First Sunday in Lent

We are all familiar with the Genesis story of how Adam and Eve, and therefore all of us, fell into sin. This last Wednesday we began Lent with Ash Wednesday where we places ashes on our forehead and heard these words from Genesis 3, “From dust you are and to dust you shall return.” That was the death sentence place on all of humanity because of sin. Often we take this text and talk about how to avoid temptation – which is a good thing – but we also know that we all will give into temptation and fall into sin. So how do we deal with our sin? Lets look at how Adam and Eve dealt with their sin.

Hide - The first thing Adam and Eve did when they were confronted with their sin was hide. The put together fig leaves and covered their naked bodies. And when they heard the Lord walking in the Garden they hide behind the trees. Did Adam and Eve really think they could hide from their Creator behind a tree? We may chuckle at this scene but we too, when confronted with our sin, run and hide.

We don't like to face our mistakes, our shortcomings, and our sin. We want to hide, to run away or push away that which isn't "pretty" in our lives. Many times we will cover up our sins but often we also make light of them. That is a hiding too, by not treating our sin seriously. At least Adam and Eve knew they were in trouble with God and fled. But often we don't even hide our sin, we make light of it or make excuses - "It really isn't that bad," "Everyone else is doing it," "My sin isn't really a sin is it?" We want to find the easy way out and so we don't treat our sin seriously.

It is like the new Staples commercials - the ones with the "Easy" buttons. A person is usually caught in monotonous job they don't want to do and in comes the "Easy" button making the promise that the mundane task will be taken care of. We want the quick fix and often when it comes to dealing with our sin we want the same. And the easiest thing to do is hide our sin.

But as we know from the story, Adam and Eve were found out. They couldn't hide from God and their transgression was revealed. The same is true with us. We can't hide from God; He knows that we are sinful. We may try to run, to make light of our faults, to hide our sin, but in the end it is revealed. God knows it.

Blame – Now Adam and Eve couldn’t hide – the Lord found them and knows that they have disobeyed. So what do they do? Do they fess up to their sin? No, they do, what most of us do when confronted with our faults – we blame it on someone or something else. Instead of owning up to what we have done we instead blame others. God asks Adam what he has done and he blames Eve. God confronts Eve and she blames the serpent, the devil. When we have been discovered and can’t hide anymore we decide that it is time to blame something else. “The Devil made me do it.” “It isn’t my fault.” “I had no choice but to…” You fill in the phrase but all of us have been guilty of blaming other people or circumstance instead of owning up to our own sinful lives. Paul makes it clear in Romans – all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. We all are sinners. But we are uncomfortable with that and often transfer the responsibility to someone or something else.

Blame seems to be a trait we encourage in our society too. Why take the fall for a mistake you have made when you can blame someone else and make yourself look better (which usually backfires and makes us look worse). I have a confession to make – I watch the show “The Apprentice.” On that show when someone ends up in the hot seat in Trumps boardroom there is usually a time of blaming others rather than fessing up to a shortcoming or fault of their own. Many go down fighting before they are fired and that fight usually involves blaming and badmouthing others. Unfortunately that show is only a mirror of our own sinful nature that doesn’t want to admit that we are sinful human beings.

There are consequences to sin. We all have to pay the price of falling short of God’s glory. But it only gets worse when we don’t confess our sins and try to hide them or blame other things instead of looking at ourselves and knowing it is our fault.

God placed a curse on the serpent, on Eve and on Adam for their disobedience. One curse in particular I think plagues us when we don’t confess our sin. Eve was told that not only was her childbirth pains to increase she was also to be “ruled over” by her husband. I really believe this isn’t a gender issue but a result of not taking sin seriously. When we try to hide our faults and blame others for our transgressions then we become “ruled” by our sin. We ending up doing things we never thought we would and usually end up making a bigger mess

Confession and Trust – So what can we do with our sin? First we must be honest with God and confess that we are sinful. We do it every Sunday in our worship service. But it is more than mere words – it is a coming clean before God that we have failed and have disobeyed. We are to be honest – we cannot hide or blame others for our sin. In that moment of confession, of realizing that we are sinners we recognize our need for a Savior. And our Savior comes to us an offers His love and mercy. When we are honest and confess our sinful nature God reaches out and embraces us with His love and grace. That is the message of Lent – we are sinners but we have a Savior who sacrificed Himself for us.

And Jesus also gives us a model for dealing with the crafty serpent that continues to tempt us to make light of disobedience to God. We don’t look to our own strength but look to the Father. Did you notice in the Gospel lesson for today that as Jesus was tempted He never once used His power to overcome the devil? He focused on God’s Word and looked to the Father for strength. We too need to recognize that we can’t overcome sin – only God can. We look to God’s Word and to Jesus, the living Word, for forgiveness and new life.

Don’t run and hid from your sin. Don’t blame the world for your disobedience. Come clean and be honest – we are all sinful. And in that confession the sweet, transforming love and mercy of God will come in and transform you life, offering forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ. Amen