Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11, Psalm 32

Our lessons this morning from the book of Genesis and the Gospel of Matthew bring us two accounts of temptation – two accounts of temptation with dramatically different outcomes – outcomes that, in turn, have dramatic impact on our lives as God’s children.  Our epistle lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans connects these two accounts and their dramatic impact.

First, the lesson from Genesis describes for us what has come to be known as The Fall.  Sometime after God created humankind, he placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; Eden is a name significant in the Hebrew language of Genesis meaning “delight” and “luxury.”  Here, as we translate from the Hebrew, man was to “serve” and “keep” the garden – the garden being a place to “rest, settle down, and remain.”[1]  Even today, we have these connotations of the Garden of Eden – a place to rest and remain in the delight of God’s will – a paradise.

Our Genesis account of the Fall from the Garden of Eden is a familiar story: the serpent redirected Eve to think of God as tyrannical and disingenuous in his command that she and Adam were not to eat of the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, death being the consequence.  The serpent tempted Eve to assert her own privilege of making decisions.  Why should she and Adam not eat the fruit of this one particular tree?  Why should humankind be denied the ability to choose freely and be enlightened to the ways of the world?  After all, insinuated the serpent, God is only being selfish – maybe God is jealous of humankind’s abilities to make choices for themselves.

Adam and Eve fail to trust God; they alienate themselves from God by thinking of themselves as being equal with God, being able to make their own decisions without God’s guidance, turning from acknowledgement of their dependence on God.

And, so, as the result of human disobedience, sin came into the world.  And, though Adam and Eve are not struck dead immediately; death, too, came into the world; earthly life now has an ending, and this death became something to be feared.  Would humankind ever again return to Eden – “a place to rest, settle down, and remain?”

Following his baptism and his affirmation as God’s Son, our Gospel lesson tells us that Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days.  Wilderness, for God’s people, is nearly always a place of struggle; and 40 days is symbolic of the time of searching for a closer relationship with God – just as our 40 days of Lent are a time of searching for a closer relationship with God – struggling to practice our faithfulness through the wilderness of our daily lives.

Affirmed at his baptism as the Son of God, Jesus was now confronted with these enormous temptations for power and prestige and protection.  Would Jesus capitalize on this opportunity to be an all-powerful superhuman god, as Adam and Eve had given in to that temptation, or would he throw his lot in with the rest of us humans and willfully suffer the consequences of being human?

Jesus was feeling weak and defenseless in this time of profound loneliness and physical emptiness.  Matthew tells us that he was famished.  Would he bow down to Satan, or would he trust God’s providence and worship God alone?

Think for a moment how our human story would have been changed if Jesus had simply given in to the temptation, wriggled his nose, and asserted his godly power rather than choosing to be fully human – to live and die as one of us – to struggle with temptation just as we struggle and all humans struggle with temptation.  What if events had ended differently?

Certainly, Jesus is the fully divine Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.  But, why did He have to be fully human as well?  Why is it important to us that Jesus be just like us – of humble birth, tempted as we are tempted, subject to earthly suffering and death?

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, tells us, “For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” [Romans 5:19]

If Jesus had given in to Satan, all would be lost.  But, Jesus our Savior, willingly obeyed God, in spite of the human suffering this obedience would bring.  And, through Jesus’ obedience to worship God alone, even to the cross, our righteousness is restored.

God did not create death; death is the result of our sin.  Adam and Eve are in all of us.  And, from this early time, death has been the result of our sin.

We’re the ones who make a mess of this world with our desires for power and prestige and self-sufficiency.  We think we can handle the struggles of each day on our own; we fail again and again to seek God’s guidance to resist the temptations of self-dependency.  It is for this reason that Lent is so necessary.

Adam and Eve failed to trust God; they alienated themselves from God by thinking of themselves as being equal with God, being able to make their own decisions without God’s guidance, turning from acknowledgement of their dependence on God.

But, God, himself – Jesus Christ, came into the world to overcome death that is the result of our sin.  And, just as Adam and Eve are in all of us, so is Jesus Christ present in each and every one of us.

Jesus, in his human nature, came willingly to earth to live and die as one of us.  Jesus, in his human nature, though tempted by Satan, chose obedience to God alone.   Jesus, in his human nature, has righted our wrongs.

This Lent, our 40 days in the wilderness is the time that we confront our struggle to remain faithful to God alone.  On Wednesday, as Lent began, we came to be marked with ashes and reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  In this Holy Lent, we will take on greater intentionality in our daily prayers and devotional time, participate more fully in mission, seek to be kinder and gentler to ourselves and others; we might pursue self-denial – giving up something we enjoy in order to be reminded frequently of our Lord’s sacrifice for us.  Or, we might seek to eliminate a bad habit that robs our valuable time and energy.  This is a time to clear the clutter – spiritual, physical, emotional clutter – that overcomplicates and stifles our ability to better serve our Lord every day.

There are numerous ways to observe our Holy Lent.  Deitrich Bonhoeffer offers us this bit of guidance: “It is not religious acts that make one Christian, but participation in the suffering of Christ in worldly life.”  God created Adam and Eve to “till and keep” the Garden.  He calls us to do the same.