Luke 4:1-13

“Who We Are … and To Whom We Belong”

In the Scripture texts before us this week, we can see that the issue of Jesus’ identity is found all over these stories – all over these passages in the opening chapters of Luke’s Gospel. Often, the temptation scene is studied so that we may find useful tips or principles that we may use in our lives as we try to stave off temptations that come our way. There is no better place to find guidance and direction for our Christian lives than the stories of Jesus. When we think about overcoming temptation, we often think about how Jesus was able to overcome Satan’s attempts to lure Jesus into certain traps or into doing something wrong. Yet here in the opening chapters of Luke’s gospel, we find that there are much larger things going on. This context suggests that this matter of temptation for Jesus was not simply about doing something wrong. But it was a test of who he was and to whom he belonged. For that seems to be the central issue in the first chapters of Luke (see 1:31-35; 2:11, 48-49; 3:22, 23-38; 4:14-30).

Luke does not merely give us the facts of Jesus’ baptism and time of temptation. Rather, we are pointed to the fact that everything that is going on here has to do with Jesus’ identity. But what does that have to do with us? And what is here for us that is such good news? Could it be that Luke has gone about telling us these stories about Jesus so that, in looking at Jesus, we also see something about us? Maybe there is something that we see in the importance of Jesus’ identity – about his coming to grips with who he was and to whom he belonged by virtue of being God’s son – that similarly points out to us our need to come to grips with who we are and to whom we belong because we are God’s children.

As we look again at this familiar passage, two things stand out. First, we find that the confirmation and clarification of Jesus’ identity come before Luke ever tells us anything about any ministry acts of Jesus. Up to this point in the Gospel, Jesus has done no miracles; he has offered no wonderful teachings; he has not yet handpicked the apostles. We have not been privy to Jesus raising any persons from the dead; we have not received any words of eloquence from the lips of Jesus like the Beatitudes; we have not yet witnessed his remarkable calling of poor, uneducated fishermen as “fishers of human beings.” All these things come later. So why does Luke spend so much time here? After all, Mark gives us little information upfront; Mark just begins with miracle after miracle. Why doesn’t Luke just get to the point? Maybe the secret is found there in Luke3:21-22: before Jesus had ever “officially” ministered, before he had done or said anything that was noteworthy or worth recording, he did do one thing: “he prayed.”

We are also told two things. (1) The Spirit came upon him. And according to Luke 4:1, that same Spirit led Jesus and was with Jesus during the 40 days of temptation. (2) A voice from heaven spoke to Jesus, not to others, leaving no doubt about who Jesus was and to whom he belonged. All this comes out of Jesus’ encounter with God. This clear sense of identity and purpose comes from God, before ministry opportunities, crises, temptation, or whatever. The questions about who he is and to whom he belongs are answered before Jesus faces Satan or begins his ministry. And there are good reasons for that. We can have good intentions without considering who we are and to whom we belong. Good intentions may still end up making a mess of things. But our identity as God’s children can safeguard all that. Zealousness without a clear sense of who we are can lead to misguided passion and fervor. So before Jesus’ confrontation with the demonic, the political powers, and the religious authorities, with all the hype and conflict and emotion swirling about him – before Jesus begins his ministry – his identity is confirmed and clarified by God. In the midst of his vulnerability and fatigue, Jesus did not waver when Satan offered him chances to prove himself or an alternative to death on a cross, because radiating from these words and from Jesus are a clarity and confidence of who he was, to whom he belonged, and what that would look like.

Sometimes we get so busy doing what we think God is calling us to do that we forget who we really are. And we can get so busy, wrapped up in all kinds of really important things at church and school and work and neighborhood associations and whatever else that we forget that we are, first and foremost, the children of God, who loves us in ways beyond our imaginations. Now maybe we can get by without dwelling on this at every turn, but life has a way of catching us off-guard. Circumstances and the emotions that are often evoked in such moments can so cloud our minds that we can lose our sense of vision and identity:

• Conversations that go in unintended and unhealthy directions, and words almost slip out without even thinking that we may wound others and create estrangement.

• Situations where emotions run so high that making appropriate choices and decisions become increasingly difficult.

• Times of frustration and discouragement when health or a relationship fails, and one wonders where God may be found.

In such times that we often make the mistake of forgetting to remember who we are and to whom we belong, as God’s children. And words or decisions or actions may come about that may be regretted later, not because we intended or decided something bad but because we do not begin with a sense of what it means to be a child of God. One of the best pieces of advice that I have received says something like this: “Don’t allow yourself, when you are tired, or down or discouraged, or worn out, to make a decision that is contrary to a decision that you made in a better day.” Affirm and celebrate your identity as a child of God, being so gripped by the realization that you belong to the Almighty God and that he has graced you for such circumstances, conversations, and other areas of life.

A second thing that stands out in this passage is this: Jesus did not see his identity as the Son of God as something he possessed. Rather, his identity possessed him and defined the kind of life that he would live. It is almost natural for certain things to begin to happen to someone who holds a place of status or power or privilege. We often see this among high-ranking politicians, CEO’s of major corporations, the popular group at school, the social elite of a community. Status, privilege, or power becomes something that is a right, possession, or something that is protected at all costs. Jesus could have used his identity as the Son of God as a possession, as something that he owned, as something for his benefit. He could have used all this to feed himself. He could have used this to do something spectacular, so people would flock to him and listen to his message of salvation. When Jesus returned to Nazareth, he could have used his status to help his impoverished neighbors and to gain notoriety from the hometown folk. He could have stood up in front of people and demanded that they listen to him. But that is not the Jesus we see in the NT Gospels. As the hymn that the apostle Paul quotes in Philippians 2 declares, Jesus “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.” Jesus did not embrace his identity as God’s Son as something that he owned, that made him better, or that gave him the right to say things and to be listened to. His identity so possessed him that it defined the kind of life and mission that he lived.

God’s work of grace in our lives, which has made us into God’s children, is not our possession, or something that we keep to ourselves simply so that we can become better Christians. We do not hold onto God’s grace so we can do great things for God or so others will notice the wonderful things that we do, all in God’s name. We do not hold onto God’s grace so we can be blessed in some area of my life. But what it does mean is that as God’s children our lives are so transformed and shaped and defined by God that we live in grace-filled ways in our homes and neighborhoods, among friends and strangers, among those who are our social or economic peers and those who are not. It means that we begin to imagine what it might look like for us to live in ways that match who we say we are. It means that we will be about the business of going where Jesus goes and doing what Jesus does. It may mean that some will take the risk of being those who act in reconciling ways between others. It may mean that some will take a stand at places of employment about a policy or requirement that is antithetical to what it means for them to be a child of God. It may mean that we stand up to represent the powerless or the disadvantaged that live among us under powers that oppress or threaten them. It may mean that someone may do the hard work of listening to another whose heart is breaking or whose life just seems to be crumbling. Perhaps it may mean that some will simply stand steady when everything else seems to be crashing in around them. These and countless other things happen, not because we possess something or because we have read the latest trendy Christian book, but because God by God’s grace has so altered our spiritual DNA so that we reflect that same grace and love. It’s almost like it is in our genes. And we just cannot help but live in these kinds of ways, because it is all about who we are and to whom we belong.