Just when you thought it couldn’t be done, I write a sermon involving Mongo from Blazing Saddles. I either just won or lost as a pastor — let me know which.
Matthew 4:1-11; Romans 5:12-19; Psalm 32; Genesis 2:15-17,3:1-7
Let me sum up the Scripture lessons for today: God good; not God bad. Ok sermon’s over. No really, all of our lessons are that simple when put in words like Mongo would use from Blazing Saddles: God good; not God bad. Throw in a “Mongo is only pawn in game of life” and that about covers the Mongo lexicon. So I’ll put it to a vote; leave it at “God good; not God bad” or keep going.
Blast. Well, I guess I better keep going then. So, let’s start with Genesis. Prior to the lesson from today, God had just finished making everything, and he left Adam with rather simple instructions afterwards: “You’re in charge. All the trees in the garden are fair game, but be warned, there’s one tree, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that you probably don’t want to eat from. If you do, you’ll die.” Can’t get much easier than that right? Eat whatever you want, just don’t eat from this one tree. God good.
But, we all know what happens if someone says you can’t have something, right? Let’s do an experiment. Think about whatever you want, just don’t think about butterflies. How many of you thought about butterflies? It’s always rather interesting how often that works out. So imagine the boat Adam and Eve were in. You know that tree was just gnawing at them, and the more they said “Don’teatfromthattreedon’teatfromthattreedon’teatfromthattree…” the worse it got.
So it’s not all that surprising that when confronted by the Serpent’s temptation, Eve was already just about ready to crack. You can only not think about something for so long before you crack. And finally, after just a little bit of prodding, Eve couldn’t do it. She went up to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, grabbed a fruit, bit into it, didn’t die, then called Adam over and Adam did the same thing, including not dying. Then it all went downhill from there. Not God bad.
Fast forward lots of years and about a thousand pages. Jesus, who had just been baptized, went out into the desert to be tempted. He fasted for 40 days, which by the way is about the longest a human can go without food, so the statement in the gospel that “he was hungry” is one of the vast understatements in Scripture.
So the devil goes straight to the practical with his temptation. “Jesus, buddy, I know you’re hungry. Make these stones into bread.” Pretty safe temptation on the devil’s part. But Jesus, knowing that “Not God bad”, deflects this temptation pretty easily for someone who hadn’t eaten in 40 days. Then, the devil tries something different. The go to the highest point in Jerusalem and the devil says, “If you’re really God’s son, have a leap, you won’t get hurt the Scriptures say so.” Jesus, responds, “Nope, sorry devil, God good; not God bad. I’m not going to test Him.” Finally, trying his last trick, the devil says to Jesus, “Hey, you want to skip the whole crucifixion bit but still want to be King of Kings? Bow down and worship me and it’s all yours.” Jesus, then replies, “Away from me Satan! I’m only going to worship God!” Then the devil left.
All through his temptation, Jesus did not sin. Hebrews tells us he was tempted in every way, not just the ways the gospels record, but still, he didn’t sin. He knew that God is good.
Paul picks up on the difference between Jesus and Adam, especially in their response temptation. He sometimes refers to Jesus as the “Second Adam”, in part because while each were tempted, one brought sin into the world and the other bought forgiveness. Paul writes in Romans 5, “Just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” In short: God good; not God bad.
Because of Christ’s obedience to the will of God, God overlooks our disobedience. Because Christ resisted temptation to sin, God forgives us when we fail to resist temptation. Because Christ died for our sins, we no longer have to suffer the death promised when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree. And because Christ was raised to new life, we no longer fear death but instead are granted eternal life with Him.
And then we can sing with the Psalmist: “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.” The Psalmist talks about how miserable his life was before he acknowledged his sin to God — in essence, while he was doing “not-God” things. But then, when he confessed to God, everything went better. God is good, after all.
And that really is the point of Lent. We focus on those things in our lives that are not-God, confess them to Him, and ask him to replace them with things that are of God. We ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ, and heal us of our sinfulness. Because, as Mongo would say, “God good; not God bad.”