In the Shadows

Sermon on Sunday, February 22, 2026

Dear church,

Jesus is going where few of us want to go: into the wilderness, to a place where he was going to be vulnerable and wouldn’t be in charge. There, the gospels tell us, he was tempted by the devil and tested, three times tested to the core. Now, we must understand: the remote wilderness was not likely on Jesus’ bucket list. It was not likely something he wanted to add to his spiritual resume in order to demonstrate that he was the Son of God who could face the devil - like some people climb Mt. Everest these days. He was led there, we are told, by the Spirit of God, the spirit of truth, and that is important to remember. God sometimes leads people to difficult places, to places that hurt. Why is that? 

I believe there are deeper reasons why we all need to face, perhaps not the devil (let’s leave that to Jesus) but the shadows of life, even our own shadows, and be tested and heal and grow… If we refuse to go to the wilderness when the spirit begs us to go there, we may feel initially safer, but people will often pay a price for continued avoidance. If we don’t deal with the shadows of life, they usually find a way to get to us. Then people get stuck in grief, pain, resentment, bitterness, unhealthy copying mechanisms, alcoholism because those shadows needed to be dealt with. In that sense this wild story is about us as much as it is about Jesus. It is possible that in this story Jesus deals with his very own shadows, the shadows of the Son of God, the dark side of his future power. It was a hurdle he had to clear. 

The renowned pioneer of psychology, Carl Gustav Jung, wrote a lot about the parts of ourselves that we try to suppress, reject or deny. He called them shadows. Jung spent some time in the wilderness of his own soul and learned from that experience. He taught that when we suppress our shadows, they will re-appear in other ways. His insight is especially important for the church. Jung was the son of a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church. He had observed the consequences of avoidance and trying to appear all put together in his own father. This temptation story may even be especially relevant for church people. Because it remains a huge temptation for religious people to pretend that we are all good, to appear more perfect than we are. It’s a temptation that has haunted Christians in the past and still haunts us today.  

This story and many other teachings of the Bible encourage us to accept our flaws and shadows, the edges and less desirable parts that come with the whole package that is YOU and ME. People who can’t acknowledge that they have a shadow side are described by Jesus as hypocrites who are less free than others because they force their own souls into the prison of pretend-goodness. The sinners, Jesus taught, are better off because they know who they are and therefore can face their shadows and eventually heal. That’s how Peter, Mary Magdalene and Judas became disciples. Unlike the Pharisees and scribes. That’s how Jesus found his people: in the shadows.     

One of Jung’s contemporaries, A.I. Allenby, shared this anecdote... Jung once told him that he met a distinguished man, a Quaker and a respected member of the community, who could not imagine that he had ever done anything wrong in his life. "And do you know what happened to his children?" Jung asked. "The son became a thief, and the daughter a prostitute. Because the father would not take on his shadow, his share in the imperfection of human nature, his children were compelled to live out the dark side which he had ignored." 

Let me ask you this - and believe me I know how unusual that sounds coming from a pulpit, but it must be asked… Have you claimed your share in the imperfection of human nature? Have you owned it, accepted it, integrated it, allowed God to work with it? That’s the shadow work we must do. It holds great promise. It promises to help us become whole inside and free. Another word for it is salvation. Christ is in us, helping us to deal with our shadows that his light may shine through our imperfections. That’s how we are saved. Again and again, we are held by the grace of God, not by our perfection. The devil tried to get to Jesus through perfectionism. ”If you are the Son of God, if you are as great as you think you are, you can do anything…” Jesus politely declined. We are held by the grace of God who does not blame us for our shadows but will bring them into his glorious light. May God give us the full measure of grace, grace TO BE, grace TO LIVE. His grace is all sufficient.    

Amen.