people’s heads.
Then Jesus says that He has a baptism to undergo. Paul talks about being burried with Christ in baptism. Jesus had to be put into the earth and conquer death on our behalf SO THAT He could rise up in resurrection power with us soon to follow. When Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, they talked about Jesus’ departing from the disciples. Jesus was rearing to get going so that He could let an army of resurrected, invincible lovers of God and man go into the world and take it over.
The wording didn’t seem to make sense to me, though, in verse 50. I just cannot connect Jesus and distress, it doesn’t seem like His nature. Distress sounds like stress and worry. So I looked at the original language of this section. Luke uses a word that comes from two words, one meaning “to hold” and another “together”. Jesus essentially says “I’m just trying to hold Myself together until I can go through this baptism of Mine.” Jesus and the Holy Spirit were united, just like we are united with the Spirit, the difference between us and Him is that in His case, there are two FULL Presences of God. Imagine trying to hold two full manifestations of God in one human body. You would be bursting at the seems, too. Jesus longed to release His Spirit to His people so that the flames of the revolution might be kindled and the spark-heads could take over the earth.
