Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Genesis 2:15–17; 3:1–7 + Romans 5:12–19 + Matthew 4:1–11

As we live into this Lenten wilderness, each week will explore a different sense of knowing, this week it’s sound. The Litany surrounding us. The wind across the prairie. Last week about forty members of Gloria Dei left Cairo—with its ancient, colossal monuments—and drove straight into a dust storm. We crossed under the Suez Canal, escaped the dust, turned south, and drove for hours through wilderness before stopping at the Red Sea for a lunch large enough to feed Pharaoh’s army, and a few pictures. Then we headed east toward Mount Sinai. The landscape grew more remote. Fewer signs of life.

Likely somewhere near where the Israelites began to grumble, our bus community was wiggling in their seats. We need a stop. There was nothing, not even a bush or a tree. And suddenly—like an oasis—a gas station appeared. Inside: a convenience store stocked with more processed sugar than you would expect in the desert. Even Ice cream in the freezer.

We had not been fasting for forty days. We had been eating at buffets for seven. And yet I stood in line holding Pringles, caramel wafers, snack bars, and—just in case—a double chocolate ice cream bar. I wasn’t hungry. I was on autopilot. Or I was afraid that the upcoming monastery had a desert but not dessert, or food energy for our mountain climb. I didn’t take a second to consider what I was doing. If it had been me in the first-century wilderness. tempted by a devil that offered Oreos, there would be no New Testament, no Lent, no Easter.

What if I don’t have what I need? That question is layered into us from generation to generation. Genesis 2 and 3 are not labeled “the fall” in the Bible itself. That title came later. The story is less about a first sin and more about what it means to be human.

There are moments when our actions or the impact of outside forces open possibilities we wish we didn’t know about. Innocence gives way to awareness. Paradise turns into wilderness. Falling in love means you can be heartbroken. The ideal job turns out to be more complicated. Lofty ideas or sophisticated arguments get used to hide greed and violence. And we discover that there’s a gap between what we present to the world and who we think we really are.

Even God, portrayed in remarkably human terms in this chapter in Genesis, sounds like a protective parent, a bit melodramatic from the awareness of their risk in the world: “If you eat it, you will die.” And in a way, that’s true. Growing means changing, getting wiser means greater vulnerability. There are a whole lot of things that look really good on the outside that, once we bite, turn out to have power to change our lives forever. No pretending that it’s all just great, or even fine.

The serpent—never actually called the devil here—is the voice of fear. Crafty. Reasonable. Yet grows into anxiety and terror.. “Don’t eat it” becomes to Eve, “Don’t touch it even.” Just thinking about it will get you in trouble, examining it is dangerous. The serpent, now the voice of an imagination run wild, introduces new possibilities they hadn’t thought of. It asks, “What if?”

What if God is holding out on you?
What if you need more?
What if you could be like God?

But knowing good and evil doesn’t make you God. It makes you human. The temptation is to turn vulnerability, need, weakness into shame. The tragedy isn’t vulnerability or failure or even the inevitable bite of the apple. The tragedy is shame, an original human creation now passed on from generation to generation. Bad things become Bad YOU.

From that moment on, human beings have been tempted to silence whatever reminds us of our vulnerability—our limits, our dependence, our mortality. We project evil outward. We label. We divide. The church has done this too—calling others inferior, fallen, savage. The Doctrine of Discovery baptized conquest. Colonization, enslavement, genocide—all justified by labeling others as “evil.” After the holocaust, language of sin, evil, the devil rightful became suspect because how it had been used, even by the Lutheran tradition in Germany. Many responded by emphasizing original blessing instead of original sin. And they were right to remember that when God created the world, God called it good. Very good. The divine image stamped within every person.

But if we refuse to name evil altogether—if we pretend it isn’t real—if we don’t pause to consider; if we continue on autopilot or are stuck in despair–then evil moves freely in the shadows. If we cannot name what fear creates, examine it, call it out, it will drive the bus, make the purchase and determine who is evil and who is good.

Jesus is driven into the wilderness immediately after his baptism. The voice from heaven has just declared him beloved. And now he must decide what that means.

The devil here is not horns and a pitchfork. It is the voice of fear asking, “What if?”

What if you cannot satisfy your hunger?
What if God won’t show up?
What if this path of mercy is naïve?
What if there’s an easier way than love that suffers?

On the pinnacle of the temple: What if no one catches you?
On the mountain of power: What if domination works better than compassion?Each temptation is a shortcut around vulnerability. Turn stones to bread. Force God’s protection. Seize power without the cross. Jesus refuses. Not because hunger isn’t real. Not because danger isn’t real. Not because power isn’t seductive.

God’s voice doesn’t come to him from the cloud this time. It comes from his ancestors. He answers with Scripture—not as a weapon against others, but as grounding against fear. The wisdom of those who knew both good and evil and struggled with it, lived with it, saw God in it. That one bite of the fruit of that tree did bring death into our lived experience, but it also set into motion the birth of another, centuries hence, through whom the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness now blow in all corners of the earth, reigning forever and ever.

Wilderness-Lent is where we step away from the sugar highs—the noise, the news, the constant urgency—and ask: which voices are shaping us? Wilderness reveals fear. The sin that is ever within us. But it also reveals grace. Whenever something dies, something new is raised up. If you take the shame out of the story, Adam and Eve just have a realization that they are naked and need some protection. They sewed. Clothing. The did become like God. They became creators, adoring their bodies, making beauty even from their shame. The fashion industry!

On that bus after the gas station, I looked around. Some were asleep. Others were reading Genesis and Exodus again—this time not as children in picture books, but as adults who have been around the block and in one or two dust storms. Stories once simple now felt mysterious, ambiguous, healing. Something you could really bite into—and share with the person next to you. Clothed for the journey.

That first bite in Eden did bring death into human experience. But it also set into motion the long story that leads to Christ—the one who does not deny hunger, fear, or vulnerability, but enters them fully. Whatever storms brought you here—whatever tyrants seem permanent, whatever hunger feels unanswered—welcome to this stop in the wilderness.

We will rest here forty days. There is food here. Not sugar that crashes, but bread that sustains us. Stories strong enough to hold both good and evil. Grace that names fear without being ruled by it. The God of the garden is still the God of the desert. And the wilderness, it turns out, is not empty. But full of God.

As are you.