Sermon -- 1st Sunday in Lent (February 22, 2026)

THE SECOND ADAM RESCUES THE SONS OF ADAM.

GENESIS 3:1-15

In the name + of Jesus.

     When God finished creating the world, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).  The man and the woman were very good, made in the image of God.  They were in perfect harmony with God’s will.  They knew what God’s will was, they wanted to do God’s will, and they could do God’s will.  To serve and obey God was their joy and their purpose.

     The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was also very good.  Some think the tree was bad, as if God had put it there to entrap Adam and Eve.  But the tree was very good.  It presented Adam and Eve with daily opportunities to serve and honor God by obeying the one commandment God had given them: Do not eat from this tree.

     You and I have been given Ten Commandments to keep.  They are very good.  They present unlimited opportunities for us to willingly and gladly honor and obey God.  Even when you are tempted to sin against them, God summons you to call upon him for strength so that you continue in godliness.  This honors God, and it is good.

     When the first perfect man and woman were in the world, Satan came on the attack.  He sought to lead the first Adam into sin, resulting in endless shame and eternal death.  Of course, the devil was sly.  He spoke to Eve, but Adam was right there.  Satan first challenged God’s word.  “Has God really said…” (Genesis 3:1)?  Satan always wants us to question God’s word.  Perhaps you misunderstood.  Perhaps those words are outdated.  Perhaps they aren’t even God’s words.  Then Satan challenged God’s love.  He claimed, “You certainly will not die.  In fact, God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). 

     If eating this fruit would make them so much wiser, better, and even God-like, why would God forbid it?  You can almost imagine Satan saying, “God wants you to be happy, doesn’t he?  The benefit of eating this fruit will make you happy, won’t it?  Why doesn’t God want you to be happy?”  And that’s all it took.  Eve ate the fruit.  Adam, who had been with her, did nothing to stop it.  He did not preach God’s word.  He did not protect his wife.  He abandoned his role as head and ate the fruit with her.  And Satan claimed the whole world for himself.  The first holy man was holy no more.  The image of God was shattered by sin.  “Sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

     You and I are all sons and daughters of Adam.  We have inherited his image.  We are sinners, and we are no better or smarter.  Satan still sells us the same arguments.  “Has God really said…” he questions.  “Maybe those words were for a different era.  21^st century Americas are more sophisticated than that, aren’t they?”  Then, of course, the argument that always works: “God just wants you to be happy.”  Well, that’s wonderful!  Because I want to be happy!  But that also suggests that what makes me happy is good.

     Adam ate the fruit because he wanted to be happy.  David had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba because that made him happy.  King Ahab had Naboth killed because taking Naboth’s vineyard made him happy.  Caiaphas orchestrated the crucifixion of Jesus because that made him happy.  And why are you drawn to the sins you commit?  Because you believe they will make you happy.  If the goal in life is just to be happy, doesn’t that justify anything that will make you happy?  And if the goal is “just to be happy,” prepare for a miserable life.  There will never be enough prosperity, enough pampering, enough pleasure.  And what if you are standing in the way of someone else’s happiness?  You took their parking spot.  You grabbed the last piece of pizza.  You hogged the covers.  Would you forfeit your happiness to make someone else happy?  If we are honest enough to acknowledge our own self-worship, we would confess, “Only my happiness matters.”  Repent.

     What’s worse is that once the devil has convinced you to seize what God forbids to make yourself happy, the devil turns around and makes you miserable.  He mocks you.  He accuses and convicts you for the very thing he coaxed you into doing.  The serpent is crafty and cruel.  He is no friend.  He struck like a viper.  The venom courses through us, and we cannot recover.  Eventually, it will kill us.  We are sinners, and we cannot fix it.  We are terrified to look God in the face, and for good reason.  Like the first Adam, the sons and daughters of Adam stand before God completely exposed in our wretched state. 

     The first Adam did not have to wade slowly into his sinful state to get used to it.  He plunged all the way into the deep end.  Adam and Eve tried to evade accountability.  They made excuses.  They did not confess their sin nor ask for mercy.  Nevertheless, God had mercy upon them.  The first Adam needed to be rescued from the curse of sin.  The sons of Adam need to be rescued from sin.  So, God promised one who would rescue them.  The second Adam would rescue the sons of Adam.

     The promise was made as God addressed the devil, still in the form of a serpent.  He said, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.  He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel” (Genesis 3:15).  We are not told when he would come or where he would come from.  We are not even told his name.  But we are told what he would do: He would crush the head of the serpent.  He would render the serpent powerless.  He would remedy the chaos, the cruelty, and the curse that results from sin.  The second Adam would rescue all the sons and daughters of Adam.

     As you know, the second Adam has come.  “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God … who for us men…, he became man” (Nicene Creed).  This man was conceived by the Holy Spirit, so he did not inherit the image of Adam as we have.  He entered the world without sin.  At age 30, Jesus was baptized, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and was publicly revealed as the Christ.  God the Father declared, “This is my Son, whom I love.  I am well pleased with him” (Matthew 3:17).  The Father was declared him to be very good.

     The second Adam was sent to rescue the sons of Adam.  Not since the Garden of Eden had another holy man walked the face of the earth.  And just as the devil had overcome the first Adam and led him into sin, so the devil hoped to overcome the second Adam.  This attack did not take place in a lush garden with food in abundance and variety; it took place in the wilderness, devoid of fruits, vegetables, and foliage.

     As he had with the first Adam, so the devil began his temptation on the second Adam.  He challenged God’s word.  The Lord had just declared at Jesus’ baptism, “You are my Son” (Matthew 3:17).  The devil began his temptations, “If you are the Son of God…” (Matthew 4:3,6).  He not only challenged Jesus’ identity, he challenged him to prove it.  “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread” (Matthew 4:3).  You can imagine the devil continuing the seduction.  “Jesus, you haven’t eaten for forty days.  If you are the Son of God, you have the power to turn this stone to bread.  You can satisfy your hunger right now.  Doesn’t your Father want you to be happy and healthy?  Wouldn’t a loaf of bread do that?  It would be easy enough, right?  If you are the Son of God…”

     But God’s call for us is not to be happy.  It is to be faithful.  It is to be holy.  Of course, God wants that to make us happy.  But sometimes being faithful means that we do what is right even if it doesn’t make us happy.  Sometimes being faithful is hard.  Sometimes it is costly.  Sometimes it is painful.  But it is always good and right.

     Jesus did not buy the argument that his purpose was to make himself happy.  His purpose was to rescue the sons and daughters of Adam.  Therefore, he did not abuse his divine power, and he did not seek shortcuts to our salvation.  Jesus made himself a sin offering, being slain for sins he did not commit.  He suffered a punishment he did not deserve.  Going to the cross, being roasted in the fires of God’s wrath, enduring the punishment of hell on behalf of all sinners is not something Jesus did to make himself happy.  Leading up to that torment, Jesus told his disciples, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38).  Nevertheless, Jesus went because that is what the Father had given him to do.  The second Adam came to rescue the sons of Adam.

     The second Adam was faithful to his Father, even though faithfulness was hard and costly, and painful.  Jesus let the serpent strike his heel.  He took into himself all the venom of sin and subjected himself to the curse and the death that comes with it.  The crucifixion was not about Jesus’ happiness.  Being faithful to his Father is where Jesus found his joy.  The Bible says, “In view of the joy set before him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame” (Hebrews 12:2).  Jesus would not let the shame or the pain of his death deter him from his faithfulness.  Jesus found his joy in rescuing you from your guilt and from the fiery judgment it deserves. 

     By his death and resurrection, Jesus has crushed the serpent’s head.  He has destroyed the work of the devil.  He has rescued you from the devil’s claims.  Now, it is God who claims you as his very own.  St. Paul wrote, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  Indeed, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27).  You don’t need to craft anything flimsy to hide your sin as the first Adam did.  You have been clothed with the holiness of the second Adam.  His righteousness covers you.

     And the Son of God has now made you sons of God.  As sons of God, you are now heirs with the Son of God to the kingdom of glory.  As sons of God, you will follow the Son of God through death into the resurrection to life everlasting.  For God tells us: “The first man is of the earth, made of dust.  The second man is the Lord from heaven.  As was the man made of dust, so are the people who are made of dust, and as is the heavenly man, so the heavenly people will be.  And just as we have borne the image of the man made of dust, let us also bear the image of the heavenly man” (1 Corinthians 15:47-49). 

     The second Adam rescues the son of Adam.  He restores in you the image of God.  He brings life.  He reverses the curse.  He delivers you from the chaos of a corrupt world to a new creation of peace and glory.  He will bring you to eternal pleasures and unending happiness in God’s presence.  And it will be very good.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.