Genesis 2:1-4a; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

Today is a special day in the life and history of this church because today I am going to teach you the difference between right and wrong. Are you excited? So, you should be. Actually, I’m hopeful that you already know the difference between right and wrong, since this knowledge tends to get drummed into us from an age when we’re barely old enough to think. “No” is one of the first words that children learn to say because it one of the first words children learn to understand. The three words most precious to some mothers seem to be not “I love you” but “put that down!” or perhaps “stop doing that!”  The consequence of Adam and Eve’s first sin in the Garden of Eden was that they gained this knowledge: it’s almost as if knowing the difference between right and wrong is some sort of punishment. In fact, it’s more than “almost as if”, it’s the actual truth since this is something humans were never meant to know. Despite God’s hope; Eve was tricked into obtaining this information, and Adam sinned deliberately to obtain it. So sad

Before Moses and the covenant at Sinai God kept no record of sin because there was no Law. You can’t break the Law if there isn’t one, and before the Ten Commandments and the stuff around it there was no “Law”. But death and divine punishment for wrongdoing still happened from Abel through Noah and onward because of the consequence of what Adam had done. God withdrew a portion of divine glory and protection from the world when Adam and Eve were evicted from The Garden and the ground began to produce thorns. Paul says in Romans 5 that in some ways Adam is like Christ; however, the gift that God gave in Jesus was vastly different from what we obtained through Adam’s sin. When Adam acted in Eden he brought death to creation, but when Christ acted in Gethsemane, he brought God’s gift of life-giving grace to all. God’s gift in Christ made it possible for us to be brought into a full relationship with God, even though we have sinned many times before and continue to sin even after we enter this relationship with God.

Whereas the snake in Eden suggested that God was keeping information from Eve my take is that God was keeping information for her; in effect saying you don’t need to worry about this my darling one, it’s too big for you: let me handle it. God still says this at times, and we all know how we get into trouble when we try to do things that only God has the capacity to do. The gospels tell us that Jesus was tempted and that he responded in God’s strength. Jesus responds to each temptation thrown at him with “satan so you say; but I tell you God says…” knocking down the attack from God’s enemy in the way that Eve didn’t. Jesus’ greatest response was not the denial of the temptations themselves but the choice to trust God above even his own (Jesus’) opinions on the matter. From the very outset of his public life Jesus is heard saying “Father, not my will but yours”. He bookends his ministry with a declaration of trust: it is the first thing he says following his baptism, and it is the last thing he says prior to his arrest. Indeed, even on the cross his last words as a man are words of complete trust: “into your hands…”

The greatest temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness, and in the Garden of Gethsemane, was the temptation to “shortcut” his mission. Twice the satan tries to direct Jesus toward “another way” in his time of desperate isolation:  however, in both situations Jesus chooses not what seems easiest for him but instead chooses to run to completion the race for which The Father was calling him heavenward. The Messiah reveals God’s goodness and faithfulness to provide only good things to those who trust and obey completely.

The satan did not challenge Jesus’ sonship in the desert; in fact, the satan takes it for granted that Jesus possesses the fullness of God and therefore the ability to fill his own needs. Jesus had emptied himself of omnipotence before leaving Heaven and at this point, he makes a deliberate choice to remain empty (or perhaps ignorant). Jesus flatly refuses to take up what he has laid aside for the work of God until the time is right. He leaves what is his in The Father’s keeping, confident that he will be provided with all good things if he remains faithful and obedient.

The awareness of nakedness is the awareness of dependence. Adam did not know he needed God until he was cut off from God. Adam’s nakedness was not that his genitalia were showing, but that he was cut off from utter fellowship with The LORD of Creation. The “privacy” of The LORD was hidden from Adam far more than Adam’s own “private parts” were newly visible to Eve. To be naked is to be vulnerable: but the truth of God, (the knowledge of good and evil), is that God is entirely trustworthy when we are vulnerable. It is safe to be naked before God; in fact, it is safest to be naked before God because what we try to hide is what God cannot fully act upon. Sadly, Adam had to break his trust in The LORD to learn how trustworthy The LORD is. What was left for Jesus was to trust God without proof, which is why his prayers in Gethsemane were so hard. “Even if I sweat blood, I will trust you. Even if it costs me excruciation, I will trust you.”  Adam’s innocence died and his body was punished when he discovered the truth of God’s faithfulness for all humanity. Jesus’ innocence was punished and his body died when he recovered truth of God’s faithfulness for all humanity. The wisdom of good and evil is this, without the full protection of God we are powerless against the evil of the world.

The message of Jesus is that the only way to God is by complete and self-abandoned trust in God. That is what the cross means, and that is what Jesus meant when he said that there is no way to The Father except through him. The way to God is by trusting in God the way that Jesus trusted in God and turning aside from the way that Adam trusted in himself. With all your heart, you must trust The LORD and not your own judgement we are advised by the writer of Proverbs (3:5). Good advice for Adam but delivered three thousand years too late. But this is the testimony of Jesus in the Garden.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent, the forty working days of preparation and six Sabbaths when Christians begin to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. This year let’s focus on this one point; that alongside the great act of salvation, redemption, propitiation, and atonement that we know about the cross, that the Thursday night events of Gethsemane were the most significant acts ever performed in a garden in the history of the Earth. Jesus chose to hang on a tree in defiance of the attitude which caused Adam to watch as Eve took something off a tree and handed it over to him to eat. Now is the time to avoid tasting but to attend to seeing that The LORD is good, because The LORD is God. Amen.