The rise and fall of sin
Commentary
Object:
Lent is traditionally a season of spiritual contemplation. It is a sober season when we remember and repent of our sins. And so this first Sunday of Lent is a good occasion for us to contemplate sin in the broadest sense: its origins, our experience of it, and its defeat.
The familiar story that is our Old Testament lection this week offers us a glimpse into the moment when sin entered the human race. Now it is fashionable in our day to dismiss the story as a primitive allegory. That certainly isn't Paul's reading of it in the excerpt from Romans. But even if we set aside the issues of the story's factualness, its truths are undeniable.
Then we come to the gospel lection, which presents us with an interesting comparison to the event in Eden. Both stories recount temptation episodes. And the juxtaposition of the two episodes is particularly noteworthy since Paul's teaching for the Romans sets side-by-side the two men from those episodes. The one, he says, "is a type" of the other. And since he discusses both men in regard to sin, it is enlightening to see how differently they respond to temptation.
That passage from Paul, meanwhile, is the one that covers the distance for us between the ancient Genesis story and our story. Giving rise to the paradigm traditionally known as the doctrine of original sin, Paul makes the case that what happened that day in Eden has a lasting impact. Its significance is not merely metaphorical. While a novelist can tell a story that shows us what human beings are like, Paul would say that the writer of Genesis is going a layer deeper. His story is not merely illustrating what human beings are like; it also shows why human beings are the way they are. And, better still, Paul is also declaring what God has done about it.
So, as we embark on this Lenten season, let's give a little thought to sin. Not some poor exercise in navel-gazing, but a profound consideration of the human condition, our individual need, and God's great salvation.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Our selected verses begin with a perfect scene. The Lord has created the man and woman, and he has put them in a place that reflects the goodness of his will for them. He has placed them in a garden. When someone tells you, therefore, that no one said life was meant to be a bed of roses, you may contest the point. We have it on good authority, you see, that life was very much meant to be a bed of roses -- or even better!
The garden is identified as "Eden." That name carries with it plenty of connotations for a modern hearer, but he may not realize the meaning of the word. Eden, we discover in Bible dictionaries and Hebrew lexicons, meant "pleasure." Ever since the serpent first began to raise questions in Eve's mind about the generosity of God, human beings have not associated him and his will with "pleasure." Yet, right from the start, that was the nature of the place where God put the man and the woman.
Meanwhile, interestingly, just as pleasure was a part of God's original plan for human beings, so was work. He "put him in the garden to till it and keep it." There was work to be done, and God employed human beings to do it. Long before we read any passages about giving or offerings, we are introduced from the start to a profound image of stewardship.
That perfect scene has within it, however, a potential for imperfection. God warns them of a hazard -- a fatal danger that is within their reach in the garden. It comes in the form of a tree, which is not surprising, for we so often discover that the instruments of the devil take the same form as the blessings of God. Hell could not pitch its wares if we could see them for what they are. Instead, they must always come disguised as one of the good things of God in order to have a genuine appeal.
This particular tree is distinctively identified as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." At a purely mathematical level, we observe that Adam and Eve have nothing to gain from this tree. Given their relationship with God, the nature of the creation and the garden around them, and the innocence and harmony they enjoy, they already know good. All that this tree could offer them, therefore, is the knowledge of evil, which is no gain for them, at all.
The writer is eloquent in his economy -- much more so than most of those of us who exposit what he wrote. In a single verse at the beginning of chapter 3, he skillfully reveals volumes about the enemy.
The antagonist is identified as a "serpent" and categorized as a "wild animal," which is to say that he was among those who had been put originally under Adam's dominion (Genesis 1:26-28). He is also called "crafty," which is a questionable characteristic. The underlying Hebrew word (aruwm) is not a common one in the Old Testament. Apart from this description of serpent in Genesis, it is limited to the wisdom literature. In Proverbs, it appears in a favorable light and is typically translated as "prudent" (e.g., 12:6; 14:8; 27:12). The writer of Job, however, sees the attribute differently (5:12; 15:5), and his usage of aruwm seems to be more in line with what we find in Genesis. This craftiness has a high guile quotient. It suggests someone who is plotting -- a negotiator who may have something up his sleeve, a salesman who isn't telling you exactly what you ought to know about the product in question.
So it is that the serpent endeavored to sell something to Eve. God had already warned her and Adam about the price, and we identified above the highly dubious benefits of the fruit that the serpent was peddling. Yet I suppose that almost any inferior or horrible product can be sold if it is presented dishonestly. And everything about this presentation was dishonest -- craftily dishonest.
We will give step-by-step consideration to the serpent's dishonest temptation below -- partly to exposit the text and partly to uncover our enemy's continuing ploys in dealing with us.
Romans 5:12-19
For better and for worse, the natural reflex of the average person in the pew is to ask of any given passage of scripture, "What does that have to do with me?" To the extent that is born out of an eagerness to apply God's word to one's life, amen! But some of the reflex stems, no doubt, from a kind of self-centered consumerism that actually hampers a reverent reading of scripture. In our impatience to find immediate relevance, we may not read with a confidence in the Spirit's capacity to take what seems like a meaningless passage today and bring it to mind and to life tomorrow.
In this week's trio of lections, Paul responds to the relevancy question. The listener wonders what the relevance is for him or her of that strange old story from a garden so long ago and far away. The apostle Paul volunteers the answer.
"Sin came into the world through one man," Paul declares, "and one man's trespass led to condemnation for all." We should note that this passage is the ground from which a significant doctrine grew: that is, the theological paradigms known as "original sin" or "ancestral sin."
Now Paul does not actually elaborate here on the assortment of questions raised by that doctrine. The church has debated for centuries the issues and nuances that arise from this doctrine. Yet it seems to me that we misunderstand the apostle when we focus our interpretation of this passage on the subject of sin's origin, for his real intent, after all, is to explain sin's remedy.
Sin's remedy is Jesus Christ, and Paul recognizes a profound symmetry in the beginning and the ending of sin: "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." Paul treats it as a self-evident truth that sin and death came into the world through one man. His endeavor, therefore, is to proclaim that God has sent another man through whom the world can be saved from sin and death.
That is the relevance of that ancient story for you and me.
A therapist might help an individual to unpack some event or setting from childhood that was formative -- perhaps even destructive -- in making that person who he is today. Likewise, the apostle Paul has unpacked for us an event from our history that explains why we are the way we are and the condition we are in. The event is not from our individual childhoods but from humanity's childhood. Way back in the beginning, this terrible thing happened, and it has had a corrupting influence and fatal impact on us ever since.
Yet there is another event. "One man's act of righteousness," Paul calls it, and "one man's obedience." That, in symmetrical contrast to the one man's disobedience, has offered to undo all the dysfunction and death that began in Eden. Now costly judgment is replaced by a free gift. Justification takes the place of condemnation. And the dominion of death is broken, and we find ourselves instead under the dominion of life.
Matthew 4:1-11
This episode, which is included in all three Synoptic accounts of Jesus' life, is rich with truths for a preacher and congregation to discover together. So rich, in fact, that it might be tempting to conduct a sort of homiletic version of strip-mining. Rather than tearing through the passage to get everything out of it at once, however, I would prefer to choose one truth to mine carefully and present thoughtfully. The wonderful challenge you and I face, therefore, is to select which truth to share.
We are struck from the start by the placement of this episode on Jesus' timeline. He is about to begin his public ministry, but two events seem to be prerequisites: His baptism in the Jordan and his sojourn in the wilderness. The former, according to Jesus, was "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15). Perhaps the latter, too.
Solitude and wilderness appear repeatedly in scripture as first stops on the way to what God has in store. Elijah lived in a very solitary way, perhaps accompanied only by the scavenging ravens, prior to his national showdown with the prophets of Baal. David spent an entire phase of his life in the wilderness, fleeing from Saul, before rising to Israel's throne. The wilderness seems to have been John the Baptist's home, as well as the site of his epochal ministry. And the entire nation of Israel had to pass through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land God had for them.
Cecil B. DeMille's (director, 1956) The Ten Commandments shows the wilderness trek as formative for Moses. And the narrator characterizes Moses' experience as the provident pattern of God: "Learning that it can be more terrible to live than to die, he is driven on, through the burning crucible of desert, where holy men and prophets are cleansed and purged for God's great purpose. Until at last, at the end of human strength, and beaten into the dust from which he came, the metal is ready for the Maker's hand."
Second, we note the timing of the devil's temptation. No sooner has Matthew reported that Jesus "was famished" than the devil appears on the scene with a temptation to "command these stones to become loaves of bread." In Luke's account of this episode, he reports at the end that the devil "departed from him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). This is shrewdness of the enemy: He is an opportunist. Accordingly, C.S. Lewis' fictional demon Wormwood observed that a tempter's "attack has a much better chance of success when the man's whole inner world is drab and cold and empty" (The Screwtape Letters [New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1982], 41). And so it was at Jesus' time of physical weakness -- hunger and exhaustion -- that the tempter recognized an opportune time. We do well to understand this about our antagonist and how he deals with us.
Third, there are the particulars of the temptations. Each one deserves more space than we can afford to give it here, but William Barclay offers a helpful insight into the temptations as a set. He sees in the details of these tests a correlation to the timing of these tests. "(Jesus) had come to lead men home to God. How was he to do it? What method was he to adopt? Was he to adopt the method of a mighty conqueror, or was he to adopt the method of patient, sacrificial love? That was the problem Jesus faced in his temptations. The task had been committed into his hands. What method was he to choose to work out the task God had given him to do?" (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1 [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975], 61).
Fourth, one cannot read this passage without being struck by Jesus' use of scripture. While our human nature may lead us to depend upon our will power in the face of temptation -- which is a dubious strategy -- Jesus provides the model for us: turn to the word of God. That word, we are told, is "the sword of the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:17) and is "sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12). Small wonder, then, that the scriptures are our best weapon against the enemy.
Finally, the whole scene concludes with a lovely and encouraging detail. "Then the devil left him," Matthew reports, "and suddenly angels came and waited on him." Since the writer of Hebrews assures us that Jesus "in every respect has been tested as we are" (Hebrews 4:15). If his experience of being tested was the same as ours, then perhaps by the same token our experience of being tested can be the same as his: namely, that we should rebuff the tempter with God's word, that the devil would leave us, and that God would send his angels to minister to us. In this respect, the episode is not only an example to us, but an encouragement to us, as well.
Application
In 1973, Karl Menninger, a famous psychiatrist from a family whose name was synonymous with psychiatry, wrote a book asking the question, Whatever Became of Sin? Dr. Menninger lamented the disappearance of sin -- not the phenomenon, but the word, along with the accompanying willingness to affirm personal responsibility for personal choices and behavior.
I don't think that Menninger's conception of sin coincides exactly with the revelation of scripture, but his cultural observation continues to apply nearly forty years later. We still seem reluctant to use the word sin, preferring instead less acerbic, more sympathetic terms like brokenness and dysfunction. Yet the good doctor's voice may be a prophetic one for the church in our day. Do we do the cancer victim a favor by giving him a less menacing diagnosis?
Scripture is unblushing about the subject of sin. From start to finish, the Bible recognizes it, depicts it, and condemns it. And the three lections assigned to us for this week give us good opportunity to explore and understand it.
Over the course of these three passages, sin is presented in two aspects: as an act and as a condition.
We may pair the Genesis and Matthew passages to consider sin as an act. It begins with temptation, which also typically includes deception. The temptation is not to something that is innately bad, but rather to some twisted or out-of-place good. In this context, sin is a personal choice, and the great resource for the individual person is the word of God.
Meanwhile, we may pair the Genesis and Romans passages to consider sin as a condition. That condition, according to Paul, is universal, and it traces back to the Garden of Eden. The sin-as-an-act that occurred there ushered in an era of sin's dominion in the world and over humankind. In this context, sin is both personal and universal, and the great remedy for both the individual and the world is the Son of God.
Alternative Application
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7. "Lessons from the enemy." I heard a former football coach say once that when it was hard to know what decision to make in a game-time situation, he has found it helpful to ask himself, "What does the other team hope that I won't do?" That glimpse into the opponent's mindset, then, helped him to know what he should do. You can use your opponent to give you guidance. And that's what we will endeavor to do with our familiar text from the Garden of Eden.
In a similar vein, I have heard a political commentator make the same point with regard to partisan politics. Namely, that you can tell which candidate the other side is most afraid of by identifying which one they vilify and ridicule the most.
By that logic, then, we may be able to learn some things about God and his will by observing what his enemy tries to undermine and attack. And we are given an insightful portrait of that enemy in Genesis 2 and 3.
We noted above that the serpent was craftily dishonest. Let us consider his dishonesty as well as what it reveals about the truth.
The premise of his initial question to Eve was dishonest (3:1). The truth was that the Lord had expressly given them all the trees of the garden for food (2:16). Yet this is his continuing ploy with us: to raise doubts in our minds about the goodness and generosity of God, while the truth is that God is more generous and kind toward us than we even realize.
Second, the serpent's reassurance about the cost of the forbidden fruit was dishonest (3:4), for as the apostle Paul states in our New Testament lection, "death exercised dominion from Adam" (Romans 5:14). This, too, is a recurring theme with our adversary. He always wants to minimize the cost of our disobedience or obfuscate our understanding of the consequences.
Finally, the serpent's claim about God's motives was dishonest (3:5), for the Lord had already made human beings in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). Though it may have personally galled the serpent, the truth is that the Lord was not at all protective about keeping the man and woman from becoming like him. He was their creator, and he could have precluded that possibility entirely by design, yet he made the sovereign and creative choice to make them in his image. And that continues to be his purpose within us still today (see, for example, Ephesians 4:22-24).
Preaching the Psalm
Psalm 32
by Schuyler Rhodes
Forgiveness fixes everything
There's a diner in Maine that specializes in pie. It's an incredible place. They make berry pies and apple pies. They create lemon pies and custard pies. Fifty yards away from this diner, the scent of baking pies arrests the senses and draws people inside for coffee and pie. The big sign on the highway next to the restaurant says it all.
"Pie fixes everything."
You can buy T-shirts, sweat shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and more, all emblazoned with the words, "Pie fixes everything." As you sit and savor the incredible aroma and taste, washing it down with excellent coffee, it's difficult to deny that they just might be right. Perhaps pie does fix everything.
But then we are roused from the carbohydrate, sugar, and caffeine coma brought on by pie and coffee, and we see that pie might be pretty darn good. But fix everything? Hardly. Even in the warmth of that diner, surrounded by laughter and comradeship, we see that though this is good, there is much that still needs to be… fixed.
Amazingly enough, however, there is something that can fix everything. There is one thing that can set all things right. It's costly and free; pervasive and rare. It's nothing less than forgiveness. Forgiveness wipes the slate clean. Forgiveness turns night into day. It cleanses the spirit and heals the heart. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of pain and violence and offers new life. It heralds a new beginning and puts the past out with the trash. Though pie is truly one of the wonders of the world, it's forgiveness that fixes everything.
Two friends are bound up in anger and resentment over slights both real and imagined. The bitterness and resentment grow and consume not only them but their families and their other friends. The poison of this fractured relationship spreads and infects until finally, one day, worn out and fresh out of options, one of them forgives. One of them lets go. One of them takes responsibility for the brokenness and offers love and healing. Forgiveness fixes everything.
Forgiveness, whether it is interpersonal or divine, really does change everything. It restates the rules and rearranges the landscape of our hearts. It is the ultimate game changer. Whether it's you forgiving someone for a hurt they caused, or God forgiving us through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, forgiveness truly matters.
"Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered…." Yes indeed. Forgiveness fixes everything.
The familiar story that is our Old Testament lection this week offers us a glimpse into the moment when sin entered the human race. Now it is fashionable in our day to dismiss the story as a primitive allegory. That certainly isn't Paul's reading of it in the excerpt from Romans. But even if we set aside the issues of the story's factualness, its truths are undeniable.
Then we come to the gospel lection, which presents us with an interesting comparison to the event in Eden. Both stories recount temptation episodes. And the juxtaposition of the two episodes is particularly noteworthy since Paul's teaching for the Romans sets side-by-side the two men from those episodes. The one, he says, "is a type" of the other. And since he discusses both men in regard to sin, it is enlightening to see how differently they respond to temptation.
That passage from Paul, meanwhile, is the one that covers the distance for us between the ancient Genesis story and our story. Giving rise to the paradigm traditionally known as the doctrine of original sin, Paul makes the case that what happened that day in Eden has a lasting impact. Its significance is not merely metaphorical. While a novelist can tell a story that shows us what human beings are like, Paul would say that the writer of Genesis is going a layer deeper. His story is not merely illustrating what human beings are like; it also shows why human beings are the way they are. And, better still, Paul is also declaring what God has done about it.
So, as we embark on this Lenten season, let's give a little thought to sin. Not some poor exercise in navel-gazing, but a profound consideration of the human condition, our individual need, and God's great salvation.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Our selected verses begin with a perfect scene. The Lord has created the man and woman, and he has put them in a place that reflects the goodness of his will for them. He has placed them in a garden. When someone tells you, therefore, that no one said life was meant to be a bed of roses, you may contest the point. We have it on good authority, you see, that life was very much meant to be a bed of roses -- or even better!
The garden is identified as "Eden." That name carries with it plenty of connotations for a modern hearer, but he may not realize the meaning of the word. Eden, we discover in Bible dictionaries and Hebrew lexicons, meant "pleasure." Ever since the serpent first began to raise questions in Eve's mind about the generosity of God, human beings have not associated him and his will with "pleasure." Yet, right from the start, that was the nature of the place where God put the man and the woman.
Meanwhile, interestingly, just as pleasure was a part of God's original plan for human beings, so was work. He "put him in the garden to till it and keep it." There was work to be done, and God employed human beings to do it. Long before we read any passages about giving or offerings, we are introduced from the start to a profound image of stewardship.
That perfect scene has within it, however, a potential for imperfection. God warns them of a hazard -- a fatal danger that is within their reach in the garden. It comes in the form of a tree, which is not surprising, for we so often discover that the instruments of the devil take the same form as the blessings of God. Hell could not pitch its wares if we could see them for what they are. Instead, they must always come disguised as one of the good things of God in order to have a genuine appeal.
This particular tree is distinctively identified as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." At a purely mathematical level, we observe that Adam and Eve have nothing to gain from this tree. Given their relationship with God, the nature of the creation and the garden around them, and the innocence and harmony they enjoy, they already know good. All that this tree could offer them, therefore, is the knowledge of evil, which is no gain for them, at all.
The writer is eloquent in his economy -- much more so than most of those of us who exposit what he wrote. In a single verse at the beginning of chapter 3, he skillfully reveals volumes about the enemy.
The antagonist is identified as a "serpent" and categorized as a "wild animal," which is to say that he was among those who had been put originally under Adam's dominion (Genesis 1:26-28). He is also called "crafty," which is a questionable characteristic. The underlying Hebrew word (aruwm) is not a common one in the Old Testament. Apart from this description of serpent in Genesis, it is limited to the wisdom literature. In Proverbs, it appears in a favorable light and is typically translated as "prudent" (e.g., 12:6; 14:8; 27:12). The writer of Job, however, sees the attribute differently (5:12; 15:5), and his usage of aruwm seems to be more in line with what we find in Genesis. This craftiness has a high guile quotient. It suggests someone who is plotting -- a negotiator who may have something up his sleeve, a salesman who isn't telling you exactly what you ought to know about the product in question.
So it is that the serpent endeavored to sell something to Eve. God had already warned her and Adam about the price, and we identified above the highly dubious benefits of the fruit that the serpent was peddling. Yet I suppose that almost any inferior or horrible product can be sold if it is presented dishonestly. And everything about this presentation was dishonest -- craftily dishonest.
We will give step-by-step consideration to the serpent's dishonest temptation below -- partly to exposit the text and partly to uncover our enemy's continuing ploys in dealing with us.
Romans 5:12-19
For better and for worse, the natural reflex of the average person in the pew is to ask of any given passage of scripture, "What does that have to do with me?" To the extent that is born out of an eagerness to apply God's word to one's life, amen! But some of the reflex stems, no doubt, from a kind of self-centered consumerism that actually hampers a reverent reading of scripture. In our impatience to find immediate relevance, we may not read with a confidence in the Spirit's capacity to take what seems like a meaningless passage today and bring it to mind and to life tomorrow.
In this week's trio of lections, Paul responds to the relevancy question. The listener wonders what the relevance is for him or her of that strange old story from a garden so long ago and far away. The apostle Paul volunteers the answer.
"Sin came into the world through one man," Paul declares, "and one man's trespass led to condemnation for all." We should note that this passage is the ground from which a significant doctrine grew: that is, the theological paradigms known as "original sin" or "ancestral sin."
Now Paul does not actually elaborate here on the assortment of questions raised by that doctrine. The church has debated for centuries the issues and nuances that arise from this doctrine. Yet it seems to me that we misunderstand the apostle when we focus our interpretation of this passage on the subject of sin's origin, for his real intent, after all, is to explain sin's remedy.
Sin's remedy is Jesus Christ, and Paul recognizes a profound symmetry in the beginning and the ending of sin: "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." Paul treats it as a self-evident truth that sin and death came into the world through one man. His endeavor, therefore, is to proclaim that God has sent another man through whom the world can be saved from sin and death.
That is the relevance of that ancient story for you and me.
A therapist might help an individual to unpack some event or setting from childhood that was formative -- perhaps even destructive -- in making that person who he is today. Likewise, the apostle Paul has unpacked for us an event from our history that explains why we are the way we are and the condition we are in. The event is not from our individual childhoods but from humanity's childhood. Way back in the beginning, this terrible thing happened, and it has had a corrupting influence and fatal impact on us ever since.
Yet there is another event. "One man's act of righteousness," Paul calls it, and "one man's obedience." That, in symmetrical contrast to the one man's disobedience, has offered to undo all the dysfunction and death that began in Eden. Now costly judgment is replaced by a free gift. Justification takes the place of condemnation. And the dominion of death is broken, and we find ourselves instead under the dominion of life.
Matthew 4:1-11
This episode, which is included in all three Synoptic accounts of Jesus' life, is rich with truths for a preacher and congregation to discover together. So rich, in fact, that it might be tempting to conduct a sort of homiletic version of strip-mining. Rather than tearing through the passage to get everything out of it at once, however, I would prefer to choose one truth to mine carefully and present thoughtfully. The wonderful challenge you and I face, therefore, is to select which truth to share.
We are struck from the start by the placement of this episode on Jesus' timeline. He is about to begin his public ministry, but two events seem to be prerequisites: His baptism in the Jordan and his sojourn in the wilderness. The former, according to Jesus, was "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15). Perhaps the latter, too.
Solitude and wilderness appear repeatedly in scripture as first stops on the way to what God has in store. Elijah lived in a very solitary way, perhaps accompanied only by the scavenging ravens, prior to his national showdown with the prophets of Baal. David spent an entire phase of his life in the wilderness, fleeing from Saul, before rising to Israel's throne. The wilderness seems to have been John the Baptist's home, as well as the site of his epochal ministry. And the entire nation of Israel had to pass through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land God had for them.
Cecil B. DeMille's (director, 1956) The Ten Commandments shows the wilderness trek as formative for Moses. And the narrator characterizes Moses' experience as the provident pattern of God: "Learning that it can be more terrible to live than to die, he is driven on, through the burning crucible of desert, where holy men and prophets are cleansed and purged for God's great purpose. Until at last, at the end of human strength, and beaten into the dust from which he came, the metal is ready for the Maker's hand."
Second, we note the timing of the devil's temptation. No sooner has Matthew reported that Jesus "was famished" than the devil appears on the scene with a temptation to "command these stones to become loaves of bread." In Luke's account of this episode, he reports at the end that the devil "departed from him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). This is shrewdness of the enemy: He is an opportunist. Accordingly, C.S. Lewis' fictional demon Wormwood observed that a tempter's "attack has a much better chance of success when the man's whole inner world is drab and cold and empty" (The Screwtape Letters [New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1982], 41). And so it was at Jesus' time of physical weakness -- hunger and exhaustion -- that the tempter recognized an opportune time. We do well to understand this about our antagonist and how he deals with us.
Third, there are the particulars of the temptations. Each one deserves more space than we can afford to give it here, but William Barclay offers a helpful insight into the temptations as a set. He sees in the details of these tests a correlation to the timing of these tests. "(Jesus) had come to lead men home to God. How was he to do it? What method was he to adopt? Was he to adopt the method of a mighty conqueror, or was he to adopt the method of patient, sacrificial love? That was the problem Jesus faced in his temptations. The task had been committed into his hands. What method was he to choose to work out the task God had given him to do?" (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1 [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975], 61).
Fourth, one cannot read this passage without being struck by Jesus' use of scripture. While our human nature may lead us to depend upon our will power in the face of temptation -- which is a dubious strategy -- Jesus provides the model for us: turn to the word of God. That word, we are told, is "the sword of the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:17) and is "sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12). Small wonder, then, that the scriptures are our best weapon against the enemy.
Finally, the whole scene concludes with a lovely and encouraging detail. "Then the devil left him," Matthew reports, "and suddenly angels came and waited on him." Since the writer of Hebrews assures us that Jesus "in every respect has been tested as we are" (Hebrews 4:15). If his experience of being tested was the same as ours, then perhaps by the same token our experience of being tested can be the same as his: namely, that we should rebuff the tempter with God's word, that the devil would leave us, and that God would send his angels to minister to us. In this respect, the episode is not only an example to us, but an encouragement to us, as well.
Application
In 1973, Karl Menninger, a famous psychiatrist from a family whose name was synonymous with psychiatry, wrote a book asking the question, Whatever Became of Sin? Dr. Menninger lamented the disappearance of sin -- not the phenomenon, but the word, along with the accompanying willingness to affirm personal responsibility for personal choices and behavior.
I don't think that Menninger's conception of sin coincides exactly with the revelation of scripture, but his cultural observation continues to apply nearly forty years later. We still seem reluctant to use the word sin, preferring instead less acerbic, more sympathetic terms like brokenness and dysfunction. Yet the good doctor's voice may be a prophetic one for the church in our day. Do we do the cancer victim a favor by giving him a less menacing diagnosis?
Scripture is unblushing about the subject of sin. From start to finish, the Bible recognizes it, depicts it, and condemns it. And the three lections assigned to us for this week give us good opportunity to explore and understand it.
Over the course of these three passages, sin is presented in two aspects: as an act and as a condition.
We may pair the Genesis and Matthew passages to consider sin as an act. It begins with temptation, which also typically includes deception. The temptation is not to something that is innately bad, but rather to some twisted or out-of-place good. In this context, sin is a personal choice, and the great resource for the individual person is the word of God.
Meanwhile, we may pair the Genesis and Romans passages to consider sin as a condition. That condition, according to Paul, is universal, and it traces back to the Garden of Eden. The sin-as-an-act that occurred there ushered in an era of sin's dominion in the world and over humankind. In this context, sin is both personal and universal, and the great remedy for both the individual and the world is the Son of God.
Alternative Application
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7. "Lessons from the enemy." I heard a former football coach say once that when it was hard to know what decision to make in a game-time situation, he has found it helpful to ask himself, "What does the other team hope that I won't do?" That glimpse into the opponent's mindset, then, helped him to know what he should do. You can use your opponent to give you guidance. And that's what we will endeavor to do with our familiar text from the Garden of Eden.
In a similar vein, I have heard a political commentator make the same point with regard to partisan politics. Namely, that you can tell which candidate the other side is most afraid of by identifying which one they vilify and ridicule the most.
By that logic, then, we may be able to learn some things about God and his will by observing what his enemy tries to undermine and attack. And we are given an insightful portrait of that enemy in Genesis 2 and 3.
We noted above that the serpent was craftily dishonest. Let us consider his dishonesty as well as what it reveals about the truth.
The premise of his initial question to Eve was dishonest (3:1). The truth was that the Lord had expressly given them all the trees of the garden for food (2:16). Yet this is his continuing ploy with us: to raise doubts in our minds about the goodness and generosity of God, while the truth is that God is more generous and kind toward us than we even realize.
Second, the serpent's reassurance about the cost of the forbidden fruit was dishonest (3:4), for as the apostle Paul states in our New Testament lection, "death exercised dominion from Adam" (Romans 5:14). This, too, is a recurring theme with our adversary. He always wants to minimize the cost of our disobedience or obfuscate our understanding of the consequences.
Finally, the serpent's claim about God's motives was dishonest (3:5), for the Lord had already made human beings in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). Though it may have personally galled the serpent, the truth is that the Lord was not at all protective about keeping the man and woman from becoming like him. He was their creator, and he could have precluded that possibility entirely by design, yet he made the sovereign and creative choice to make them in his image. And that continues to be his purpose within us still today (see, for example, Ephesians 4:22-24).
Preaching the Psalm
Psalm 32
by Schuyler Rhodes
Forgiveness fixes everything
There's a diner in Maine that specializes in pie. It's an incredible place. They make berry pies and apple pies. They create lemon pies and custard pies. Fifty yards away from this diner, the scent of baking pies arrests the senses and draws people inside for coffee and pie. The big sign on the highway next to the restaurant says it all.
"Pie fixes everything."
You can buy T-shirts, sweat shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and more, all emblazoned with the words, "Pie fixes everything." As you sit and savor the incredible aroma and taste, washing it down with excellent coffee, it's difficult to deny that they just might be right. Perhaps pie does fix everything.
But then we are roused from the carbohydrate, sugar, and caffeine coma brought on by pie and coffee, and we see that pie might be pretty darn good. But fix everything? Hardly. Even in the warmth of that diner, surrounded by laughter and comradeship, we see that though this is good, there is much that still needs to be… fixed.
Amazingly enough, however, there is something that can fix everything. There is one thing that can set all things right. It's costly and free; pervasive and rare. It's nothing less than forgiveness. Forgiveness wipes the slate clean. Forgiveness turns night into day. It cleanses the spirit and heals the heart. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of pain and violence and offers new life. It heralds a new beginning and puts the past out with the trash. Though pie is truly one of the wonders of the world, it's forgiveness that fixes everything.
Two friends are bound up in anger and resentment over slights both real and imagined. The bitterness and resentment grow and consume not only them but their families and their other friends. The poison of this fractured relationship spreads and infects until finally, one day, worn out and fresh out of options, one of them forgives. One of them lets go. One of them takes responsibility for the brokenness and offers love and healing. Forgiveness fixes everything.
Forgiveness, whether it is interpersonal or divine, really does change everything. It restates the rules and rearranges the landscape of our hearts. It is the ultimate game changer. Whether it's you forgiving someone for a hurt they caused, or God forgiving us through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, forgiveness truly matters.
"Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered…." Yes indeed. Forgiveness fixes everything.
