Sermon on the First Sunday of Lent - Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters

Lent, a season of fasting, penance and, if we're honest, perhaps a little misery. Most people assume that Christianity, especially during Lent, is about self-denial, perhaps even for its own sake. Maybe Christians just really enjoy being unhappy.

Some people, I think, assume that being a Christian actually means to be perpetually solemn, preoccupied with guilt and judgment. You wouldn't believe how many times I've been in the pub and somebody has asked me, you're a priest, are you even allowed to drink? But what if Lent, rather than being about solemnity, is in fact really about joy, deeper, richer joy than anything that the world offers? Yes, Lent is about penance and, of course, penance is no easy task. But the Christian life is not, and has never been, a call to misery.

In fact, it is, and has always been, a call to joy. But joy is not fleeting happiness. Instead, it is knowing that, because of God, we can walk the road towards redemption.

It is deep and heartfelt and it surpasses understanding. The readings that we've heard today remind us that the Christian story is an arc of redemption. But before we begin to understand redemption, we first have to understand what we're being redeemed from.

And to that, we have to go further back than our readings, right to the very first book of the Scriptures, to Genesis chapter 3. In Genesis 3, we hear the final act of the two great creation poems that begin the Old Testament. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, living in God's presence, but with one command, they must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course, they are tempted to eat by Satan in chapter 3. Eve eats first and then passes the fruit to Adam.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

They eat and they fall. They become aware that they're naked and they hide from God. Eventually, they admit what's happened and they're made to leave the garden, to enter the highs and lows of human existence as we know it.

They and their children put themselves beyond God's immediate presence in the garden. This mythology, these poems, aren't just about exploring how the world came to be or why human beings suffer and die. They're a reflection on why, if God is good, we aren't just immediately in his presence, since that is where we're happiest.

These mythological poems reflect that somewhere along our evolutionary journey to today, human beings decided to be alone. Of course, this decision, made throughout our earliest history and repeated just as much today, wasn't just about simple disobedience to God. It was about humanity discovering and choosing the allure of power and wealth, knowing and accepting and choosing the reality that if we opt for the path of selfishness, some of us can have more than we ought by mistreating others.

It's about human activity, actively working against living according to the natural law of loving justice for which we were created. Genesis 1 through 3 is, in fact, a reflection on the decision that human beings have made and continue to make to turn from divine joy to human self-sufficiency. These mythological poems aren't a scientific record, and they were never meant to be.

They are stories that contain deep truths about the human condition, the truth that we were made for union with God, and yet we choose our own way. This choice to go our own way instead of the way that God has for us is known as sin, and the Hebrew word for sin is hatahah. It conveys straying from the path.

Once humanity took its first steps away from God, once we take those first steps ourselves by choosing the path that best benefits us to the detriment of someone else, we become lost. One choice leads to another and to another and to another like a domino effect until we become unable to return on our own. And in our gospel reading, we see how Jesus undid that pattern.

In the wilderness, he faced temptation not once but three times. Temptations which aren't, in fact, foreign to us. In fact, the very same temptations that we so often face and which Adam and Eve themselves faced.

First, the devil tempted Jesus with food, with physical desire. We, all of us, are drawn to physical comfort, to indulgence, to anger, to envy, to things that, when unchecked, pull us away from God. Our eyes are so easily drawn to what we might have now that we forget what we will have in him.

When Jesus resisted, the devil tempted him next with power, power over the kingdoms of the world. Of course, few of us have ever been offered such a price, but who amongst us hasn't been tempted to control or to dominate, to put ourselves first when we have the power to do so? Power corrupts, so the saying goes, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's true because the temptation of power is that we use it for our own gain.

And once we use it once to get what we want, it's so easy to use it again. Power becomes for the holder, not for the common good. And finally, Jesus was tempted to worship that which was not God.

Again, though we may not now worship idols, we can know this temptation very well. It's easy to give our hearts to so many things, created things, to career, to status, to possessions, to approval. And we may never call it worship, but those things easily displace God.

But where Adam and Eve fell, where we fail, Christ stood firm. Look at Adam and Eve. First, they were tempted with food, with fruit that was good to eat.

We are tempted with physical desire. Jesus was tempted with stones to bread, but Jesus alone refused the temptation. Adam and Eve were tempted by power and knowledge, apart from that which God had for them.

We too are tempted by power and the things that it can give us. Jesus was tempted by power apart from God, but he alone submitted to the will of the Father. Adam and Eve turned from worshipping God to worshipping themselves, considering themselves more important than the advice and the instruction that God had given them not to eat from the tree.

We too can so easily displace God by the created things in our lives. Jesus was tempted to worship something which was not God, but he alone declared, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And so in the wilderness, Jesus began the great reversal for humanity.

Christ became the new Adam. He made the choice that Adam couldn't. And in doing so, he restored that which was lost.

And understanding this explains why Lent is not about misery, but rather freedom. Because although we know these temptations and although we fall to them time and again, in fact, they have already been beaten in Jesus. And Lent is our opportunity to realise the victory, to realise the freedom that is already ours in him.

And so we fast, not because God wants us to be hungry, but because we long for something more than bread alone, as Jesus longed for every word that came from the mouth of his Father. And we pray, not because God needs to hear our words or he's lonely, but because we long for the Father's presence, just as Jesus longed to be in the Father. And we give, not because God lacks resources, but because generosity frees us from the false gods, those idols that we create, money and security and power.

Just as Jesus said, I will bow down and worship only God alone. The practices of Lent aren't rules for their own sake. They are a path into the joyous freedom that Jesus won in the wilderness, into relationship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

They are methods for realising the truth of our freedom, for training our hearts to desire God above all things. Of course, the road of Lent requires something from us. Sin is real.

Each of us has strayed. Each of us has fallen to temptation. Lent begins by recognising that, by recognising that the reality of the freedom that Jesus won in the wilderness and completed on the cross and at the resurrection is still ours to attain.

And so when we sin, when we fall to temptation, we repent. The Greek word for repentance is metanoia. And it doesn't just mean saying sorry.

It means actively turning around, a 180 reversal, realising you're going in the wrong way and turning back. Repentance is an invitation to stop walking away from God and start walking towards him. And so with Lent, we begin by realising we've been going the wrong way and we turn back around.

And then we begin our Lenten practices. And as we do, we realise the truth that Jesus in his life, ministry, death and resurrection took on our humanity, saved it from the damage that we have done to it and made a path back to the Father through him, the Son. And we have only to realise it, accept it and follow it.

And so the question of Lent is this. Will you take the path that Christ has already opened for you? Will you begin by admitting that you do sin? You have made mistakes as Adam and Eve made mistakes. Will you ask Christ to help you resist temptation because he beat temptation in the wilderness? And then will you follow the path that he laid for you? Yes, a difficult path, but one which leads to the joy of complete freedom.

Lent is not about misery. It is about stepping into the road of salvation. Jesus has opened the road.

He has won the victory. The redemption is ours in him. So may we rise, repent and return to the Lord this Lent.

Amen.