“I came to send fire on the earth; al1d how I wish it were already kindled!”(Luke 12:49) This fire is interpreted by the Holy Fathers as spiritual zeal, which the Lord came to plant in the hearts of men and that will inevitably give rise to divisions and enmity among people, for some will accept the teaching of Christ with their Whole heart, while others will reject it. Since this fire of zeal must especially come to
blaze only after the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, the Lord expresses His desire to quickly be baptized with that baptism with which He must be baptized, meaning He wishes to quickly suffer His imminent death and redemption of mankind, as a result of which the fire of zeal will blaze forth.
As a result of the redemptive sacrifice of the Lord, there will no longer be that evil peace that unites all in the doing of sin and separates them from God, but instead there will arise a salvific division—the followers of the teaching of Christ will be separated from the enemies of Christ. The war that will arise on the basis of this essential division, even Within families, was especially evident in the time of the great persecution of Christians by the Roman pagans, but it is always inevitable, for evil hates good and strives to destroy it completely.
+Archbishop Averky (Taushev), from Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, Volume 1, commentary on Luke 12:49-53.
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