Rescue
Me
Keith
McFarren
March
9, 2025
Psalm 91:1-2,
9-16
    What are you giving up for Lent?  A certain type of food?  A certain type of drink?  People give up smoking and drinking.  They give up all sorts of things.  I think it might be easier to “give up Lent”
for Lent, because giving up stuff for Lent is too hard, it’s too difficult, and
it never works.  So, let’s just forget
about Lent altogether and keep on eating or drinking or whatever it is you do.  That’s Lent in the secular world…the world
outside the doors of the church.
    It’s different inside the church.  Inside the church, Lent is looked at as a
somber, reflective, deeply internal season that is designed to make us take a
good look at, and recognize our sinfulness.
Lent is about our own individual journey with Jesus.  It’s about wandering around in the wilderness
for forty days just as Jesus wandered in the wilderness for forty days.  
    But what does all this somberness, all
this being sorry, all this repenting, all this deep down introspection have to
do with what the church focuses on best.
What does all this have to do with love…and loving one another?
    What if Lent is meant to be more than just
an individual exercise of redemption?
What if our introspection and our confessions and our examination of our
inner being is not just about us but about our entire faith community?  
    That’s what we did Wednesday night…and
that’s what we’re doing here this morning…we come here as individuals seeking
our own redemption but at the same time, we’re gathering as a faith community
to take care of one another, to seek our redemption together, to forgive one
another and to love one another.
    To love one another.  That’s what it’s all about.  That’s the secret to our existence.  In fact, if we were to look around us, we
would find that we are surrounded by a love that is almost indescribable.  
    We’re wondering around out here in the
wilderness as we start out on our Lenten journey…a journey meant to lead us
from our sinfulness to the power of God’s redemption.  But we have to remember that the type of
wilderness Jesus found himself in during his forty days in the wilderness was
totally different than the wilderness you and I find ourselves in.
    Picture the wilderness of the Great Smokey
Mountains, or the Appalachian Mountains, or of a seemingly endless national
forest somewhere out west or up north.  Picture
a place out in the middle of nowhere, where the trees are so thick you can
hardly see through them.  A place where
you put your camping trailer or where you set up your tent beside a beautiful
lake out in the middle of nowhere.  Of
grass and wildflowers, of all sorts of wild animals as well as undergrowth so
thick that your feet get caught up in them when you walk.  That’s our wilderness, but it’s a wilderness
so much different than the one Jesus knew.
    Now let’s picture the wilderness Jesus
spent forty days in.  His wilderness was
a desert with nothing more than rocks and sand.
There is no shade; just the sun beating down upon him sapping the
strength and the life right out of him.
It was a dry, severely parched area.
Out in the wilderness, Jesus was exposed and vulnerable.
    So from Jesus’ standpoint, Psalm 91, our
scripture reading, was a blessing to Jesus.
It talks about shadows and shelters.
You who live in the shadows and are protected by a shelter…you will find
relief from the blazing sun.
    You’ve felt it before.  On a hot day the sun is beating down, but
suddenly a huge cloud comes along and covers the sun…and shade is instantly
provided and with that shade comes a few moments of relief.  Suddenly you feel rejuvenated.  Like you can stand a little straighter or
work a little harder.  That one single
cloud, for a few moments changed your day…because that one single cloud, for
just a few moments brought the relief you so desperately needed.
    Did you ever stop and think that God’s
love is relief.  God’s love brings us relief
from the dry feeling of isolation and abandonment; God’s love brings relief for
hearts that are parched from the lack of love that they so desperately
need.  
    God’s love is like the big cloud that
casts the shadow down upon us on a hot day.
It brings us relief knowing that we can reside in the cool shadow of his
acceptance, all the while knowing that that same cool shadow brings us a
feeling of security as it hovers over us.
God’s love provides us the relief we need to stand up straighter and
feel better about ourselves instead of being bent over from the weight of our
sinfulness and all that that the world throws at us.  
    This is the God who loves us.  The God who casts his love over us to shelter
us from the world around us…the God who casts his love over us to protect us
when we’re vulnerable to so many things.
This is our God…a God who promises to be my refuge and my fortress.  This is the God in whom we trust.
    To those who love me…I will deliver.  To those who know my name I will protect.  So, if we know God and we live life the way he
wants us to, always trying to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves,” it
sounds like God has got our back; he’s got everything covered.
    But
if that’s the promise…then why do we hurt…or why do we get sick?  Or why do bad things happen?  Maybe it’s because we’re not living the type
of life God want us to.  Or maybe it’s
because God went on vacation or he wasn’t paying attention to us that day
because Notre Dame was on TV and you know the relationship God has with Notre
Dame!!
    But we know better than all that.  True, there are times when we feel abandoned…like
God really did take the day off to go to the Notre Dame football game.  And there are times in our lives when we feel
inadequate because we’ve disappointed God in some way or another.  
    But deep down inside we know better.  Deep down inside we know that God’s love is
constant…and God’s love is unconditional.
In fact, Psalm 91 tells us that there is nothing that we can do to take
that love away from us.
    “When they call me, I will answer them; I
will be with them in trouble and I will rescue them and I will honor them.”  Verse 15 says that God promises to answer us
whenever we call.  Sometimes we don’t
hear him because we’ve decided he’s taken too long to answer us and we move out
of hearing distance.  Or maybe it’s because
his answer isn’t the one we wanted to hear, so we just block it out.  But the promise is this…God will always
answer.  
    The second promise is that God will always
be with us.  “I will be with them in
times of trouble.”  I’m sure we would all
prefer that God would do his best to keep us out of trouble.  But it’s that “free will” stuff that John
Wesley talked about, the ability to wander away from God on our own if we want
to…that’s what gets us in trouble.  
    Let’s be honest…we are our own worst enemies.  I say this because a lot of the trouble we
find ourselves in, maybe most of it, is created by us.  But at the same time, we should be celebrating
by jumping up in the air and clicking our heals because none of our
stubbornness, none of our bad choices, and not even our attempting to put
ourselves above God sometimes, none of this will ever keep God from turning
away from us.  God will never abandon us.
    When I was a kid, we used to play monopoly
during the winter time.  We never really
got too deep into it by buying and selling property but I do remember one of
the worst things that could happen was to draw a Go to Jail card.  Do not pass go…do not collect 200.00…go
directly to jail.  And then you had to
get out.  If I remember right getting out
of jail wasn’t easy because there was always a catch to it.  
·You could pay 50.00.  
·You could use your Get Out of Jail card if you
had one or you could buy a card from another player.    
·You could roll doubles on your next turn…and
get out of jail.  But you could only use
up to 3 turns to try to roll doubles.  If
you didn’t roll doubles by your third turn, you were forced to pay 50.00
whether you liked it or not.
    Aren’t you glad we don’t have a Monopoly
God?  Aren’t you glad we have a God who doesn’t
set certain conditions for us to be loved by him?  Aren’t you glad we have a God who doesn’t set
all sorts of conditions for our salvation?
Here, we have a God who not only promises to protect us, but a God who
promises that he will never ever abandon us…plus…he gives us a get out of jail
card for free with no conditions being set.  
     “With
long life I will satisfy them and show them my salvation.”  On top of everything else he promises, God is
willing to “get us out of jail” or rescue us from all the sinfulness that has
overtaken our lives and to provide us with eternal life…life for today and life
for tomorrow.  I can’t imagine a rescue
greater than that.
    Wednesday night at our Ash Wednesday
service we talked about our sinfulness and how our sinfulness can be removed
and how we can start all over by repenting of our sins and offering to trade in
our sinful heart for a clean heart, a heart that God is willing to provide,
just for asking.
    Today we come to a God who offers to serve
as a shelter, as a protector and as a refuge for when we are afraid, for when
we are overwhelmed and for when we are vulnerable.  We ask that God might rescue us from the world
around us…rescue us from our sinfulness and rescue us from whom we have become.
    Finally, may there be joy in your Lenten
journey.  May you realize your sinfulness
and may you realize the vision of what you have become.  But more so, may you realize the vision of who
you can become by allowing God to protect you as he accompanies you on your Lenten
journey.