Sunday, February 26, 2023

First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 3:1-21
Psalm 32:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

“But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.” Romans 5:15, WEB

“The ink is black, the page is white, together we learn to read and write. A child is black, a child is white, the whole world looks upon the sight. A beautiful sight.” This song was made popular in 1972 by the group Three Dog Night and was a statement about the Brown vs. Education decision of the United States Supreme court which outlawed racial segregation in schools. Sammy Davis, Jr. made the original version of this folk song using a verse that was not used in later versions. “Their robes were black, their heads were white, the schoolhouse doors were closed so tight, nine judges all set down their names, to end the years and years of shame.” Segregation demands that people be seen as opposites, just like the colors black and white. However, it is wrong to do so. Skin color might make us different, but we are the same in too many other ways to let it separate us from one another.

It is so much easier to look at the world as dualistic. White or black, tall or short, fat or thin, rich or poor. These are ways we define people and things, but are there really only two choices? Go to a paint store and ask for white paint. There are numerous types of white. Can we really tell the difference between then? Yes. Try comparing ecru to ivory and you’ll see a difference. Most people would not know if you’ve painted ecru or ivory on your wall, but if you put them side by side you can see the difference. Are there really just black and white people? The world is filled with many skin tones. Some people who are ‘white’ have deep tans and look darker in color than some ‘black’ people. How do we discern one from another? Our skin might make us different, but it should never define us or separate us.

When we consider good and evil, we think again in dualistic terms. There is good and there is evil and neither the twain shall meet, right? This is true when it comes to the cosmic battle between God and Satan, but the reality is that it is difficult to separate good and evil when it comes to human actions. Is it possible for us to do only good things? Even though we try to do only good, all too often the things we do turn out to be less than good. If it is less than good, is it still good or is it evil? Where do we draw the line?

Advertisements are designed to tempt us. Naturally, they tempt us to want - or to think we need - their product. However, the ads often sell much more than their products. They say that “sex sells” but I think that the ads using sex also sell sex. In other words, the beautiful girl tempting someone to visit a website or drink a particular brand of water not only sells the product but also makes that behavior seem acceptable. Should women actually be enticing a man because he has the hottest new laptop? He probably doesn’t mind a kiss from a beautiful girl, so it must be ok even if it isn’t real. However, teenagers play out these commercials as if they express life as it should be lived.

Some of the temptations are not nearly so blatant. There was once a commercial with a Dalmatian dog training a Clydesdale. It is certainly not a bad thing to work out, to get healthy and strong, to work toward a goal and achieve it. The temptation we all face, however, is that attaining that goal becomes our entire life. Working out at the gym takes the place of time with the family. Jobs become the most important thing in the life for some, so they work seventy or eighty hours a week and ignore their responsibilities of home and family. The good things we seek - even the blessings for which we thank God - become the overwhelming influence of our lives and we forget the God who by His grace has blessed us.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus faced several temptations in the wilderness as He prepared to begin His ministry. Isn’t it interesting that the temptations Jesus faced were not about those things we normally consider bad? Jesus was tempted by the normal decisions of life and ministry. In this story we see the cosmic battle between God and Satan played out in the wilderness. God won then because Jesus kept His focus on what matters; He was obedient to God’s will.

Satan first offered Jesus food for His belly. It is good to eat. Carbs were not an issue in Jesus’ day, so this isn’t a temptation to break a special diet. It isn’t even about the sin of gluttony. Jesus was hungry. He’d been fasting for days. The temptation is about putting the needs of the flesh first. Jesus was in the desert in an act of obedience to the will of God, to strengthen Him against the things He would face in the days to come. The temptation was not only to feed His own hunger, Satan said, “Command these stones.” Jesus would not have needed more than a loaf, but with many loaves of bread He could have fed all the hungry in Jerusalem. He fed thousands on several occasions! But Jesus’ ministry was not to be about opening a food bank. He did feed the hungry. However, He did so first by speaking God’s Word.

The second temptation was about fame. Imagine what an impact Jesus would have had on His world if He had actually gone to the top of the temple to take a flying leap? The appearance of angels and the miraculous landing would have made Him the talk of the town. People would have come flocking to hear Him speak, and perhaps catch a glimpse of Him doing something else amazing. How many ministries focus on the impact they have in their cities and neighborhoods without caring about the message they are giving to the people? Jesus responded, “Do not test God.”

Finally, Satan tempted Jesus with power. Jesus could rule over all the nations of the world if only He would bow down to Satan. This wasn’t a promise Satan could keep, even if Jesus worshipped him, but Jesus rejected it because His purpose was never control or power. He was not to be a worldly king. His purpose was to share the kingdom of God and then to die on the cross for our sake. He did experience all those temptations as He ministered to the people, but He always remained true to God’s Word and to His purpose.

In today’s Old Testament passage, the serpent told Eve that if she ate the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, she would be like God, knowing good and evil. This phrase was not meant to define the world as dualistic, but instead to show that God knows everything. It is like saying that Adam and Eve would be like God, knowing everything from A to Z. But we know that there is not only just good and evil; there is good to evil and everything in between. There are times when we have to choose the best of two evils, when neither choice is good, but a choice has to be made. It is the consequence of living in a fallen world.

Martin Luther said, “Sin boldly.” He did not mean that we should go out in the world purposefully sinning against God and man. He meant that if, as you are living in this sinful and fallen world, you have to sin, do so boldly knowing the grace of God. The whole statement is “Sin boldly but believe more bolder still.” In other words, if we have to decide to do something that is less than good, do so with the knowledge of forgiveness that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The psalmist wrote, “Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom Yahweh doesn’t impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.” This passage shows us the process of forgiveness. This first stage is perhaps the easiest; we say the words “I forgive you” often. But forgiveness requires much more. The psalmist says, “...whose sin is covered,” This is the second stage. This means that we stop focusing on the mistake but instead cover it with grace. The third step is probably the hardest: we forget the sin.

The psalmist says, “Yahweh doesn’t impute iniquity.” He doesn’t hold on to the sin. We often say the words and cover the sin, but we eventually remember and use it against those who have sinned against us. When we get into a battle with someone, we bring up those old sins and remind our “enemy” of the things that they have done to hurt us in the past. God does not do that. When He grants forgiveness, He covers it with Christ’s righteousness and then forgets. It is by God’s grace that we are set free from the burdens of our sin and in this we rejoice.

Unfortunately, we continue to sin. This is why we go through Lent every year, remembering our need for Jesus Christ the Savior. As we walk with Jesus, we are reminded that Jesus already cleansed us from our sin and made us right with God. He will continue to transform us day by day into the people He wants us to be.

I learned to swim at a very early age. We had a small, three foot above ground pool. It didn’t take me long to become like a mermaid, practically living in the water. As my siblings outgrew that pool, our parents built a larger one. They kept the smaller one for me at first so that I would have a safe place to play, but I quickly outgrew it too. The big one was more fun, and I spent nearly every waking hour during the summer in that pool.

The big pool had a deep hole and a deck, so it was impossible to take down every year. So, it stayed up all the time. We didn’t bother with it for the colder months and the water quickly became dirty and gross from lack of care. We did a big clean-up on Memorial Day weekend. We removed all the water, washed down the vinyl sides with soap and water, and then refilled the pool with fresh clean water. Then we added whatever pool chemicals were needed to make it ready for another swimming season. We kept the water clean and safe through summer by cleaning it often and keeping the chemicals right.

It would have been impossible to restore the pool after a long winter’s rest by just cleaning out the gunk and using chemicals. It was necessary to take out the old and put in the new. We had to find a way to stop the process of decay. In the case of our pool, it meant starting over. Year after year, we let the pool go because it was impossible to keep it clean through the fall and winter, and then we started over again the next spring. It only took missing a couple of weeks of maintenance before we could see the stagnation, algae, and built-up foreign matter turning the water nasty.

Adam and Eve were created, and God called them “good.” They lived in harmony with Him and with the rest of creation. Then the serpent made them aware that there is more than “good”. They sought to know more and realized that they were not “good.” They thought that being like God would make them better, but by disobeying God’s Word, they let evil become part of human existence. The choice they made may not seem evil because the fruit looked good, but we are not good whenever we go against God’s word. Anything against God is evil. From that moment in time, we all have evil in us. This is why we need a Savior, why God planned for Jesus from the beginning of time.

We aren’t God. We are created by God and beloved of Him, but we aren’t God. And we aren’t good. We are imperfect, frail, fallen beings. We are created and fallible. We are perishable. We are sinners. We are just like Adam and Eve. They did evil in the Garden of Eden by eating the fruit that God told them not to eat. None of us seem evil, but if we aren’t good, then God’s cosmic battle against Satan falls right into our laps.

We join Adam and Eve in the reality of our failure and continue to be tempted by the same things that have plagued human life since the beginning: we fall to the temptations of our bodies, hearts, and egos. Jesus faced those same temptations, but He did not fall because saw through the lie. He did not seek to attain more, and He stayed the course which God had prepared for Him. He walked to the cross because it was what God intended. He didn’t reach beyond what He had because He knew He had everything. His obedience secured the gift of life for all who believe. We have been healed by Jesus and washed clean so that we can dwell once more in the Garden and in the fellowship of our Father the Creator.

Adam and Eve started a process. They may have been the first to turn away from God by listening to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but we continue to do so. The freedom we have to reason and make decisions also gives us the freedom to reject God and go our own way. In doing so, we find ourselves in the position to act in ways that are against God’s Word. These actions harm our relationship with Him and with His creation. We are like our old pool: no matter how “clean” we appear to be, the threat of corrosion, stagnation, and filth is always part of our life. We are imperfect. We are frail. We are sinners. We need, more than anything else, a Savior.

Jesus Christ is that Savior. At the cross, He started a new process. This is like what we did on Memorial Day. He took out all the old water and crud, scrubbed us down, and filled us with His living water. Unfortunately, the old still exists in our flesh: we continue to be sinners even while we have been transformed into saints by the grace of Jesus Christ. The threat of corrosion, stagnation, and filth is still a part of our life. Unlike our family, though, Jesus never gives up. He keeps His grace freely flowing into our lives, granting forgiveness when we fail and showing us the better way. The process will not be complete until the day when He comes again.

For now, we live remembering that we are sinners in need of a Savior. And we live knowing that our Savior Jesus Christ has come. We are saints and sinners, going through this life experiencing the free gift of grace and the frailty of our human condition. Joy and pain, blessedness and suffering is what it means to be a Christian in the world today.

Today is Ash Wednesday. It is the beginning of a forty-day period of fasting and prayer, repentance and renewal. After Jesus was baptized, He was sent into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. For Jesus, that was a time of preparation, prayer, and temptation. During those forty days, the devil came to Him and tempted Him to feed His flesh, His heart, and His ego. Jesus stood firm on the word of God and came to know more clearly who He was and to whom He belonged, while also discerning His purpose in the world.

Today we begin a similar journey: the season of Lent. During Lent we focus on the ministry of Jesus Christ while learning about ourselves and the faith which we have been given. It is a time of discipline: not punishment, but training. It is a time when we can develop better habits of prayer and healthier ways of living. It is a time for growing closer to God, to learn who we are and to whom we belong. It is a time to face the temptations to feed our flesh, our hearts, and our egos and to conquer them with God’s Word as we delve more deeply into the scriptures.

Discipline may mean sacrifice. Athletes eat a special diet when they are in training. Students give up the games of childhood as they prepare for college. We do these things so that we can do our best and become the best we can be. Spiritual discipline might also mean sacrifice: giving up the things that keep us from seeing God. This is called fasting. Maybe there is something that in itself is neither good nor bad, yet you find it distracting your focus away from God. Make a prayerful decision. Do not wear your fasting on your sleeves. Keep it private, between you and God. In the end, you will be transformed into something closer to the “good” God intends for your life.

In our scriptures today we see the comparison of two men: Adam who died because he fell to the words of the tempter and Jesus who faced death without failing. Through Adam we have inherited the reality of sin and death; through Jesus we are given life. Adam listened to another word and believed it more than God’s. Jesus never believed the lies of the tempter and stood firm in God’s Word. Paul draws these two stories together, comparing the trespass and the gift in today’s epistle lesson. “So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life. For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous.”

God has given us His Word and by His Word we can stand firm in His promises. When Satan tempts us, we need only turn to that which He has spoken. Jesus overcame the temptations in the wilderness by proclaiming God’s Word. We can do the same.

Lent is a time of repentance and a time for reflection as we consider our own humanness. We begin on Ash Wednesday with the reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return. This calls us to a season of confession, but we can’t confess that which we do not accept to be true. The world may not be black and white, good and evil, but we are reminded by the Lenten journey that we are not good. We need the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and His grace to be restored into a right relationship with God our Father.

Once we have made our confession we can rest in God’s promise. We are blessed because our sins are forgiven, our transgression is covered, and our God has forgotten our sin. We are blessed because our Lord Jesus did not fall into the temptations He faced in the wilderness. Yet, we are also reminded by the psalmist that when we do not confess our sins, we suffer the burden of guilt and God’s hand of discipline. Forgiveness comes to those who trust in the Lord.

However, Lent is not only be a time of giving things up; it is a journey in which we seek God, seek His will for our lives, and face our unworthiness so that God can build us up to be the people He has created us to be. It is an inward journey as we come to know ourselves better. It is also a journey that is taken with the community of faith. Many churches offer extra worship opportunities, like weekly meals and special services or studies. As we look more closely at ourselves, we can see our failures as well as our successes and discern the ministry to which God has called us as individuals within the community of Christ and the world.

God’s grace is big enough to overcome sin; Jesus ensured forgiveness by His willingness to climb upon the cross and die. He reconciled us to our Father and God. Now, He calls us to repentance, encourages us to live holy lives of faith. There are things in this world that still tempt us. We are sinners, even while we are saints. We are men and women just like Adam and Eve who have heard God’s Word and twisted it to make it sound good to our ears. Trust in God, He will give you the strength and courage and His Word to help you send the tempter away. Pursue a fast if that is what you are led to do but consider the attitude with which you approach it. Are you sacrificing something to be more perfect, or are you becoming more like God created you to be? Those who live according to their own ways will see the consequences of self-centeredness; those who believe the tempter will turn away from God and walk a path that leads to destruction and death.

I encourage everyone to commit time each day to spend with God during this Lenten season. Choose a time and a place, whatever works best for you. Pick a time when you can focus completely on God. Be consistent as you build this habit into your day. Find a place away from distractions so that you can concentrate on prayer, study, and worship. Structure your time with God because it will help you stay focused. Find a Lenten devotional online or in a bookstore that will help guide the direction of your study. Or choose to read through certain books of the Bible. Study the Lenten lectionary texts as we do in this devotional. Begin your time with prayer. Read some scripture. Listen to what God and others have to say about faith in our world today. Hear what God is saying to you personally for this time and place. Discover your own temptations. Discover your gifts. Let God transform you by His Word and His Grace.

Whatever you decide to do throughout this season of Lent, remember that God’s grace is greater than our failure. Christ died so you can live, not bound to the Law, but by His free gift. If you break your fast, ask forgiveness and begin again. Do not let failure become an excuse to keep from trying. We are sinners in need of a Savior. That’s the whole point of Lent, to realize that we need Jesus and the cross to be in relationship with God. Begin each day as if it is a new day. Try and try again. Training is a process of growing. Let the discipline develop over the next few weeks so that it will continue long after Easter Sunday.