Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
This is the First Sunday in Lent, and we find ourselves in two places at one time. The Epistle and Gospel belong together, as they should each and every First Sunday in Lent: the Old Testament fall into sin, and the perfect obedience and resistance of temptation in the person of Jesus Christ, winning us forgiveness, life, and salvation. By way of the Old Testament lesson we find ourselves in Genesis 3, in the Garden of Eden, a perfect paradise with two perfect people. By way of the Gospel, Matthew 4:1-11, we find ourselves in a wilderness, a scarred landscape, in the presence of our perfect Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In both readings we find ourselves in the company of the devil.
In Series A of the lectionary, Genesis 3 and Matthew 4:1-11 are the appointed readings for the First Sunday in Lent. Their purpose is to show how human beings and all creation came to be trapped in sin, death, pain, sorrow, conflict, and judgment, and how we are delivered from the same. We have before us this morning the tale of two temptations: two locations, two sets of circumstances, engaged in the most consequential battle in all of human history. I have broken the sermon into six parts.
Part one: innocence and righteousness. In Genesis 1:26-27, God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” He created man in His own image; male and female He created them. Adam and Eve bore the image of God. That image included not only soul, reason, and imagination, but also holiness, righteousness, and innocence: they were as sinless as God Himself. Genesis 1:31: “God saw all that He made, and behold, it was very good.” That included Adam and Eve.
So also Jesus. He stepped out of His baptism, the sinless Lamb of God anointed for His saving work as the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He came up from the water, the dove descended upon Him, and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Adam and Eve were created holy, righteous, and innocent, without spot or blemish. Jesus, the Son of God, the spotless Lamb who takes away the sin of the world: that is what they had in common originally, holiness, righteousness, innocence.
Part two: paradise and wilderness, a contrast. Adam and Eve lived in a paradise the Lord God had created for them. The Garden of Eden was their home. God provided everything they needed for body and soul. They were surrounded by trees bearing good fruit. It was the perfect environment: no need for a house, for the garden was their house; no need for clothing, for the elements were not harsh; no need to fear any creature. They had direct, unmediated fellowship with the Lord God, who walked with them in the garden. In all the days before their fall, they never knew hunger or thirst, hot or cold.
Jesus, on the other hand, described His situation this way: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” He was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Eden was a paradise; the wilderness a rugged, scarred place of hills and rocks, a desert without trees or flowers, hot by day and freezing by night, a hostile place where shade was as scarce as water. Heaven was Christ’s true home, but now, in service to humanity, Jesus goes to a place where the curse of God upon sin was most clearly seen and felt.
And in that place, Jesus made it harder on Himself: He fasted forty days and forty nights. Unlike Adam and Eve’s temptation, the temptation of Jesus came when He was very hungry, very thirsty, very tired. That is why He was there: the Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted. And the tempter came to Him and said, “If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” But He answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'”
Part three: together and alone. Back in the Garden, Genesis 2:18: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper.'” As they faced the serpent’s temptation together, they should have relied on one another to resist. Instead they became full partners in the fall. Together they should have remembered accurately what God said. In chapter 2:16-17 He said to Adam, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.”
But Satan twisted the words of God, and they did not correct him. The devil said, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” It is a twisting of God’s Word; the devil does that all the time. Eve reported what God had said inaccurately: “God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'” When they touched the tree and did not drop dead, they decided the fruit was harmless as well. So they took and ate, and they both died right there, spiritually, and eventually physically.
In the wilderness, Jesus was not only hungry and thirsty and weakened; He was by Himself, alone. All He had to cling to was His heavenly Father’s words, what He had learned growing up: the Torah, the Old Testament, the prophets. All He had to rely on was the very Word of God, and He spoke it accurately. The devil said, “If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'” Jesus responded by quoting Scripture faithfully and accurately. If only we would learn to do that, to know the Word of God the way Christ used it. He trusted the words; Adam and Eve trusted Satan.
Part four: descend and ascend. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, and all that had been created had been created for them. They were not originally sinners; they were sinless, and God gave them dominion over all creation. God made Adam the king and Eve the queen of His creation. Yet though they had everything they needed for body and soul, for fellowship with God, it was not enough. They wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil.
Jesus, on the other hand, was the King of creation. From the beginning, all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing has come into being. As Philippians says, He existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. They attempted to ascend; He descended. It is a common problem: man wants to lift himself up, thinking he can control the universe because he thinks he is God.
Thus the second temptation: “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.'” And Jesus said, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'”
Part five: accommodate or repudiate. Here is another difference. Adam and Eve regarded the devil’s words as on par with God’s truth. God said the fruit would kill; Satan said it would give wisdom. She debated, she gave to her husband, and without question they both ate. A little leaven leavens the whole lump: a few words changed here or there, and the Word of God is corrupted, first by the devil and then by Eve.
Jesus, though, treated Satan’s words as corruptions of the pure Word of God, as temptation seeking to separate Him from His heavenly Father and His earthly mission. The devil took Him up to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said, “All these things I will give to You, if You fall down and worship me.” And Jesus said unequivocally, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.'” The First Commandment.
Part six: angels. Back in the Garden, God drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden He placed cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. God placed His angels to prevent Adam and Eve from eating from the tree of life and thus living eternally in sin, becoming more depraved with each generation. It was an act of mercy.
And now here in the wilderness, after Jesus said, “Be gone, Satan,” verse 11: “Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.” God the Father sent angels to restore Him and send Him back toward Jerusalem and the cross. Jesus remained holy and innocent, faithful to the very words of God, so that He could restore holiness, righteousness, innocence, and eternal life to all who believe.
The tale of two temptations: Jesus was tempted by the devil not simply to show you how to withstand temptation, but to be your perfect substitute, because we fail time and again. We do not even need the devil; we do it to ourselves. But Christ came to be your perfect substitute, the One who went toe-to-toe with the devil and emerged victoriously, remaining sinless, not for His own sake but for yours. Jesus came not simply to offer a model, but to be what you could never be: holy and pleasing to the heavenly Father.
This St. Paul joins together, the Garden and the wilderness, the fall into sin and salvation from it: “The free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, how much more have the grace of God and the free gift of grace in that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. For if because of one man’s trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
The tale of two temptations is the story of your life and your salvation in Christ alone, who resisted all temptation, yet we time and again stumble and fall into sin. But we come again to His house each week: we offer our worship and prayer, our confession of sin, we hear His absolution, we partake of His Supper. Here your sins are forgiven. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.