'I have come to set fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
The Message: I've come to start a fire on this earth - how I wish it were blazing right now!  I've come to change everything, turn everything right-side up - how I long for it to be finished!

In the Austalian bush, when bush fires sweep through, they seem to destroy and blacken the landscape.  But soon after, new growth appears, encouraged by clearing out of undergrowth and increased sunlight.  Gum trees shoot new twigs and leaves.  soem trees germinate and produce new life. The 'fire' that Jesus brings may destroy some old values and ideas, but he brings new life and new growth to both individual people and to whole societies.

New Bible Commentary, p. 1002.  The fire stands for the spread of the message or the power of God, and Jesus longs that it might spread more quickly

Each Christian should be longing as Jesus did for the word of God and for God's kingdom on this earth to spread more quickly.  Only when this is our heart's desire will we get off our rear ends and do our part to help this happen.

V 50.

I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until the ordeal is over!
NLT: There is a terrible baptism ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished.
Nettleton paraphrase:  And I am facing a baptism of fire myself - I will be immersed in the conflict and torment of a world going to hell and back.  you can't imagine the stress I'm bearing until it's over!

Quest Study Bible note p. 1442.  This was Jesus' way of talking about his approaching death.  The word baptism was not just describing a ceremony or ritual with water.  It was used to describe being overwhelmed by something - even trials  or judgement.

Jesus knew what was ahead of him and the prospect of death on a cross was no more easy for him than it would be for any one of us.  He was human, and such torture was no easier for him even though he was also divine.  It truly would be an ordeal he knew he had to face.  This knowledge in itself must have been a terrible burden to bear.  He also knew that, in submitting to this death, he would also be taking on the sin of the whole world - another indescribable burden for one who was himself without sin!

New Bible Commentary, p. 1002:  Being plunged into water is a metaphor for distress and suffering.  Here, therefore, baptism (lit. being plunged into water or being deluged with it) is a picture for the sufferings of Jesus.

Constraint - My dictionary defines being uner constraint as being confined or imprisoned.

The NEB and the RSV are the only translations I could find which translate Jesus' condition as constraint. The KJV says straightened.  The other versions I'm looking at talk about distress / stress / heavy burden.
Once I was asked to visit and try to help a young mother whose new baby was very distressed and unsettled.  This mum was from a culture where new babies are firmly swaddled.  I noticed that her beautiful baby boy was happy as a lark when she unwrapped him to bathe him or change his nappy.  But as soon as she began to re-wrap him, he began to cry.  When I tentatively suggested she leave him un-swaddled, she was horrified as she had been taught that it was necessary to swaddle small babies to make them grow straight.  So there was nothing else that I could really do to help.  She had a constrained, very frustrated and distressed baby.
I wonder whether, in this comment of Jesus, he may also have been expressing some of the frustration that the third person of the Trinity - the Son of God, through whom the world was made - must have felt at times in being 'swaddled' in human form, constrained by the abilities of a human body.

Vs 51 - 53

Do you suppose I came to establish peace on earth? No indeed, I have come to bring division.For, from now on, five members of a family will be divided, three against two and two against three; father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother against son's wife and son's wife against her mother-in-law.'
The Message: Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice?  Not so.  I've come to disrupt and confront.
Nettleton paraphrase: From now on you'll see that even families are torn apart.

Quest Study Bible note, p 1442.  These verses illustrate one of the harsher truths of God's kingdom: not everyone will respond to the gospel.  Hearts full of prejudice, hate and pride will resist Christ's offer of peace.  Because many will reject it, the message will divide people, families and nations.

Sadly, we see this every day in our newspapers and in news reports and current affairs programs on our TV.  We read about people being disowned by their families because they have converted to faith in Christ. We read of persecution of Christians in countries where other faiths are in power.  Closer to home, less life-threatening, but still distressing, we sometimes meet with ridicule and intolerance because of our faith.  Family members resist attempts to talk about Christ with them: they will not listen, or they become angry.

When this happens, we must remember that Jesus understands our troubles.  He experienced the same.( see Hebrews 4: 15; 5: 8,9)

V 54 - 56

He  also said to the people, 'When you see a cloud banking up in the west, you say at once, "It is going to rain", and rain it does.  And when the wind is from the south, you say, "There will be a heat-wave", and there is.  What hypocrites you are!  You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; how is it you cannot interpret this fateful hour?

NIV:  How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time?

Nettleton paraphrase: Speaking to the crowds, Jesus also said:
     "When you see dark clouds gathering in the western sky, you are quick to forecast rain, and you are spot on. And when you feel the wind blowing in from the desert in the morning, you say, ‘It’ll be stinking hot today,’ and of course, you are right. So don’t play dumb with me! You are perfectly capable of reading the signs to recognise when the weather is about to change, so what’s so difficult about reading the signs to make sense of what’s happening in the world right now?"

Many people acknowledge the troubles the world is in at the moment. Yet they look to human intervention to try to put things right: to politicians (heaven forbid!!!), to science ( forgetting who gave humankind its scientific knowledge), to social service and welfare organisations, to psychology (Who knows the human mind better than its creator?).  All these things are great gifts from God (yes, even politicians), but all are limited in what they can do without the power of the Holy Spirit. And all the world's troubles will not be finally solved until Christ comes again and finalises the setting up of his kingdom.

Jesus felt impatient to see that day.  So should we. It is our task to spread the word amongst those we meet, to:
Go forth therefore and make all nations my disciples; baptise men everywhere in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28: 19)

What are we waiting for?