Based on Genesis 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11
Welcome to the season of Lent! We formally began this season on Wednesday with the imposition of ashes and call to live a holy and penitential Lent. Lenten penitence has been around for millennia with early Christians observing the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church that before the Easter celebration there should be a forty–day season of spiritual preparation. During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins and had separated themselves from the community of faith were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness and restored to full participation in the life of the Church. In this way the whole congregation was reminded of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the need we all have to renew our faith in God’s mercy.
These next six weeks will take us on a journey with Jesus from today’s narrative of his temptation by the Adversary following his baptism, all the way through the Cross to the resurrection on Easter Sunday morning. Our Lenten theme this year, which will be built out on our altars each week and reinforced through our worship and Bible study is “Imagination”. Specifically, we are going to reflect upon how God imagined that the “dust of the ground” could be formed into the likeness of God and have God’s image placed inside that form. God further imagined that with the breath of life, the Holy Spirit could enliven that dust-form to become a living being, enlivened by God’s creative love. From Ash Wednesday when we considered how God formed us from the soil we walk upon, we will open ourselves to imagine following a God who forgives and redeems, a God who is always trustworthy and faithful, a God who offers life-giving hope, a God who is infinitely wise, a God who provides the Holy Spirit to live in and with us, a God who entered Jerusalem in triumph and left lifeless, a God who offers salvation, and a God who imagined that life was stronger than death.
Our scriptures today lead us to imagine God’s forgiveness. Our reading from early in Genesis has the first couple falling into sin due to the Adversary’s craftiness. Eve and the serpent are chatting in the Garden and Eve falls for the Tempter’s scheme to fracture the relationship between the humans and God. God is disappointed that the humans had fallen into the trap of sin, and God gives a consequence for their sin, but God does not abandon them. God forgives them and continues to accompany them – even though they had broken the only rule that God had given to them.
The Apostle Paul in his letter to the believers in Rome reflects on the failure of Adam and the triumph of the second Adam – Jesus through God’s gift of forgiveness. Whereas the original Adam failed to be obedient in all things, Jesus came to heal that wound and to be perfectly obedient, even to death on a Roman torture device. Paul says it this way, “…For many died by the trespass of the one man, (i.e., Adam) how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!...Consequently, just as one man’s trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people….”
In Matthew’s Gospel the contrast between Adam and Jesus could not be more glaring. Jesus has been in the wilderness for 40-days when the Tempter comes calling. Like the serpent in the Garden, the Adversary (Satan) offers Jesus the opportunity to use his divine powers in ways that are contrary to God’s ordinances. Jesus sees through the temptations for what they are – in direct contrast to how Eve and Adam responded. The result is that Jesus obeyed and moved forward in his ministry to the people and remained in God’s favor. Jesus could imagine God’s forgiveness and live in it but did not need to put it to the test.
When the topic of God’s forgiveness comes up, I find that there are commonly three distinct responses from believers in God. The first responses are from the people who say that they haven’t done anything wrong and so they can’t imagine being in need of God’s forgiveness – they believe in forgiveness, they just don’t qualify for it, so to speak. The second responses are from those who have recognized their need for God’s forgiveness and have received it. The third most common responses are from those people who imagine that they have done something that is unforgiveable – something that they cannot forgive in themselves and thus they can’t imagine asking God to forgive them.
That last viewpoint begs a theological question and answer session. Are there really sins that cannot be forgiven? What do we read in the Bible that can help us with understanding why we sin and how God addresses and forgives us? Yale Divinity Professor, Maggi Dawn, breaks down the motives for us giving into the temptation to sin writing, “…What is the relationship between action and motive, and what really makes something a sin? The word sin has become unfashionable, perhaps precisely because it’s been reduced to describing a list of behaviors that some authority has deemed unacceptable. But its true meaning takes us to the more fundamental level of why we do what we do. If we stay connected to the truth and goodness that reside in God rather than needing lists of things we should or shouldn’t do, we can live by the motto drawn from Augustine’s teaching – ‘Love God and do what you like.’ Overcoming temptation, then - for us as well as for Jesus - is not about obeying rules. It’s about identifying our underlying motives, about the choices set before us, and about taking the ones that make us fully human in honest service of our calling….”
That is what the season of Lent is for. It is for getting in touch with the truth of how we are living our lives. It’s about asking ourselves the penetrating question of why we do what we do or neglect to do; why we say what we say or neglect to say; why we love who we love or refuse to love. The first part of our path toward forgiveness is always about understanding the ways that we become disconnected with God’s abiding love so that we can take action to get back in right relationship with God.
What about that other point, Pastor, what does the Bible say about unforgiveable sins? The answer to that is pretty straightforward. God forgave Adam and Eve, but one of the consequences of their behavior was mortality for humankind. God forgave Jonah for running away from God’s call on his life. God forgave King David after his poor decision making toward Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. God forgave Paul for his murderous activities as Saul. I believe that God forgave Judas Iscariot. I know that God forgave all of us for our sins by resurrecting Jesus who died for us. Therefore, I do not find any case in the Bible where God has not forgiven sins – even ones that you might believe are unforgiveable.
The truth that there are no unforgiveable sins is the basis for how the Church over her long history has understood God’s grace. Remember what I mentioned in the opening of this reflection that the season of Lent was a time when persons who had committed serious sins and had separated themselves from the community of faith were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness and restored to full participation in the life of the Church. In this way the whole congregation was reminded of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the need we all have to renew our faith in God’s mercy. There is nothing we do that God cannot and will not forgive through God’s unconditional love for all of us.
Imagine what a relief that is – to live in a world that allows us to repent and to live the good news of Jesus! To live a forgiven life and to be able to participate fully in what God is doing in this church and throughout the world. I invite you all to imagine that you can live like John Wesley after his Aldersgate experience of God’s forgiveness. Wesley wrote in his journal: “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” This Lent, I invite you to imagine that through God’s love you are forgiven and free. Thanks be to God…amen!