We understand death to have entered the world as the penalty for Adam and

Eve’s disobedience – for their turning away from God and doing that one

single thing they had been told not to do, for on the day that they did

they would surely die.

 

The story of Adam and Eve is much discussed and disputed not just for

it’s historical truth – that is a dead horse it seem to me – but for it’s

theological truth.

 

Some folk think Adam and Eve have gotten a bad rap.  They ask us to take a

hard look at their situation at the moment the serpent spoke to them.

 

   Had they encountered deceit before?

   Did they have any idea what a lie was?

   Would they have had reason to doubt anyone?

   How could they have known what “to die” meant?

 

These are good questions – questions that  have allowed some people to

conclude Adam and Eve were “set up” by God – with no way to defend

themselves – that God knew they would sin and created the conditions for

them to sin in regardless.

 

In short they blame God for what happened.  

 

This strikes me as an all too familiar modern theme – the theme of

abandoning responsibility and of blaming others for the faults that lie

within us.

 

You know how it goes 

   Spill hot coffee on your lap and burn yourself 

       -and blame MacDonald’s for making it too hot and collect a cool two

       million dollars.

   Kill someone when you are drinking 

       – blame the alcohol for it – and get a tap on the wrist.

   Live in a dysfunctional way, hurt those around you, or drive them to

   distraction with your neediness and your fragile self esteem

       – and blame your behavior on how your parents raised you.

   Hit your brother or kick your sister in the playground

       – and blame them for provoking you.

 

It is a familiar theme – and one as old as Adam and Eve who, upon being

confronted by God after they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil, promptly blamed God, one another, and then serpent for their act.

 

Adam’s name, I hope you remember, means “human kind”

and the name of Eve quite simply means “Mother of all living”

 

Adam and Eve are you and I.

 

And whether we intend to or not we all play their game

– we take and eat the forbidden fruit.

And like them, most of us, if we don’t just outright deny doing the deed,

– blame someone else for it.

 

At least at first,

before we finally embrace the truth,

before we finally say “mia culpa” and mean it.

 

Set up or not, the simple fact is in the story of Adam and Eve there

   was one simple command given them – the command to not eat of a

   particular tree in the Garden; and knowing that – as Eve so obviously

   knew that when she responded to the Serpent’s invitation – they went

   ahead anyway.

 

That invitation, you will remember, was “to become like God – knowing good

and evil”

 

And so Adam and Eve,

   who were already made in the image of God and therefore like God

turned away from the one who made them

   and sought to be like God in some other way,

in the way that their inclinations and the inducements of the serpent

suggested to them.

 

They sought to take a short cut to the very state of existence that God had

already planned for them; to do it their way instead of God’s way.

 

Think of the many children – never mind children – think of the many adults

who have insisted taking short cuts to their destinations

   – short cuts that have been forbidden to them

   – or they have been warned about,

only to find out there were very good reasons for the rule,

very sound reasons for the advice.

 

No matter who you blame, the simple fact is that  although the

fruit of the tree of the    knowledge of good and evil was good to the eye

and desirable to make one wise it was – and it still is – very bad for the

tummy.

 

Within the Gospel reading we see another child of God, another person made

in God’s image, deal with the same tempter and the same temptation that

tempted Adam and Eve.

 

One way of approaching the story of Jesus’ being tempted in the wilderness

is to see it as a personal struggle for Jesus, another is to see it as a

story about a new Adam and a new beginning for the world.

 

After fasting 40 days, it must have been very ‘tempting’ for Jesus to turn

   anything into bread.

 

And already knowing where his journey was going to take him, it must have

   been tempting to take the short cut to dominion and power and glory –

   how much better to gain the whole world with one simple act of homage –

   than to gain it on journey that would involve dying on a cross.

 

And as to having proof that God really is with you if you are going to

   insist on going the long way round – surely there is nothing better

   than a little demonstration of divine love and protection – it will

   really pump you and help show folk that you are someone special.

 

But Jesus took no short cuts to glory either in the wilderness or later.

 

Jesus walked the path of his destiny as one made in the image of God

   – like you and I – 

and he suffered and he died

   – as we suffer and die

– to undo what Adam and Eve did.

   – to undo what we do.

 

No short cuts.  

  

He took the long way, around because, in the end, that is the only way to

take if one hopes to arrive.

 

And Jesus arrived. 

And because he did – he is able to help us arrive.

 

As in Adam death came into the world for all

so in Christ life comes to all who receive him.

 

When all is said and done however,

our faith is about what Jesus has set us free for,

not just what Jesus has set us free from. 

 

It is not so much about what not to do

– but about what to do.  

It is positive

– not negative.

 

So should be our time in Lent, our time before the joy of Easter.

 

We should indeed avoid certain things

– we should resist the tempter

– we should, as the Season of Lent has traditionally suggested, give up

certain things.

 

But we should go on to express ourselves positively

– as did Jesus as he moved from the River of his Baptism and the wilderness

of his temptations towards the cross and ultimately to his resurrection.

 

God is with us as well.  We are anointed with the Holy Spirit.  And though

we may succumb to temptation, we are empowered – thanks to the one who did

not succumb – to do all he did.

 

Going the long way round is not always easy – but it always gets us there

while the shortcuts all end up in muck and mire.

 

We go the long way round – because that is the road travelled by Jesus

and because Jesus is still on that road to help us walk it

and to help us arrive at the destination he has already reached.