22/02/2026
FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT SERMON
PS 31:1-7;
Gen. 3: 1-21;
Rom. 5: 12 - 19;
Mat. 4: 1-11
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32). King David does not begin with human effort. He does not begin with moral repair. He begins with absolution. With a verdict. With justification.
On this First Sunday in Lent, the Church drags us back to the smoking ruins of Eden in Genesis 3. There we see the true catastrophe of humanity. Not merely that Adam and Eve ate fruit. Not merely that they broke a rule. But that sin tore apart communion. It shattered trust. It divorced man from God.
The serpent’s hiss in Genesis 3 is not just temptation; it is accusation against God’s character. “Did God really say?” That question is the seed of every unbelief. It suggests that God is withholding, that He is not good, that His Word is negotiable. And when Adam stood silent and Eve reached out her hand, humanity declared independence from its Creator.
And what followed? Shame. Hiding. Blame. Alienation.
They sewed fig leaves. They hid among trees. They feared the voice that once delighted them. This is what sin does. It does not merely stain; it separates. As Genesis records, the man who once walked with God now trembles before Him.
Martin Luther, preaching on this text, said that after the Fall, Adam would rather have fled to the ends of the earth than face God. That is sin’s legacy. We do not run toward God; we run from Him. By nature we are not seekers of God but fugitives.
And Saint Paul in Epistle to the Romans 5 leaves no room for self-justification: “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” This is not merely imitation. It is inheritance. Adam’s rebellion is credited to us. His guilt imputed. His death our sentence.
Here is the brutal truth: before God’s law, we are not sick but dead. Not morally bruised but condemned. The relationship between God and man was not strained, it was severed. Divine justice stood against us.
But listen! Even as the curse falls, even as God pronounces judgment upon the serpent, the woman, and the man, a thunderclap of grace explodes in the darkness.
“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.”
This is the Protoevangelium; the first Gospel. The first promise. The first declaration that the war would not end in Satan’s victory. From the womb of the woman would come a Seed. Not a committee. Not a philosophy. A Person.
Luther called this verse “the fountain of all the promises of God.” Here, in the ashes of paradise, God preaches Christ. Before Adam and Eve could offer repentance polished enough, before they could repair what they had ruined, God Himself announces the coming Victor.
This is justification in embryo. God acts. God promises. God saves.
Fast forward to the wilderness in Matthew 4. The Second Adam stands where the first fell. The devil tempts Him with bread, with spectacle, with power. “If You are the Son of God…”
Do you hear the echo? “Did God really say?” The strategy has not changed. Satan attacks identity and trust.
But where Adam was silent, Christ speaks. Where Adam grasped, Christ refuses. Where Israel failed in the wilderness, Christ triumphs. He answers every temptation with “It is written.” He stands on the Word. He clings to His Father.
This is not a mere moral example. This is substitution. The obedience of Christ is not inspirational; it is imputed. As Paul declares, “By the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
Just as Adam’s sin was credited to us, so Christ’s righteousness is credited to all who believe. This is the great exchange. Our sin laid upon Him. His righteousness laid upon us.
Luther exulted in this truth, saying that faith “lays hold of Christ and has Him present, enclosing Him as the ring encloses the gem.” Through faith, Christ’s victory becomes yours. His obedience your obedience. His righteousness your righteousness.
That is justification: God declares the ungodly righteous for Christ’s sake. Not infused righteousness. Not gradual improvement. A verdict from heaven. A courtroom declaration: “Not guilty.” More than that; “Righteous.”
Psalm 32 sings of this miracle: “You forgave the iniquity of my sin.” David says when he kept silent, his bones wasted away. Guilt crushes. Silence suffocates. But confession unleashes absolution. “I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave.”
Notice the order. Confession does not earn forgiveness. It receives it. The forgiveness was already in God’s heart.
Beloved, some of you are walking through fierce wildernesses right now. Some are staring at terminal diagnoses. Some sit beside hospice beds, watching breath grow shallow in someone you love. Some feel the slow ache of chronic illness. The devil whispers, “If you are a child of God…”
Look to Christ in the wilderness.
Your Savior knows hunger. He knows weakness. He knows the assault of Satan. And He did not merely survive it for Himself, He conquered it for you. His victory is your assurance that temptation does not equal abandonment. Trial does not mean rejection.
If you are in Christ, your suffering is not punishment. The punishment fell on Him. Your illness is not divine wrath. The wrath was exhausted at the cross.
The same God who sought Adam in the garden, “Where are you?” seeks you in hospital rooms and hospice wards. The question was never for God’s information. It was invitation. A call back to grace.
And let this be said with apostolic sharpness: justification leaves no room for pride, prejudice, or partiality within Christ’s Church. If all stand condemned in Adam and all are justified only by grace in Christ, who dares to exalt tribe over tribe? Race over race? Culture over culture?
When church leaders manipulate divisions, when they favor one group over another, they replay the serpent’s lie. They place the Church under temptation. They rebuild walls that Christ’s blood has torn down. This is not merely poor management; it is a denial of justification by grace alone.
For at the foot of the cross, there is no superior flesh. There are only sinners justified freely.
Lent strips us. It exposes our fig leaves. It drags us out from behind the trees. It silences our excuses. But it does not leave us naked and ashamed.
For the Lord who pronounced judgment in Eden also clothed Adam and Eve with garments of skin. Blood was shed so they could be covered. A shadow of the Lamb to come.
And now, in Christ, you are clothed not with skins but with righteousness. His righteousness.
So when your conscience accuses, when the law thunders, when death approaches, answer not with your works but with Christ. Say: I am baptized. I am justified. The Seed of the woman has crushed the serpent’s head. The Second Adam has obeyed in my place.
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven.”
Blessed are you.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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