First Sunday in Lent

First Sunday in Lent (A)

February 26, 2023

Text: Gen. 3:1-21; Matt. 4:1-11

            In Adam, the devil conquered our human nature, condemning us to eternal death.  In Christ, our Second Adam, our human nature conquered the devil, granting us eternal life and salvation.

            We know the story.  The first round, in the Garden, went to the devil.  Eve believed the word of the serpent.  She listened to him.  Eve doubted God’s Word and did not listen to Him.  The serpent held before her eyes that which is forbidden.  And he painted it as good for her to take and eat, delightful, desirable, useful to make one wise.  Did God actually say?  You will not surely die!  You will be like God, knowing good and evil.  God is holding out on you.  He is afraid you won’t need Him.  He wants to hold you back, and keep you down.  And His command is so unpleasant, and so unnecessary.  You should be true to yourself.  You should get what you want while the getting’s good, and so be filled, and fulfilled.  Take… take!  Eat… eat!  Eve took, and ate.  And then she preached the satanic sermon to her husband, and she gave to him the unholy anti-communion, and he took, and he ate.

            Now, Adam, for his part, was apparently standing there the whole time.  And he failed to preach.  This is why Adam, and not Eve, is held responsible for the fall into sin.  He should have said something.  He is the head of his family.  He had been given the Divine Command, before the creation of Eve.  It was entrusted to him to proclaim to his wife and their children to come… to the world!  But instead, he left the preaching, the ministry, all that religion stuff, to the woman, though it was not given her to administer.  He listened to her, and believed her preaching.  He doubted God’s Word, and did not listen to Him.  He took and he ate.  And in so doing, he failed to guard and keep his wife and their future children (and that includes you and me).  He did not lead his wife, and therefore his children, us, in the way we should go, in the fear and admonition of the LORD.  He did not provide for us the fruit that is given, which is also good and delightful and desirable, and truly wise, because it conforms to God’s Commandment. 

            And so, what happened?  Their eyes were opened, and they were exposed.  They now knew evil, and it was them.  Now the serpent offered them no comfort.  One wonders what accusations and preaching of despair he hissed at them in the aftermath of the affair.  But Adam and Eve knew, now, that they were naked, and now, for the first time since time began, this nakedness is a shameful thing.  Our parents, they ran away and hid.  They sewed fig leaves together, to cover themselves.  They concocted excuses and passed blame to conceal their guilt.  But they couldn’t hide from God.  God knows where they are, and how far they’ve fallen.  He asks… but He knows.  Where are you, Adam?  Where are you, Eve?  Do you even know?  Do you even realize you have cast yourself headlong into the pit of death?

            Human nature, ever since, is fallen, corrupted, infected with the terminal disease that is Sin.  Original Sin, we call it.  And it is hereditary, passed down from fathers to their children.  Brought on by our first parents’ act of rebellion, it is, nevertheless, not an act, but a condition, a state of being.  We are brought forth in iniquity, and in sin do our mothers conceive us, says King David (Ps. 51:5).  Sinful from the moment of conception, before we ever have a chance to do, think, or say anything.  But, of course, this sinful condition, Original Sin, is what gives birth to our actual sins, the fruit of the corrupt tree, the symptoms of the disease, the actual bad things we do that break God’s Law (sins of commission), the actual good things we fail to do in fulfillment of God’s Law (sins of omission).  And in the end?  Death.  Physical death.  Spiritual death already, now.  Eternal death in hell.  The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).  In Adam, the devil conquered our human nature, condemning us to death.  Round one goes to Satan.

            And so the succeeding rounds.  Israel in the wilderness.  Israel in the Promised Land.  Israel in exile.  Israel after exile.  And the whole world going to hell around them.  Believing the lies of the serpent.  Listening to his word.  Taking and eating what is forbidden.  Forever seeking good by grasping at evil.  What is to be done?  We are enslaved to the very devil.  Who will fight for us?  Who will deliver us from the inescapable demonic claws?

            Now steps onto the scene the Valiant One, whom God Himself elected.  Still wet with the Jordan’s baptismal water, anointed by the Spirit, the Father’s voice still ringing in His ears, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17; ESV), our Lord Jesus Christ is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  To face off against him.  To do spiritual battle in our place, and on our behalf.  To succeed where Adam, and all of us, failed.  Now, the temptation is real.  Remember, our Lord Jesus is a flesh and blood Man, without Sin (He didn’t have a human father from whom to inherit it), but otherwise like us in every way.  Add to that, 40 days and 40 nights of fasting.  Hungry.  Weakened.  The opportune time for the serpent to strike. 

            The temptations our Lord suffers are not markedly different than those of Adam and Eve, or the temptations we all face.  The particular circumstances may be different, but see if you can spot what they all have in common: Stones into bread… Food!  The desires of the flesh.  The desire to put me first, to use my God-given gifts for selfish ends, for my own pleasure, to fulfill myself by my own efforts and desires, and not to rely on God to provide for me and fill me with what is good.  The pinnacle of the Temple… Throw Yourself down… Tempt God.  Make Him prove Himself.  See if His Word is true.  Let’s make Him put His money where His mouth is.  The angels will catch you.  That’s what the Psalm says.  You know they will.  And then… instant glory.  Fame.  A huge following.  They’ll worship You for the God You supposedly are.  And then the high mountain, and all the kingdoms of the world, across all of time and space, and their glory, displayed in a moment.  I’ll give it to You, if You bow down and worship me.  Power.  Selling yourself to the devil for power.  You determine good and evil.  Why are You letting God hold You back?  We’d make good partners, You and I.  See, all these temptations have one thing in common.  Doubt.  Calling God and His Word into doubt.  If God is who He says he is, and if You are who God says You are (His beloved Son, with whom he is well-pleased), then surely God would want You to have what I, the devil, am promising.  Did God really say?  Nah, couldn’t be.   

            Jesus exposes the devil’s temptations for what they are…  Lies!  All lies!  We often wonder when we sing “A Mighty Fortress,” what is the “little word” that will “fell” Satan?  And we make lots of good guesses.  Some Word from Scripture.  The Name of Jesus.  Christ.  All true, I suppose.  But Luther once revealed what little word he had in mind.  Liar!  When the devil is exposed as a liar, and his temptations as lies, he loses his power over us.  All at once, he is naked, and he has to run and hide.  And we realize that the forbidden things he offers us… whether evil things we should not touch… or things like the forbidden fruit, which are, in themselves good, but are not given to us to take for ourselves… God forbids these things for our good, because He loves us, and because He knows and wants what will lead us to life and blessing.

            How does Jesus expose the devil’s lies?  By the Truth of God’s Word.  Scripture.  Deut. 8:3: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).  It is true, what God says in Psalm 91:11-12: “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’” (Matt. 4:6), though, the devil leaves out the very important words indicating that the angels will guard you in God’s ways, and we should always know that when the devil quotes Scripture (and he knows the Scriptures even better than you do), he is always spinning it, bending it to say something other than what it says.  Nevertheless, Deut. 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matt. 4:7).  And finally, “Be gone, Satan!  For it is written,” Deut. 6:13: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (Matt. 4:10). 

            Jesus is our New Adam.  Where Adam failed to preach in the face of the devil’s temptation, Jesus speaks God’s true and life-giving Word.  Where Adam and Eve believed the devil’s word, and did not believe and listen to God’s Word, Jesus faithfully heard, believed, and kept the Word of His Father.  Where Adam and Eve turned away from God and curved in on themselves, providing for their own needs and pleasures, rejecting the gifts God had given them, Jesus relied totally and alone upon His heavenly Father to sustain Him in hunger and provide for His every need.  And, by the way, what did the Father do?  He sent His holy angels to attend to Jesus, to guard Him in all His ways, as He promised.  Jesus knew, in spite of the devil’s lies, that the Father’s will and Command are good for Him, delightful, and desirable to make one wise, to receive only good, and protect from all evil.  In Adam, the devil conquered our human nature.  But in Jesus, God in human flesh, our human nature conquered the devil.  Our Lord did not fall.  This round goes to Jesus.  And God counts His victory over Satan, as our own.

            And, of course, this is just the beginning.  For Jesus is the Seed promised to the woman, who, by His suffering and death on the cross, will crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15).  Where we have fallen to temptation… where Adam and Eve and Israel and the whole world fell… Jesus did not fall.  But He takes our fallenness into Himself, the Original Sin that infects all humanity, and all our actual sins of thought, word, and deed, all the evil that is in us, and is us, into Himself, into His body.  And He puts it all to death on the tree.  He buries it in His tomb.  Forever.  Now, He rises from the dead.  That is the final death blow to Satan and death.  But our Sin does not rise.  The only thing Sin, Satan, and death have to look forward to now is the Final Judgment when they will be forever cast into the Lake of Fire.  We are forever free.  And our silly and inadequate fig leaves of self-justification, our concocted excuses, and our passing the blame, well… no more of that.  Jesus clothes us with skin.  His own, in Holy Baptism.  And His cross, now, is the Tree of Life, the fruit of which is Jesus’ own body and blood, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins, and for the healing of the nations. 

            Where are you, dear Christian?  And what have you done?  You’ve sinned, it is true.  You’ve fallen to temptation.  And the wages of sin is death.  But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 6:23).  By one man came death.  But by this one Man, Jesus Christ, comes life and righteousness.  And so, where are you now, now that you are in Christ, dear Christian?  To be sure, you are, in this moment, in the wilderness, under the devil’s temptation and attacks.  But you aren’t here alone.  You are with Christ.  And the fight is His.  If it’s your fight, the devil will surely win this round, too.  But it isn’t.  The fight belongs to Christ.  For us fights the Valiant One, the Son of David, who, with His five crucifixion wounds, slays the satanic Goliath.  Your only hope for victory against the devil is to stay with Christ.  And how do you do that?  By immersing yourself in His Word.  As you are immersed right now.  Be in Church.  As often as possible.  Bible Study.  Sunday School.  At home, in daily Scripture reading, meditation, and in prayer.  In your Baptism, and in the Sacrament of His body and blood.  Especially in times of temptation, run to the Scriptures, and to the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation,” and to the Holy Absolution.  In this way, you oppose, and expose, the devil’s lies with the truth of God’s Word.  With Christ Himself.  And His victory is your victory.

            When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they were expelled from Paradise into the barren wilderness.  And so Jesus has come into this wilderness, to open once again the living way to Paradise through His flesh.  Follow Him, beloved.  The way leads through Good Friday and the cross, but the end of it all is Easter and the resurrection of the dead.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.