1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 1st Sunday in Lent is taken from Genesis 3:1-21. It’s entitled, “What Truly Delights,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Turkish delight is a tasty confection used by the White Witch, the self-proclaimed Queen of Narnia, to deceive poor Edmund, the son of Adam. At least that’s what C. S. Lewis tells us in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, his first of seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia. The queen offered the Turkish delight to sate Edmund’s hunger, but the more he ate, the more he desired it. The fact is, she didn’t have what was necessary to satisfy Edmund’s most basic needs. Since she didn’t have it, she could not give it. Instead, through her deception, she caused Edmund’s downfall. He became enslaved to the wicked White Witch and brought trouble on many others, including his own brother and sisters. The deed that brought about the end of trouble and the freedom of Edmund was the self-sacrifice of the ever-good, mysterious lion, Aslan. Aslan had life and was therefore able to give it for Edmund’s sake.
3. Edmund, by talking to an evil one and eating what the evil one offers, mimics the actions of not only Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:6–7), but also he’s like all of us in that we, too, succumb to evil temptations that ultimately are not able to satisfy but leave us wanting life. Like Aslan, Jesus, the Lord of life comes to our rescue. What he has, he gives. He does have life, and by giving up his life on the cross, he gives us life and heavenly delight.
4. The serpent can give only what he has (Gen. 3:1–5). Genesis 3:1-5 says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but 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.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
5. The great deceiver can’t increase the number of good and godly gifts the woman and man already have from God—nor improve on them. He has already fallen from grace in his rebellion against God and so forfeited the good and godly gifts that were given to him. Without the life of God, he is dead. He is under God’s wrath and judgment. The heat and fire of hell were made for him.
6. An older child with a nickel deceives a younger child with a dime into trading. The older child makes his larger nickel seem more valuable than the small dime. The younger child becomes convinced that he is not losing something but gaining something. Once the five-cent value is lost, it cannot be spent or shared. What the younger child does not have he is not able to give.
7. The serpent deceitfully implies that the woman and man can have more but, like the older boy in the illustration, leaves them with less. He implies a promise to add value to their lives, while in reality leaving them to die. He lies and murders. By so doing, he adds to his list of offenses against God for which he deserves wrath and judgment. His lying and murdering did not end in the garden. He is still trying to convince us he has something good to offer. Our resistance to temptation puts us in the heat of battle. When the serpent overcomes in temptation, he is able to give what he has. He shares his misery, his death, and his hell.
8. In the Garden of Eden, he drags the woman and the man down to join him under the hot wrath and fierce judgment of God. We find ourselves under that same wrath and judgment when we give in to temptation. The woman and man can give only what they have. At creation, God had given the woman and the man beautiful gifts to share and pass down to their descendants. Because they were created in his image and likeness, they originally had perfect righteousness, pure holiness, and precious honor. This was theirs to give.
9. But by giving in to temptation, they lost those gifts (Gen. 3:6–13). After eating the forbidden fruit, the woman and man are naked and exposed, revealing sin, shame, and guilt due to the loss of God’s good gifts of holiness, honor, righteousness. What they do not have they can’t give. As a result, all humanity is now without those good gifts and is exposed in a way that reveals sin (by disobedience to God), shame (by hiding from God), and guilt (by blaming God and each other). All humanity is under the heat of God’s wrath.
10. What the woman and the man do have they give. They pass down to their descendants the judgments rendered against them (Gen 3:16–19): pain in childbirth, the cursed ground, the struggle of obtaining daily bread. Worse than those things is that everyone since is mortal. No one can escape death. Despite the fall into sin, God can also still give only what he has. God has white hot wrath to give for sin, but his response to Adam and Eve’s sin is surprising; it’s a cool response. Genesis 3:8–9 says, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
11. In the cool of the day, he comes to the woman and the man with a promise—with the Spirit working as God. Genesis 3:14–15 says, “The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
12. For God still has love to give us. There is no quit, no abandoning his people, in God (Gen. 3:21), and what God does not have even he cannot give. Instead, the promise begins to be fulfilled as God comes in the cool of the night at Bethlehem, the Spirit’s message conveyed by holy angels to the shepherds in the field. Still, God does have that hot wrath to give—and he must give it. Sin must be punished! With death! But he also has a Son to give.
13. In the cool of the morning, in the high priest’s courtyard, God’s Son is tried, convicted, and crucified. Jesus faced the furnace of hell; God gave Jesus all the wrath he had to give. And while Satan offered what he couldn’t give, Jesus gives to God what he really does have—everything it took for our rescue. Jesus gave his holy, innocent, precious blood in exchange for peace with humanity. The sacrifice of Jesus appeases the white hot wrath of God. Jesus gave his heel (his life into death on the cross) for the head (the crushing) of Satan. Jesus gives us his own value; the worthless become priceless. The dead are made alive. The resurrection of Jesus assures us that the serpent’s head is crushed.
14. Jesus came to you in the cool water of Baptism. For the Holy Spirit is active in Baptism to wash from you sin, shame, and guilt. Jesus restores your honor by clothing you with the holy garment of righteousness, which is his to give, as the lamb who was slain. He invites you to daily repentance, to be ever arrayed in the spotless garment he has given.
15. The deceiver still wants to give you what he has and to promise what he can’t, to rob you of your holy garment. Do not listen to that liar. Keep your eyes and your ears fixed on Jesus, your Creator and Redeemer. Jesus Christ has fully and completely endured the just wrath and condemnation for sin, guilt, and shame. That’s now spent; it’s gone. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. All that’s left is forgiveness. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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