The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. – Genesis 2:15-17, Genesis 3:1-7
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Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'” 7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” 11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. – Matthew 4:1-11
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Welcome to the first Sunday of Lent!
Lent is traditionally a time for self-examination – what we might call “spring cleaning for the soul.” Some people believe in ‘giving things up for Lent’ – and while I don’t think that’s a requirement I don’t discourage it. Lent is more like a time for drawing closer to God.
I discovered something the other day: the word ‘Lent’ is an Old English word meaning ‘lengthen’ – as in, this is the time of year when the days get longer. I think that fits, because even though Lent tends to be a dark season, spiritually and emotionally, at the same time it is leading to the light.
The season of Lent was created hundreds of years ago. Forty days were chosen to reflect a connection to other important Biblical “forties” such as:
- Moses was on the top of Mt. Sinai for 40 days receiving the Ten Commandments
- Elijah was 40 days on the top of Mt. Horeb
- Israel was 40 years in the wilderness
- Jesus was 40 days in the wilderness being tempted
Lent was also a time, for many hundreds of years, when people who had come to faith were taught what it means to live the Christian life – basically a six-week-long new members’ class, which culminated with people joining the church on Easter Day.
Lent is also a time of repentance – a time when God deals with evil and sin. God hates sin (not the sinner!) – but God hates sin because it damages God’s good creation. It destroys the people God loves.
We tend to think of sin as a generalized evil – in culture, in politics, in evil actions like mass murder. But sin as it’s defined in Scripture is not systemic – except when sinners get together and create systems with foundations in wrongdoing (which does happen far too often).
When I think about what sin does in peoples’ lives, I often think of that guy back in 1972 who took a hammer to Michelangelo’s Pieta in the Vatican. The immediate visceral reaction was “WHY???” Why would anyone do something like that to such a masterpiece? There’s only one of those in the whole world and it’s so beautiful and it’s irreplaceable. Why???
[photo:Reuters: The Pieta: damage done, and the repair work completed]
Every human being on the face of the earth is a masterpiece greater than the Pieta: beautiful and irreplaceable and there’s only one of each of us. God made us unique and priceless. And sin damages God’s masterpieces – the works of art that God made when God made you and me and every other person on the planet.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once famously said:
“the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.” So Lent is a time to tend to our hearts, to tend to our relationship with God, and to restore the work of art that God has made in each one of us.
I heard something this past week that made a lot of sense to me. The quote was: “Repentance is not groveling – repentance is insight.” The author went on to say that we change course in our lives when we have become convinced of something new.
There are a lot of things in this world that we don’t know. All of us are still learning, and there are a lot of things we haven’t experienced yet. When God’s truth comes into our lives in some new way, it changes us – and we change course because of it. That’s what repentance means: to change course.
King David once prayed: “cleanse me from my secret faults O God.” David understood that people are complex creatures, and there are things we don’t even know about ourselves. So David asks God and trusts God to teach him what he needs to know, and to restore the parts of the masterpiece that David can’t reach.
Our scripture readings for today talk about how sin got started, and how Jesus confronts temptation.
The first reading, from Genesis, gives us the story of Adam and Eve – a very familiar story. Adam and Eve – the first human beings – were created perfect: without sin, and in perfect relationship with God. God’s creation was, as God said, “very good”.
God gave his new humans the ability to care for other living things, including the animals and including each other. God walked with them in the garden, and they probably talked and ate and laughed together, unselfconscious and unafraid. In the beginning all was peace and all was good.
And then the snake showed up. He started asking the people nebby questions about “what did God tell you?” and “oh no, God got that wrong…”.
God’s word had been: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen 2:16-17)
I’m not sure Adam and Eve fully understood the meanings of some of these words. They certainly understood the ‘do not eat’ part, but at that point they had no experience of ‘evil’ or of ‘death’. These were new concepts. Did they have working definitions of these words? We don’t know.
Meanwhile the serpent is suggesting that God is being less than truthful. The serpent says: “You will not die” – calling God a liar – and he also says, “God knows when you eat it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God knowing good and evil” – in other words, God’s holding back on you. God’s afraid you might become too powerful, might even compete with him…
Yes, this forbidden fruit will give Adam and Eve knowledge they don’t have. Yes, they will know good and they will know evil. They will also learn that they are naked – which was never a problem until now: not for God, and not for them.
But God has not been lying… and God has not been holding back… and God is not afraid that people might compete with him if they gain too much wisdom. God is not insecure. God is a loving parent who wants good things for the children.
The tragedy is Adam and Eve did die that day. Not physically, not right away. But the people they had been before they ate – innocent and walking in the garden with God – those people ceased to exist, and would never be back. They were changed. They now had a terminal illness that could not be healed on this earth. There was no ‘undo’ button on that apple. Once it was eaten, the damage was done.
What kind of madman would take a hammer to such masterpieces?
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In our reading from Matthew, the same madman tries to use his hammer on Jesus – and fails.
As we pick up the story in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has just been baptized, and God has said “behold my son in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus is now led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested before he starts his public ministry. This is the time when Jesus learns what it will mean to be the Messiah and the Savior of the world.
It’s also where Jesus redeems the mistake Adam and Eve made. He faces the tempter and remains faithful. Jesus proves himself trustworthy in every way.
As we look at these temptations, we see that Jesus disarms temptation with Scripture, particularly the Law of Moses. The whole point of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness was to learn to trust God for their everyday needs. There was manna provided every day. There would be water; there was enough to eat.
Jesus doesn’t enter into any arguments with the devil. Jesus doesn’t debate. He just says “this is the word of God and I stand by it.” Jesus disarms temptation by trusting God even when no one is watching.
Here’s the scene that Matthew describes:
Matthew tells us Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days without food – which is about the max a human body can withstand. So for Temptation #1 the tempter hits him where it really hurts. He says: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.”
Bread is what Jesus desperately needs right now; and as the Son of God, Jesus is capable of doing miracles. So would it have harmed anything if he had made a few loaves of bread?
Well… yes. It would have: because as a human being, and as our savior, Jesus needed to deal with life the way human beings do. We human beings can’t conjure up bread. We have to trust God for everything we need. Jesus needed to trust God as we do: for care, for guidance, and for food. Jesus has learned the lesson of the manna in the wilderness: God knows our needs and God will provide.
Jesus knew what God was calling him to do. This moment has a direct connection to the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus prays “please take this cup from me; but not my will but thine be done.” Jesus was human in every way, but he trusted God’s love. Given the choice between trusting his Father God or looking out for #1, Jesus chose God. Therefore he answers the tempter in the words of Moses – words that are available to all of us:
“God fed you daily with manna ‘in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD’.”
Temptation #1 defeated.
For Temptation #2, the tempter tries something that might strike us as a bit weird. He takes Jesus to the very top of the Temple building, “to the pinnacle”, and he says: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
The nature of this temptation is subtle. God’s word, in the mouth of the tempter, becomes a litmus test for faith. In my experience, making litmus tests for faith is one of the clearest indications that a Christian organization has lost its way. For example some churches make speaking in tongues the litmus test: if you can’t speak in tongues you’re not a true Christian. Other churches use politics: if you don’t vote for this cause or this person you’re not a true Christian.
The underlying message in each of these scenarios is: “scripture says you need to do [whatever it is] to prove your faithfulness… or to prove God’s word. As God’s children we are called to believe that God loves us, and to trust that love. As Jesus says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Don’t ask your Father, ‘How much do you love me?’
We are loved, deeply loved, by God. We can trust God’s love; there is no need to test it. Temptation #2 defeated.
Side note: the scripture passage that the tempter tosses at Jesus in this temptation is familiar to many of us. The line “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone” was quoted in a song that many of us know, called “On Eagles Wings”. The man who wrote this song uses the quote correctly, in an appropriate context.
“Eagles Wings” was written as a funeral song. The priest who wrote it, Fr. Michael Joncas, went out to lunch with a good friend one day, and when they returned home they received word that his friend’s father had passed away suddenly. Joncas wrote this song for his friend’s father’s funeral. The song is amazingly moving when heard in the context of a funeral. (It’s a good song just for church too, and many people have come to love it that way):
“…and he will raise you up on eagles wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn
Make you to shine like the sun
And hold you in the palm of his hand…”
It’s a hymn that really brings hope and comfort, especially in times of grief. Fr. Joncas gave us, by his example, the right use of this scripture passage: hope in the darkness, when times are difficult… not an invitation to tempt people to test God. [end of side note]
Temptation #3 – The devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world throughout history if he will only bow down and worship the devil.
What a terrible moment this is for us mere mortals! These two superhuman beings talking about our fate and the fate of our world like they’re just chatting over coffee. We sit by almost like spectators hoping that Jesus won’t let us down.
Was the devil actually able to offer Jesus these things? I mean, was this a legit offer?
To some extent, yes. The devil has the upper hand in this world for now – which is why we have so much suffering and violence and war and hunger and inequality and pain in the world. The devil is offering Jesus what looks like a shortcut around the Cross, offering Jesus the world in exchange for worship. The catch is this: the devil is offering the world the way it is now – unredeemed, broken. And that’s not what Jesus is after.
Jesus has something better in mind: the kingdom of God, which is described for us in the book of Revelation, that glorious vision. Bringing us into God’s kingdom will cost Jesus dearly – but Jesus wants us in that kingdom where there is no more pain or suffering or sorrow. And he says so. Temptation #3 defeated.
So what does all of this mean for us today?
During Lent we start by looking at temptation. All of us are tempted, in some way, at some time. And the temptation is usually to try to find an alternative to the discipline of living God’s way.
Temptation for us becomes twice as powerful if we are suffering. We may be tempted, if we are ill, to try unproven or unhealthy remedies. We may be tempted to relieve suffering by doing things God has said ‘no’ to. We may be tempted to discouragement, or to despair that anything will ever change. We may be tempted to just give up and settle for this broken world, not even try for anything better. We may be tempted sometimes to wonder if God really loves us – and God really does love us.
Bottom line, we all have choices to make. Many of our choices boil down to: will we do things God’s way? Or will we try to take a shortcut?
Our enemy wants to drive a wedge between us and God. Our enemy tempts us to trust in our own strength and cleverness rather than trusting in a God we can’t see.
I find it helpful sometimes to pray the prayer David prayed: “cleanse me from my secret faults oh God.” I also find it helpful to remember that Jesus’ answers to the tempter don’t just expose the lies; they also declare the gospel – the good news – that God loves us, that God loves all people, even the lost; that God will provide for our needs; that God is with us.
During this Lent, as we are encouraged to fast and to give and do good things – that’s only a small part of the season. Our focus is not so much on us, as on what Jesus is doing.
Jesus is stepping into the ultimate battle between good and evil, which will be fought, literally, in his own body. Jesus will win the victory for us.
Let’s use this time of Lent to draw closer to him and learn to know and trust him even better. Because as the apostle Paul has said:
“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-21)
This is the promise of our God and Savior. May we be blessed with a holy Lent. AMEN.
Preached at Fairhaven UMC and Spencer UMC, 2/26/23
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