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Calling down fire at Christmas: A Classic Retake

“Do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” asked two of Jesus’ newly appointed followers.

He was heading to Jerusalem with his team, including James and John, appropriately nicknamed the “Sons of Thunder”. They were attempting to pass through a village that didn’t particularly like Jerusalem. So, the villagers, non-Jewish Samaritans, took down the welcome sign when they saw which way Jesus and company were headed.

It wasn’t the first time Jesus had been turned away and it wouldn’t be the last. In this case, Jesus turned to James and John, rebuked them, and moved on. He rebuked them – James and John – these defenders of his honor. Not those who refused him.

When I read that Jesus rebukes his own and ignores the reaction of the villagers, I stop to think. Weren’t these two guys just trying to protect him? So, what was up with Jesus’ rebuke? Was it that they were more concerned about their own honor than his? Or was it, perhaps, that they’d misunderstood the reaction of the villagers? Or, was Jesus conveying a deeper message about his own way of communicating?

James and John had just been commissioned by Jesus to go everywhere among the Jews proclaiming God’s kingdom. Jesus had specifically said that if they and their message weren’t received, they were to shake the dust off their feet and move on.

I’m thinking two thoughts. One, calling down fire on the villagers was way over the top. Just dust off your sandals.

Two, these villagers were Samaritans and not Jews like James and John and those to whom James and John were sent. Three, the villagers didn’t reject their message – which they never did hear – as much as they rejected their culture or at least their cultural orientation toward Jerusalem.

“Jesus, shall we burn down the town?”

“Get off your high horses, boys, and keep moving.”

Fast forward to the 21st century and it’s Christmastime in the modern city. The same question keeps popping up from followers of Jesus: “Shall we call down your wrath, Jesus, because they won’t let you show up at your own birthday party?” The Christmas wars are as much a holiday tradition as are Salvation Army bellringers, maybe even more so now that people no longer carry change.

And so, I wonder, why do we believers appear so angry? Is it God’s honor or our own we are out to preserve? Nothing stirs a passion for preserving one’s honor more than the perception that one’s power has been eclipsed. I don’t think God’s power has been eclipsed, so maybe it is ours? Which, if that is the case, we never really needed it in the first place. Our own power, that is. It only gets in the way of our obedience to God’s call.

But again, I wonder, are people really rejecting our message or have we gotten so bent out of shape that they’ve never actually had a chance to hear our message? Maybe they are only rejecting our cultural orientation. For the disciples that orientation was heading toward Jerusalem. But while that orientation was what bothered the Samaritans, it is not what Jesus was sending his followers out to preach.


That section you just read is a “Classic Retake” post, which means I’ve dug back into my archives and found some old gem I decided to drag back out into the light of day. I originally wrote that post in 2012. The year had been a year of culture wars on the political scene (okay, that could be any year in recent memory). More tellingly, in the wake of the Newtown massacre of innocent little lives, there had been a rash of prophetic proclamations over that tragedy mixed in with the annual ritual of God’s faithful raising the specter of a Christless Christmas.

Maybe, I thought back then, it was time for a little peace on earth.

I really don’t remember what people were saying after Newtown, other than some people in our country were calling for an end to gun violence, and others were denying the massacre had ever happened. I have no idea what kind of faith the deniers possessed; but I really do not get why people of faith chose to break the 9th commandment and bear false witness against their neighbors in Newtown, saying townsfolk were lying about their own children dying.

My heart breaks when I see how followers of Jesus, of all people, choose to malign the name of Jesus supposedly in his honor. And to do so in such a despicable way as to vilify those whom Jesus has called us to comfort.

And then I recall this story of James and John, two wonderful disciples of Jesus who would later be proclaimed saints. Thank God for God’s grace that changes lives! Because on this day as they passed though Samaria, they were doing everything but revealing God’s grace.

And so, the story, as grievous as it is, gives me hope. That we modern believers in Jesus will also learn that we don’t have to defend Jesus at every slightest slight. What this story about James and John tells me is that the last thing Jesus wants is people fighting for his honor.

“Put down your sword,” Jesus later demands when one of his inner circle tries to protect him when he is besieged by armed guards coming to arrest him. Never, ever does Jesus tell his followers to physically fight for his honor. Instead, they, like him, are to go down with the ship – if necessary.

For one, Jesus is very capable of defending himself. Really, if we believe he is the Son of God, then what, pray tell, can anyone do to hurt him unless he allows himself to be hurt?

For another, that is not the way we win – with the weapons of this world. Rather, we win by laying down our lives.

These days some Christians are tired of Jesus acting like a lamb, a sacrificial lamb at that. So, they emphasize that he is not just a lamb, but a lion. Well, he is described as the Lion of Judah.

But I think C. S. Lewis had a better handle on what kind of lion he is when he pictures Jesus as Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, a lion who willingly sacrifices himself so as to rescue Prince Edmund. Surprise! The roaring lion people clamber for is a sacrificial lamb, made helpless by his own willingness to be put to death.

I think of this whenever I see someone get bent out of shape because someone else doesn’t say “Merry Christmas” back to them in the shopping centers. To help me hold my own tongue and not call fire down from heaven on the Merry Christmas defenders, I picture Jesus rebuking them, just like he did James and John.

Does the person who has been blitzkrieged by the would-be defender of Jesus really know what just happened? What message does the victim take away? That Jesus or his followers aren’t all that merry? That the reason for the season is to use politically correct speech? That they sure were lucky the follower of Jesus wasn’t carrying a sword – or worse?

To state the obvious, Jesus is the heart and soul of the Christmas season, but the same can be said of every season. He doesn’t ask us to defend his honor at Christmastime or any time. He only asks us to live as he has lived and to be willing to lay down our lives as he has done.

The folks in the village in Samaria had no idea what message Jesus was conveying, and they certainly wouldn’t have heard it very clearly if fire had come down from heaven on their heads. They weren’t rejecting Jesus or his message as much as they didn’t like which way these Galileans were heading.

I like much better the story where Jesus stops to talk to another person in Samaria. The conversation with this woman isn’t about fire, but about water, and the fact that Jesus is the living water. That day a whole lot of Samaritans heard a very different and very compelling message from Jesus. And they certainly did not turn him away.

As I wrote back in 2012, I for one think Jesus is perfectly capable of keeping himself in Christmas, if he chooses to do so, without our burning down the town. And he’ll probably keep his hold on Christmas much more easily if the rest of us will celebrate his birth without shooting our fiery arrows at random passersby.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

This post is part of a special holiday series you can find here. Care to verify my take on the Samaritan stories? Check out Luke 9:51-56 and John 4:1-42. Care to join me as I reflect regularly on faith and culture and the borderlands where Jesus intersects with real people? Sign up here.

Public domain photo: Creek Fire (CA) 2020

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