Dwell in the Shelter of the Most High

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Luke 4:1-13/Psalm 91

    This year in Lent, I’m looking forward to becoming “Aunt Rebecca” (or “ant” if you prefer) as my brother and his wife become parents for the first time.  Our nephew’s due date is April 5!  My kids will become “cousins.”  We’re making plans to visit our new family member in July, and we’re all looking forward to this new identity we will have as aunt, uncle, and cousin.  How has your identity changed over the course of your life?  When you were born of course you immediately became a daughter or a son – and maybe a sister, brother, niece, nephew, or cousin as well.  Do you remember what it felt like to be called “Mr. Smith” or “Miss Jones” for the first time?  I remember wondering how it could be possible that I was an adult!  Perhaps you were happy to adjust to the newness of being pronounced “Mr. and Mrs.” on your wedding day.  When I was first ordained at 26 years of age, I looked around the room at who else they were talking to for at least a month before I got used to my name being “Pastor.” And I know many of you have shared the feelings of both joy and astonishment when you were called “Grandma, Grandpa, Papa or Nana.”  You realize yes, you are that old to be a grandma, but also you get to enjoy your children’s children!  What titles or degrees have changed and shaped your identity over the years?  How have these names and roles made who you are today?  Who are you most proud of being, and are there names you’d prefer not to be called?  What are you looking forward to still yet becoming?
    We begin our season of Lent this year focused on the word “transformation.”  Transformation is basically a fancy word for “change,” and in the Christian sense, we are talking about how the Holy Spirit creates positive life change in us to be more Christ-like.  If we take a moment to look back on our lives this morning, we realize that we have undergone many changes – some good, some not so great – throughout our lives.  Some changes we have had control over and some we have not.  Our roles, our titles, the names we call ourselves may have changed over the years. But we start this Lenten transformation process or spring “spiritual cleaning” as I called it on Ash Wednesday, remembering we are grounded, rooted, in one identity that cannot change – we are children of God. God gives us the name “Christian,” which no one can take away from us or change about us.  THEN we can ask, “What kind of person am I becoming? What kind of person is God changing me to be?” while at the same time knowing who we are as children of God is enough.  We are enough for God, just as we are, More importantly, we are able to adapt to the changes we experience in life, both good and bad, because we rest in the knowledge that GOD is enough for us!  Who GOD is is enough for us!
    Our gospel for this morning is the story of Jesus’ temptation by the devil in the wilderness.  Right before Jesus goes to fast in the wilderness for forty days, in chapter three of Luke, Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River.  At his baptism, a voice from heaven declares, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  We have this declaration from God that Jesus is God’s beloved Son.  This is who Jesus is!  Jesus is the Son of God.
Notice how the devil begins the conversation with Jesus at his temptation:  “IF you are the Son of God…”. The devil tries to tempt Jesus into questioning his identity.  Is Jesus really the Son of God?  He should prove it.  The devil tries to question God’s authority to define who Jesus is and instead tries to redefine who Jesus is himself.  The devil is a master of lies.  He tells Jesus he has been given “all this authority” and can give Jesus authority over anyone he pleases, if Jesus but worships him.  But Jesus refuses to give the devil any power over him – the devil has no say in who Jesus is.  Rather, Jesus says, “One does not live by bread alone.”  “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”  “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  All of these responses come from Holy Scripture, from the word of God.  Jesus, the Word of God made flesh uses the truth of God’s written word to combat the lies and the false authority of the devil to stand firm in his identity as the Son of God.  Jesus doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody – he answers only to God, his Father in heaven.
    It strikes me that we sometimes give the devil too much authority to have a say over who we are.  It is easy to listen to the devil’s lies about who we should want to be and convince ourselves that we have something to prove. We worry too much about what others say about us or how others think about us rather than grounding ourselves as Jesus does in who GOD says we are.  “If you are so great…the devil may start to ask in that critical voice within ourselves…”then you need x,y, & z to really make it in the eyes of the world.”  “If you are a child of God,” the devil may ask, “then why has your life included suffering and difficulty?  I can make life a lot easier for you.”  But Jesus never said following him would be easy, as he himself undergoes the difficult journey to Jerusalem and the cross.  We may be tempted to think if we only could climb the corporate ladder to get a certain title, or pad our resume, or earn that raise, or be a more perfect parent then we will have finally “arrived” – people will love us more and we’ll love ourselves more.  But these are empty promises, Jesus tells us today.  It’s very easy to look beyond our core identity as children of God to worship roles and titles that at the end of the day will not satisfy.  Instead, let’s use Jesus’ confrontation in the wilderness with the devil as a reminder that when we think about the changes we want to make within ourselves, we are not seeking spiritual change for our own personal gain or to look better in the eyes of the world.  We have nothing to prove to God, and we can’t prove anything to God even if we tried.  Again, we start our Lenten journey of transformation by asking who we already are in Christ, and who God (not others, and certainly not the devil) wants us to be.  We are baptized children of God.  We proudly bear the name, “Christian,” just as Jesus proudly serves us as the Son of God.
    To be transformed for the better, we put our trust in God who is enough for us.  The devil misuses a part of Psalm 91 this morning to try to change Jesus’ mind with scripture.  I’d encourage you to go back and re-read Psalm 91 in its entirety this week.  The Lord promises to deliver those who cling to him and uphold them “because they know my name,” the Lord says.  We cannot always resist temptation as Jesus does – we’re not Jesus, and because of the cross of Christ, we don’t have to be!  However, we can hold onto the image of dwelling in the shelter of the Lord, trusting in God who is our refuge and strength in times of trouble, giving us the courage we need to resist the devil and his empty promises.  May all of who we are – spouses, siblings, children, grandparents, teachers, leaders, hard workers, retirees, volunteers and so on – whatever the title or the role – point back to our trust in God.  For it is he alone who calls us by name.  We are his.  Amen.