To put out fires in our lives and to quench the fires ravaging our world, we need the fire of the Holy Spirit burning in us, a fire which sears as it heals.

In the summer of 1994, there occurred the most devastating tragedy in the history of "smoke jumping."Smokejumpers are elite squads of firefighters, parachuting "hotshots," who take great pride in being on the front lines of out-of-control wildfires. Smokejumpers constitute the first and most dangerous stage of defense for wilderness fires.

On a windy day in July, on the appropriately named Storm Mountain in Colorado, the smokejumpers came too early on the scene. What had been another typical forest fire burning in the bottom of a small canyon was suddenly whipped by a strong, stray wind into an explosion of heat and flame which raced up the side of the canyon. Unlike almost everything else in nature, fire travels faster uphill than down. The elite crew of smoke-jumpers stationed along that ridge were engulfed in a firestorm so intense that escape was nearly impossible. Fourteen died before they could escape. The bodies of many of them were easily found because, in a last-ditch effort, they pulled their shiny, foil-like, fire-resistant emergency shelters over themselves and hugged the ground. Alas, these flimsy barricades were no match for the fury of the Storm Mountain fire.

In 1949, a similar disaster had been experienced by another team of smokejumpers. In a remote area of Montana called Mann Gulch, 12 men lost their lives when wind similarly whipped a small fire into a racing firestorm. Of the three men who escaped the blaze, one was the team's leader. As he watched his men trying to outrun uphill the speeding wall of fire, he realized they were in a losing battle. In desperation, the crew leader decided to risk trying on the spot a new method of fire control no smoke-jumping team had yet employed. Instead of running away, the squad leader stopped, turned and started another fire a so-called "safety fire" between himself and the blaze that followed.

Most of the other smokejumpers thought their team leader had gone berserk. Surely they had more than enough fire already. He yelled for them to join him behind this new safety fire, but they chose to continue trying to outrun the main fire. As the smaller fire burned toward the main blaze, it drew a safety zone behind itself that allowed the squad leader and two other men to escape. All the other smokejumpers perished.

"Fight fire with fire." We've heard the phrase often enough. How many of us would really dream of doing such a thing? We think of fire as something that must be doused with water or buried alive in order to put it out. But sometimes, especially when the flames are life-threatening and lashing at our heels, the only survival strategy that works is to "fight fire with fire."

Today's gospel reading demonstrates that at the very start of Jesus' ministry indeed, at its big "opening event" images of both triumph and tragedy were present. The coming Messiah is portrayed by John the Baptist as one who will effect apocalyptic judgment through “unquenchable fire" (v.17). But there is another fire burning in Jesus' mission and ministry. The words spoken by that heavenly voice at the time of his baptism called Jesus "beloved" language that recalled the words spoken about the "suffering servant" in Isaiah 42:1-2. In suffering there is also the power of an unquenchable fire: "A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench ..." (Isaiah 42:3).

There is only one force powerful enough to snuff out those firestorms that are engulfing our world today the fire of a life ablaze for God and the gospel. Discipleship sets ablaze the unquenchable fire of the Holy Spirit to fight the fires of disease, death and destruction in our world. Those who have been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty ought to be fired up for God. But fired up faith, authentic discipleship, costs everything. Everything must be consumed in the fire of faith's vulnerability, sacrifice and suffering.

When we catch fire, we are called to a discipleship that fights the fires of the world with the fire of faith. Are you on fire for Jesus? Are you setting the world afire for justice and hope and truth?