Thursday, February 18, 2021

Sermon - Ash Wednesday - Genesis 3:11-15,19

The Serpent

Genesis 3:

11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

    cursed are you above all livestock

    and above all beasts of the field;

on your belly you shall go,

    and dust you shall eat

    all the days of your life.

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring[e] and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.”

(and to Adam):

19  By the sweat of your face

  you shall eat bread,

till you return to the ground,

  for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust,

  and to dust you shall return.”

 

A blessed Ash Wednesday to you, dear Christians.  Today we remember we are dust and to dust we shall return.  It is a day of repentance.  It is a day of sorrow over sin, and turning away from sin and toward Christ in faith.  It is also the beginning of Lent, a season of repentance, in which we prepare to observe Holy Week, Good Friday, and celebrate with joy the Resurrection of Christ our Lord.

As is our tradition, we have a midweek series following a theme.  This year, we are looking at the passion of Christ through the lens of different animals that either appear in the passion narrative, or else have a close association with it. 

The Bible is full of stories that include the animals.  They are mentioned as part of creation (days 5 and 6).  They are saved with Noah in the flood, 2 of every kind, and after the flood, also given us for food.  They are divided into clean and unclean categories.  They are used in sacrifices, and they are a major form of wealth for the partriarchs – Abraham, Issac and Jacob were all herdsmen.  Even King David grew up as a shepherd.

God cares for the animals, and distinguishes them from plant-life.  For in them is also “the breath of life”.  When Jonah wanted Nineveh destroyed, God asked, “should I not care about the thousands of people that lived there and also many cattle”?  Surely humans are worth more than animals, even many sparrows, for instance.  After all we are created in the image of God, and they are not.  But God still regards his creation, and has a special place in his heart for the animals.

But animals are also used as pictures of spiritual truths.  Christ and Satan are both pictured as a lion.  The Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the lion looking for someone to devour.  Jesus is the lamb who was once slain.  We have birds and insects and fish and horses and all manner of animal life in the pages of Scripture.  They are a blessing to us as fellow creatures, and part of the earth we are given to subdue and rule.  But they also serve to teach us about the God whom we serve.

This Lent, we will take six of these animal stories, and examine them in connection to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – especially in connection with his passion – his trial, his suffering and his death for us. 

The first of these animals, the Serpent.  The first animal that takes any prominent place in Scripture is the one the Devil uses to tempt our first parents into sin.  There is nothing inherently evil in snakes, but here the Devil either possesses a serpent or comes in the form of one, slithering into Eden to sow his seeds of doubt.

Treacherous but clever words, filled with truths but also a deadly lie, “you will not die”.  The Serpent becomes a bitter reminder for us of temptation and sin, of the bitter fall of Adam and Even into sin and death.  That sad day in which everything changed, the bliss of Eden was shattered, and the human race became doomed to judgment. 

But don’t just blame the Serpent, or even old Adam and Eve.  Though you and I inherit their sin, we also participate in it.  We are guilty of original sin, yes, but also of the actual sins we commit.  The same serpent who worked on them works on us.  The same devil who drove a wedge between God and man would do the same today, and when you sin you become his willing accomplice. 

And we are also like our first parents in trying to shift blame for our sins, “It’s not my fault, it’s the woman you gave me”  “It’s not my fault, the Serpent tricked me!”  It’s not my fault, because I was born this way.  It’s not my fault, because it was just too hard not to sin.  It’s not my fault, since the game is stacked against me – the commandments can’t be serious. And bedsides, I’m only human.  And the next guy’s a worse sinner than I am.  Did God really say? 

Yes, that old evil foe has some tricks up his sleeve, some lies in the repertoire of his forked tongue.  He knows what levers to pull, and he will stop at nothing to see you, too, fall – not only into sin, but away from faith in Christ, away from your baptismal birthright of salvation.  He would like to see nothing more. His eternal misery wants nothing more than your company.  Since he can’t hurt God, he goes after the ones God loves.

But he is crushed.  He is a defeated foe.  A roaring lion with no claws, no teeth.  For Christ has conquered.  Christ has won the victory over sin and death and devil.

Oh, sure, the devil bruised his heel, yes.  And a nasty bruise it was.  Deadly, even.  Pierced hands and feet.  A crown of thorns.  A soul sorrowful, even unto death.  Surely the serpent shouted in triumph when Christ died in humble agony. 

But the revelry of hell would be short lived.  As one hymn puts it, “The foe in triumph shouted when Christ lay in the tomb, but lo, he now is routed, his boast turned into gloom!”

The bruised heel didn’t stop Jesus.  The death he died on the cross wasn’t the end of him.  For he is stronger than death, and he has come not to be crushed, but to crush.  To trample the serpent’s head in fulfillment of the ancient promise of God.  And I’d far rather have my heel bruised than my head crushed.

God accepted the sacrifice of his Son.  Jesus’ full atonement for sins was mission accomplished.  Therefore God raised him up.  Therefore Jesus, who laid down his life of his own accord, took it back up just as easily.  Death’s strong bands could no more hold him than a paper chain could restrain a body-builder, but he burst forth from the grave in power and glory. 

And first on his agenda was to announce his victory.  So he descended into hell.  He went to meet that old serpent on his home turf.  And what a shock it must have caused.  When Jesus proclaimed to the spirits in prison, as 1 Peter puts it, after being made alive by the Spirit.  He showed them by his very presence there in the halls of Hades – “I am alive!  You didn’t win after all.  Death and sin and you, devil, are done for.  Your fate is sealed.”

And so the same God who cursed the serpent, and proclaimed to Eve and then Adam the penalties for their sin – pain in childbirth, thorns in the ground – the same God announces resurrection victory first to the Serpent, then to the women at the tomb, and finally to the men in the upper room.  He undoes the effects of sin and curse as he undoes death.  He robs the satanic strongman, ties him up, and plunders his house – winning for himself a people – his church, righteous and holy by his blood.

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  You were made from the dust, in a sense – for Adam was formed from it.  That’s not such a bad thing. 

But the dust and dirt is where we return after death takes our bodies and decay does its work.  This sinful flesh must go its way.  But that isn’t the end of us.

For the Christ who crushed the Serpent is the Christ who rose from death, and who will bring you, even you, from the dust of death in a resurrection like his.  And the serpent can’t stop that. 

 

 

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