Luke 12:49 takes us into a revelation of Jesus' frustration.
Hebrew 4:15 provides us the context for these feelings. "For we do not have a high priest (Jesus) who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin."
Jesus is not only tested, but reacts as we might. We see anger displayed when Jesus drives the money changers out of the temple. We see sorrow expressed when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. But frustration? Anticipatory frustration no less.
We know
from Luke 9:53 that Jesus “was headed toward Jerusalem”. It is the journey to His death and resurrection. While he has discussed what will happen, His disciples cannot understand the full extent of what is to come. Only Jesus understands the full weight of what is going to come. In our passage today, it finds expression.
“I have
come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish things were already ablaze.” Is this the fire of Pentecost? The fires of the end times? Jesus wants to 'light it up', get it done. It isn't done yet but Jesus is feeling the weight.
“I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” That may sound rather innocuous at first, like the words from the hymn, “Baptized in water, sealed by the Spirit…” But do the verses from Romans 6 cast a different light?
4 “Therefore we
were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of
life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death
like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
We focus on the parts where ‘we also might walk in newness of life’ and ‘we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his’. That is cause to rejoice. This is when things are complete. But Jesus is on the 'before' side of all this. Can we even imagine 'what constraint' He is under? Knowing what is to come?
We can speculate. His is a miserable, torturous, painful, solitary journey into death, long before He is buried that we might be buried with Him. Besides the physical journey, there is the spiritual one where He carries the burden of punishment for ALL our sins upon his body. He is under the constraint, the obligation, to carry through with that burden, for us.
To name his feelings 'frustration', or even 'anticipatory frustration', how completely inadequate are those words for what Jesus is feeling? But whatever word, whatever name, remember what He suffered to make us free.
Peace,
pastor pete
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