First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Matthew 4:1-11

Throughout the forty days of Lent we’ll be exploring the “wilderness”, recognizing it’s not always someplace we go willingly, and yet, sometimes, it’s where we need to find ourselves so that we can draw closer to God.

Wilderness looks different in different parts of the world and it means different things to different people. We are close to Linville Gorge and Shining Rock but wilderness could look like the Boundary Waters of Minnesota or the Mojave Desert in California. And the wilderness that Jesus experiences looks different from those and even different from the garden where we meet Adam and Eve and the serpent in the Genesis text.

Importantly, no matter what our experience of the wilderness is, there is no place where God’s love cannot reach us.

I want to begin with our reading from Genesis that Lisa read. It’s part of the first three chapters of the the Bible, which have not one, but two, different creation stories in them.

The first is where God declares that the works of creation are good, and then, when humankind is created in God’s image, it is very good. (1:31)

God creates us to flourish and loves us.

Our verses for today come from the second creation story. Here humankind has been created for relationship with each other and cautioned against overreaching, and eating from this one tree, but the humans disregard God’s plan or intention for them and, instead, they seize the chance to “be like God knowing good and evil.” (3:5)

I doubt that we’d hear the parallels if we didn’t have these texts side by side like we do today, but when Matthew tells this story of Jesus’ temptation, it is immediately after his baptism when the Holy Spirit of God had descended upon Jesus and God had declared, “This is my Son, the Beloved,” with whom I am well pleased.” (3:17)

God has said again, “This is very good.”

And then the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness where he faces the tempter. In Genesis, humankind justified eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because it was “good for food, and …a delight to the eyes and ..was to be desired to make one wise.” (3:6) But in Matthew, Jesus pushes back on each distorted claim the tempter makes and is satisfied and sustained by God’s Word.

But the point isn’t that “Jesus got it right where humans messed up.” Or to assure us that Jesus knows what it’s like to be tempted so if, or when, we break our Lenten fast, he’ll forgive us.

So, what do we learn from these wilderness stories?

(pause)

It goes back to being God’s beloved.

Adam and Eve are already created in God’s image and do not need anything else. Created to live as servants of creation and do God’s work in the world, they fail to recognize the breadth of God’s love or the expansive freedom God has given them and they make self-serving choices. In his book Simply Christian, Bishop Tom Wright described the human propensity for distraction and disobedience, saying it’s like we are following one route and then we choose to take a left or a right, and head in a different direction, and God accompanies us, saying, “Well, that’s not what I had in mind, but I’ll go with you. Now you’ll need to take these turns…”

Jesus doesn’t take any detours or look for shortcuts. He hears God say, “You are my beloved” and knows his identity as the Son of God. He trusts God to provide for him –confident his hunger will be sated and his thirst will be quenched; he is obedient to God and doesn’t try to secure his own way, and he chooses his relationship with the Father over anything the tempter offers.

The Good News is we are God’s beloved, too.

When we find ourselves in the wilderness,
the tempter may meet us in those wild places and distract us with distorted claims, but we are not the first ones to be in the wilderness and we do not need to be afraid. “For as long as there has been creation, there has been wilderness.”[i]

Sometimes, we may think we are making wise choices for good things, but it turns out that those things are not what God has intended for us. The very One who breathed life into us gives us God’s Word, its commands and promises, teaching us how to live with God and with each other.

Other times, we may be isolated, footsore and famished, but God, who loves us and calls us very good, is with us accompanying us on each step. We are not alone, and we will find a way forward.

Let us pray…
Good and Gracious God,
We give thanks for your beloved Son Jesus and for your Spirit that accompanies us even in the wilderness. Forgive us when we are distracted or choose our own ways over You. Inspire us to have confidence in your promises, remembering we are loved and created to serve and love. We pray in your Holy name. Amen.

[i] From “The Wilderness is Somewhere We’ve Been Before.” Prayer by Sarah Are |A Sanctified Art LLC| sanctifiedart.org