Who are you?
by Maria Rudolph
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One day the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?’ (Acts 19:15)
Read Acts 19:11–20
You know the situation: You meet new people at church or a function. We have subtle ways in our Australian culture, in our Lutheran culture, to find out about the other person without having to bluntly ask, ‘Who are you?’ We ask, ‘What do you do for a living?’, ‘What was your maiden name?’ and ‘Are you related to such and such?’ They are all questions intended to place the other person into a context, to give them an identity that means something to us.
Who are you?
Even an evil spirit is asking this question. Jesus was well-known, and Paul, who preached Jesus every waking moment, had become a household name, not least thanks to the miracles that accompanied his preaching. Many grew in faith and knowledge of the gospel and gained a new understanding of who they were as children of God. People came from near and far for this teaching and the healings, going as far as taking items that had touched Paul all the way back home to retain for themselves a bit of this healing power.
However, some Jews decided to skip Paul’s lectures on the gospel and tap straight into the miracle part by simply copying what they had observed Paul do. And it must have worked – there is power in the name of Jesus! The seven sons of the Jewish high priest went as far as going around driving out demons in Christ’s name. But they had not done their homework. The faith had not grown in them; they had not become acquainted with the gospel or the meaning behind the power of Jesus. They did not even know that in order to follow Jesus, they should become baptised children of God, which would give them a new life in Christ.
But they couldn’t fool the evil spirit they encountered. With one question, he rattled their thin roots and shaky foundations to the core, and they came tumbling down. Their embarrassing encounter became a lesson for us all.
Know who you are. You are a baptised child of God, the heir of the most high God. Jesus has given his life for you, and you are born again and are a new creation. Even when all else is stripped from you, and you leave this earth again naked, this identity will be your only and most precious possession. This is most certainly true.
Dear God, with Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we pray, ‘Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine’. Yes, Lord, to be yours is all we need to know about ourselves. Wash away our self-doubt, worry and feelings of inadequacy and replace them with sure confidence in your name, on which we are calling to be saved. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Maria loves serving God through the LCANZ and currently does this at St John’s Perth as a pastoral associate and volunteers at Concordia Duncraig in Western Australia. She enjoys being part of a Way Forward Working Group and tackling current theological issues on the Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations. Her three kids and pastor husband keep her very happy and busy.
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