Readings

Genesis 2.15–17; 3.1–7 – The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’ Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Romans 5.12–19 – Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgement following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Matthew 4.1–11 – Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Sermon

Lent begins in a wilderness.

On Ash Wednesday we were marked with ashes and reminded of our mortality: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Today, on the first Sunday in Lent, we follow Jesus into the desert. The Spirit leads him there — not by accident, not by mistake, but deliberately. Lent is not a spiritual detour. It is a necessary journey.

And the Church, in her wisdom, places alongside this Gospel the story of another garden, another testing, another encounter with temptation.

In Genesis, we see humanity placed in a garden of abundance. Adam is given meaningful work — “to till it and keep it.” There is beauty, provision, freedom. Only one boundary: “You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” It is a gift wrapped in trust. Relationship with responsibility.

But then comes the whisper.

“Did God say…?”

That question is the seed of so much that follows. The serpent does not begin with outright rebellion. He begins with distortion. Doubt. A subtle reframing of God’s generosity as restriction.

“Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree’?”

It is not true — God had given them every tree but one — but temptation often works by magnifying what we do not have and shrinking what we do have. The focus shifts from abundance to prohibition, from trust to suspicion.

And then comes the deeper lie: “You will not die… you will be like God.”

At its heart, the temptation in Eden is about grasping. About seizing what is not ours to take. About stepping out of trust in God into self-determination. It is the temptation to believe that God is withholding something essential, and that we must secure our own flourishing apart from him.

Now fast forward to Matthew’s Gospel.

Jesus stands in another place of testing — not a garden this time, but a wilderness. Not surrounded by abundance, but emptied by forty days of fasting. He is hungry. Vulnerable. Alone.

And again the whisper comes.

“If you are the Son of God…”

Notice how the temptation begins. Just before this episode, at his baptism, Jesus has heard the Father’s voice: “This is my beloved Son.” In the wilderness, that identity is immediately questioned.

“If you are…”

Temptation so often strikes at identity. At trust. At the relationship between the Father and the Son.

The first temptation: turn stones into bread. On the surface, it seems reasonable. He is hungry. What harm in using his power to meet a legitimate need?

But beneath it lies the same distortion as in Eden. It is an invitation to step outside the Father’s will. To grasp, rather than to receive. To satisfy hunger on our own terms rather than live in trust.

Jesus replies with words from Deuteronomy: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

In Eden, humanity reaches for food in distrust. In the wilderness, Jesus refuses food in trust.

The second temptation: throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple. Force God’s hand. Demand spectacle. Even the Scriptures are twisted to support it.

Again, the distortion: testing God rather than trusting him.

The third: all the kingdoms of the world, offered without the cross. Power without suffering. Glory without obedience.

And here we see most clearly what is at stake. The serpent offered Adam and Eve the illusion of godlike autonomy. The devil offers Jesus a shortcut to kingship. Worship me, and you can have it all — no nails, no thorns, no Golgotha.

But Jesus refuses. “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”

Where Adam grasped, Jesus yields.
Where Adam doubted, Jesus trusts.
Where Adam hid, Jesus stands firm.

Saint Paul would later call Jesus the “second Adam.” In the wilderness, we see what that means. Jesus relives the human story — but this time, he lives it rightly. Faithfully. Obediently.

And that matters for us.

Because Lent is not merely a season for feeling guilty about temptation. It is a season for learning again how to trust.

The wilderness is not only a place of danger; it is also a place of clarity. When distractions are stripped away, we discover what truly shapes us. Hunger reveals what we rely upon. Silence reveals the voices we are listening to.

What are the whispers in your own wilderness?

“Did God really say?”
“Is God really good?”
“Shouldn’t you secure yourself?”
“Why wait?”
“Why trust?”

Temptation rarely looks dramatic. It often looks like self-protection. Like control. Like the small turning of the heart away from dependence.

And yet the good news of this Sunday is not simply that we should try harder to resist. It is that Christ has gone before us.

He enters the wilderness not merely as an example, but as a representative. He stands where we have fallen. He answers where we have been silent. He trusts where we have grasped.

And he does so for us.

This is why Lent is not a season of despair. It is a season of returning. We do not walk into the wilderness alone. The Spirit who led Jesus leads us. The Son who was faithful intercedes for us. The Father who declared his delight in Christ declares his mercy over us.

Perhaps this week, as we continue our Lenten journey, we might ask ourselves gently:

Where am I being invited to trust rather than grasp?
Where is God asking me to live by his word rather than by my immediate hunger?
Where have I begun to believe that he is withholding good from me?

The ashes on Wednesday reminded us that we are dust. The wilderness reminds us that we are dependent. But the Gospel reminds us that we are not abandoned.

At the end of Matthew’s account, after the devil leaves, we are told that angels came and waited on Jesus.

After the testing, there is ministry. After the wilderness, there is strengthening.

And beyond this wilderness lies another garden — Gethsemane — where once again Jesus will choose trust over self-preservation: “Not my will, but yours be done.” And beyond that, an empty tomb, where the consequences of Eden are completely undone.

So we begin Lent here: not in shame, but in hope. Not in self-reliance, but in repentance. Not alone, but in Christ.

The One who refused the false fruit of the wilderness now feeds us with true bread — his own life, given for the world.

May we follow him in trust.
May we resist the whisper with the truth.
May we learn again that we live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Amen.

Readings

Romans 8.18–25 – I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Matthew 6.25–34 – Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’

Sermon

May I speak in the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is something deeply human about worry. We worry about money, about health, about our children, about the future of the world. We worry about things we can change, and things we absolutely cannot. Some of us worry quietly and inwardly; others of us worry loudly and persistently. But almost all of us worry.

So when Jesus says in our Gospel reading, “Do not worry about your life”, it can feel almost unreal. Perhaps even a little unkind. After all, Jesus, have you seen the state of things? Have you noticed the cost of living, the climate crisis, the pressures on families, the anxieties that sit heavy on so many shoulders?

And yet Jesus does not speak these words from a place of naivety. He speaks them into a world that knew poverty, illness, political oppression, and deep uncertainty. His words are not a denial of reality. They are an invitation to see reality differently.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, helps us to hold that bigger picture. He does not pretend that suffering isn’t real. On the contrary, he names it honestly. “The sufferings of this present time,” he says. And he goes further still, describing creation itself as groaning, as if in the pains of childbirth. This is a vivid, uncomfortable image. The world, Paul tells us, is not as it should be. It is strained, frustrated, aching for something more.

Many of us will recognise that groaning. We hear it in the news. We feel it in our own bodies and lives. We sense it in the fragile state of the natural world, and in the quiet exhaustion of people who are simply trying to keep going. Christianity, at its best, never denies this groaning. It never offers cheap optimism or easy answers.

But Paul refuses to stop there. The groaning of creation, he says, is not the groaning of despair. It is the groaning of labour pains. Something is being born. Something is on the way.

And that is where hope comes in.

Christian hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism says, “Things will probably turn out all right.” Hope says, “God is at work, even when things are not all right.” Hope is not based on what we can see or control. It is rooted in God’s promises, and in God’s faithfulness.

Paul reminds us that “in hope we were saved.” Not in certainty. Not in comfort. But in hope. A hope that is patient, that endures, that waits.

And that brings us back to Jesus and his words about worry.

When Jesus tells his listeners to look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, he is not suggesting that human beings should abandon responsibility or stop working. After all, birds are busy creatures, and flowers grow within the rhythms of the seasons. What Jesus is challenging is the idea that our lives are held together solely by our own anxious effort.

Worry, Jesus suggests, can become a kind of false worship. It tempts us to believe that everything depends on us: our planning, our striving, our control. And when we believe that, the weight becomes unbearable.

Instead, Jesus invites us to trust in a God who knows our needs before we ask. A God whose care extends not only to human beings, but to the whole of creation. A God whose kingdom is not built on fear, but on righteousness, justice, and peace.

“Strive first for the kingdom of God,” Jesus says, “and all these things will be given to you as well.” In other words, re-order your priorities. Lift your eyes. Remember what really matters.

That is a particularly important word as we approach Lent. This season before us is not simply about giving things up or trying harder to be good. It is about learning, again, where our true security lies. It is about loosening our grip on the things we cling to in fear, and opening our hands to receive what God longs to give.

Both Paul and Jesus are calling us away from anxiety and towards trust — not because life is easy, but because God is faithful. Not because suffering is unreal, but because it is not the final word.

The future Paul points to is not an escape from the world, but the renewal of it. Creation itself, he says, will be set free. This is a hope that embraces the whole cosmos: every creature, every landscape, every wounded place. And we, as God’s children, are caught up in that hope.

So when we feel the weight of worry — as we inevitably will — we are invited to bring it into the light of prayer. To place it within the wider story of God’s redeeming love. To remember that we are not alone, and that the future does not rest solely on our shoulders.

We live, as Paul says, in the space between promise and fulfilment. We wait. We hope. We trust. And in that waiting, God is already at work.

May God grant us grace to live not as prisoners of anxiety, but as people of hope. People who seek God’s kingdom, who care for God’s world, and who trust in God’s tomorrow.

Amen.