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I recently read a story about an Anglican Parish in the United States, (and in the U.S.A. the Anglican Church there is called the Episcopal Church). This particular parish was situated in a coastal South Carolina town, and the events happened around this time of the year. What happened was that the Episcopal parish had placed three crosses on the lawn adjacent to the church, and draped them in purple, for Lent.  After a week or so the church received a call from the local Chamber of Commerce. They complained about the three crosses. “This is a big season for tourists,” they said. “We think the crosses could send the wrong signal to visitors to the beach. People don’t want to come down here for a vacation and be confronted with unpleasantness.” Well the church stood its ground. The three crosses stayed!  “It’s Lent”, said the church. “People are supposed to be uncomfortable.”

So maybe this morning, as we enter into this first Sunday of Lent, that period of 40 days prior to Easter, we ought to think of it as the season of unpleasant uncomfortability. During this season we are very likely, through the words of Scripture, to be confronted with many of those truths about ourselves that we spend much of the rest of our lives avoiding.  But here also we will find God’s hand reaching down to us to heal and to restore and to renew. 

            On this first Sunday in Lent our readings remind us of some facts about ourselves which we often want to avoid - the fact  that we make wrong choices, we make bad choices, and very often we make very deliberate and unfortunate choices that lead us away from God and away from others.   

Our Lent readings begins with the picture of the Garden of Eden.  God has completed the six days of creation and man and woman, the peak of God’s creativity,  are enjoying that open and mutual relationship with God.  There are no secrets, no hiding from God, no feelings of guilt or shame. No regrets, no skeletons in the cupboard. And this is how God intended it to be with you and me – and forever! God had finished the creation; and as part of his Divine benevolence and the expression of His love and care for humankind - he set boundaries and made it clear what was good for them and what wasn’t. “You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day.” (2;17) 
I don’t think it could be clearer, do you? 
Everything else was theirs to cultivate, to use and to enjoy -  except for the fruit of that one tree. They were not to eat of it.  And if you are wondering what is the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”,  another translation refers to it as “the tree of the knowledge of everything”.   In other words – in this story – here was a symbol of something which would allow humans to become omniscient – become all knowing – - in fact- just like God! That was the temptation! But the word from God was very clear – don’t eat that fruit!  - or in todays language, - don’t go there!

            We know the outcome of that story, don’t we? The attraction to become like god is very powerful, isn’t it? We do it all the time in a million different ways. Eve has a conversation with the snake – and is persuaded to try it. She invites Adam to do the same, and of course you cant argue with a woman, so he follows suit, and he too eats the forbidden fruit. 

Both made bad choices, and their lives were wrecked, and we have inherited their spiritual and psychological DNA and now we too make bad choices – and we too want to become like god and lord it over everyone and everything, if we can.  We are no different, are we?

Some choices we make can result in a big difference in our lives, while others aren’t all that significant at all.   About six months ago I bought a new pair of shoes at the Warehouse.  They were reasonably inexpensive and when I tried them on I thought they looked pretty good and they felt ok.  They were a little tight ( there wasn’t a half –size available in this model) but, from experience I guessed that with a bit of wearing in they would soon loosen up. Well I was wrong ,wasn’t  I?  I had made the wrong decision. After putting up with rather cramped toes for a few months, I finally admitted my mistake and wrote it off as yet another lesson I had learnt.  No damage (or very little!)  was done to my life, and certainly not to anyone else’s.  But not all choices are as simple as that are they? Or as inconsequential.  Everyday we make many far more important choices which affect not only ourselves, but others as well.   Everyday our lives interact with others at home and at work, and in every occasion there is an opportunity for that meeting to be for good or for ill.

Many times we mess it up. And the rotten thing is that most of the time we know we have, don’t we?

We have to admit that we are not what we would like to think we are.  We know, from experience, and in the words of the Confession for Evensong, that we are miserable sinners. And we wish it were different.  We know that spiritually, Adam and Eve are undeniably our ancestors and their sin is deeply embedded in us, too.

So Lent begins on a gloomy note of sadness and disappointment and almost brutal honesty.

Its called “The Fall”; when Adam and Eve – the first son and daughter of God - “fell” from that state of  perfection and fellowship with God.  But fortunately God doesn’t leave us in that state. God may have banished them from that Garden, but in the mind of God there was already a plan which would cause Him – in the person of Jesus the Christ - to come to another Garden and there take the punishment which that sin of Adam and Eve deserved. There was another tree, - a Cross -  from which the fruit of God’s love would be made available to all.  

In the Gospel reading  we rejoiced to hear of how Jesus, (sometimes called the “Second Adam”)  THE Son of God – came to this earth – faced all the similar temptations which we are faced with – but made the Right choice – and rather than disobey and deny or rebel against God’s Word – He chose instead to accept and obey it , and in so doing made possible for us a new beginning.  Lent shows us, through the temptations of Jesus, that making decisions, making choices which are in accord with God’s Word and Purpose are never wrong.    This “Second Adam – to the rescue came”, as the hymn puts it, and through His life, and death and resurrection,  not only reversed  the effects and the damage of the first Adam, but declares  to all who turn to Him the judgment of Not Guilty.

For each one of us, the way to  peace with God, a new beginning and a fresh start, is made possible only when we ourselves, at every opportunity, make the choice to follow Jesus’ way.

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