Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
I was a fairly regular church
attendee through my youth, college and even after. However, for some reason, Lent always came as
a surprise to me. I would come to church
one Sunday and I would think, “Why is everyone so depressed? Why is the music
so sad?” Then I would look at the altar hangings and see the purple, I might
notice something in the bulletin and it would click. Or right…it’s Lent. How long is Lent again? Of course Lent was also identified as the
time I gave up something which was never particularly fun. I am afraid that is how many of us think of
Lent…oh that again. In some ways we
treat it as this time we have to get through to get to Easter. The readings don’t help much. They are all
about sin and judgment.
Let’s start with the first reading,
which we are told--is all about the first sin, when sin entered our world. Here they were, Adam and Eve, sitting in paradise.
They had no 9-5 job dragging them down.
The weather was probably perpetually sunny. They got along all the time. God was talking to them, caring for them. They could eat the fruit from any tree….any
tree but one. So of course they had to
eat from that one tree. For millennia people
have blamed this transgression on Eve and I have addressed that in other
sermons. The blame doesn’t belong on Eve, at least not entirely.
There
is the serpent of course; we could put all the blame there. He was crafty. He took God’s words and twisted them. He
appealed to human pride. However, the
blame does not rest on any one person or animal and trying to determine who is
to blame is at best useless and at worst detrimental to understanding the text.
It’s true. They committed a sin. God had given them everything and they
jeopardized all of that in the hope that they could be more like God, more like
the creator than the creature.
Thus, they were expelled from the
garden, from paradise. As a result of
this expulsion, instead of being more like God, they were further from
God. They could still communicate with
God, but it was harder and seemed to get even harder for every generation thereafter,
at least until Jesus came. While God
punished Adam and Eve, he let them live.
They still had food. They had
shelter. They had one another and the promise of children. While there time in paradise ended, they had a
new beginning. They had an opportunity to start over.
Today we began the service with
something called an “Invitation to the Observance of a Holy Lent.” This is part
of the Ash Wednesday service, but I find it appropriate for the first Sunday of
Lent as well. The last paragraph reads,
“I invite you … to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and
repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating
on God’s holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance…let us now
kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.”
Some of those things sound ok.
Self-examination, prayer, reading the Bible…those things are fair
expectations of Christians. But repentance,
fasting, self-denial…those things do not sound appealing at all. Those are the reasons that people do not like
Lent.
Going through Lent without the
repentance, confession and self-examination is kind of like expecting to lose
weight by reciting body affirmations but not exercising or eating right. In order to really transform your body, you
have to do the work. Sometimes that work
is miserable, but sometimes, it makes you feel really good. It’s the same with confession, repentance and
self-examination. It’s hard to be honest about yourself. It is hard to do the work that will make you
a better person and a better Christian. It is hard to acknowledge your sins and
weaknesses and ask God and others for help.
But all those hard things allow you to become a better person. Confessing your sins and working hard not to
sin again doesn’t just make you a better person, it brings you closer to
God. Even though it seems that you are
doing all this work for yourself, you are really doing it for God. Repentance is not merely the acknowledgment
and condemnation of our sins…it is a process of renewal. It literally means to turn around and
reorient ourselves.
We don’t know what happened to Adam
and Eve after they left the garden.
While they certainly felt guilty for offending God---sinning against
God, it is not clear that they repented. We
don’t get the end of the story. It is
not until Jesus comes that we get the rest of the story. In many ways that is
why Jesus is often referred to as the new Adam.
He provided the opportunity for humanity to begin again. While the first humans (Adam and Eve)
rejected the limitations of their humanity by trying to be like God, Jesus
purposefully took on the limitations of humanity by becoming a human. By becoming human he not only took on the
limitations, he felt the effects of our sins. He had to resist sin and
temptation.
The story of him in the desert with
Satan is dramatic and powerful. We see
Jesus standing up to Satan and refusing to prove his divinity. However, just because he withstood this
temptation in the desert does not mean that he lived a life free of temptation
and trials. Much like us, he was faced
with temptation every day. Every day, he
had to do the hard work of resisting sin. While he did not sin, he still
experienced the effects of the sins of others.
He went through the agony of betrayal, abandonment and even death on the
cross. Because he went through all of
that, he was given an opportunity to start over. His resurrection was a new
beginning. It continues to be a new
beginning for us all.
It would be helpful if we could find
a way to think of Lent not as a dreary time full of sadness and gnashing of
teeth, but a new beginning. I am not a
golfer, despite the efforts of my grandparents and father. However, I am going to attempt a golf
analogy. A mulligan is a free shot you
get after you have a really bad shot. It does not count on the scorecard. It is not a real rule, but is often used in
more relaxed settings. But here is the
thing about a mulligan. You still have
to swing again. Someone doesn’t just say, you missed that one, let’s move your
ball right next to the hole. No, you get
a chance to start over. In starting
over, it is usually most helpful if you avoid doing what you did the last
time. You want the next shot to be
better than the last.
In
golf, you usually only get one mulligan per game. However, in our Christian journey, we get
many opportunities to start over without any penalty. In our invitation to the observance of a Holy
Lent, the last line calls us to kneel before our maker and redeemer. Our maker and redeemer. Lent is our opportunity to be made a new, to
be redeemed by a God who loves us and cares for us. It’s true.
We still have to do the work and that is not always fun. But the end…the end is forgiveness,
redemption and a new beginning. That is
not something that should make life dreary.
That is a cause for joy.
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