NOTES for Luk 9:49-56
It is astonishing that until Christ's very Resurrection from the dead His disciples remain captive to commonplace Jewish ideas. Faced with rejection by the Samaritans, they are already prepared to pray for fire from heaven and cite the prophet Elijah as an example to follow. One cannot deny that for many Christians throughout the centuries this form of preaching seemed ideal. In one empire, a special theological theory was even devised according to which the emperor first had to be converted to Christianity, after which he would seize the whole world by fire and sword and drive all the peoples under his rule into the faith. All would have been well, except that the empire fell before it could fulfill the mission entrusted to it. Christ's words in response to this strange idea of the disciples are simple and severe: “You do not know what spirit you are of.” Empires may have disappeared today, probably fortunately, but in the lives of individuals this temptation and Christ's rebuke of our inclination toward violence remain very important. Truth must not be defended by force, because the Truth triumphs on the Cross.