The First Sunday of Lent – Mark S. Winward
The Grit of the Ashes
“You’re dust.” Does that feel like an insult? It shouldn’t. If you were in church this past Wednesday—Ash Wednesday—you can probably still sense the grit of the ashes on your forehead. Those haunting words still echo: “Remember you’re dust, and to dust you shall return.” With that reminder of our mortality, our sin, and our desperate need for redemption, we began our journey through Lent.
I’m not standing here this morning trying to be abusive, but I have to ask: how does that make you feel? If you’ve come here today with a crushed self-esteem, I owe you an apology, but I also bring good news—you’re indeed the “poor in spirit” Jesus spoke of, to whom belongs the kingdom of heaven.
However, if you’re like me—and I suspect like most of us—you might bristle at the suggestion of being called “lowly.” If you see it as an attack on your self-esteem, I’m here to tell you that we’re in great peril. At the heart of that bristling is a vice to which we’re drawn like moths to a flame. It’s the only vice in the world that everyone hates when they see it in someone else, but rarely notices in themselves. Lust, anger, greed, and deceit all pale in comparison to it. It’s a vice that separates us from every other human being and, ultimately, from God. It’s the fuel for wars, hatred, prejudice, and oppression. It’s the utmost Evil. It’s the curse of humanity known as Pride.
The Gift of Choice
The Bible, much like Lent, begins with a problem. It’s the story of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained; it’s the story of God calling humanity back to Himself. And that story begins with Pride.
Recall the story in Genesis. God created the heavens and the earth, and then He created Man. But there’s something unique about humanity. God made us from the earth, breathed His life into us, and we became “living beings.” In the beginning, man and woman lived as they were meant to: in harmony with their environment, with each other, and with God.
There was something qualitatively different about humankind compared to the rest of creation. God yearned for us to respond to Him in love—to freely give ourselves to Him. To make that possible, He gave us the greatest gift in all of creation: choice. For there to be true love, it can’t be under compulsion; it must be a choice. And for there to be a choice, we must be able to choose to obey or disobey. True love, in the end, puts the interests of the Other above our own.
The Serpent’s Lie
In the Genesis story, everything was fair game except for one thing. God gave Man and Woman the choice of whether to obey Him or eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. In case that sounds petty, remember: love requires the possibility of betrayal. I can’t boast of faithfulness to my wife if we live on a desert island without the slightest opportunity to be unfaithful. The “magic” wasn’t in the tree itself; it was in the choice.
Let me say a word about the Devil. Many of you believe in angels, and many of you believe they’re at least as intelligent and special as humans. If they’re intelligent and possess choice, doesn’t it make sense that some of them would’ve made a choice against God, just as we do? If you believe in angels, “fallen angels” go along with the package.
The Essence of Pride
Enter the Serpent or the Devil. The Devil suggested that if the Man and Woman ate the fruit, they wouldn’t die, but would “be like God.” For a moment, all creation held its breath as humanity made a fatal choice. We chose to be like God, to put our wills above His, and to usurp His authority. We put “Number One” first, and in that moment, Pride was born. Pandora’s Box was opened, and we became tangled in a web of Pride we’re helpless to overcome.
C.S. Lewis tells us that since that fatal moment, Pride has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and family. Pride is essentially competitive. There’s a “good” pride—like being proud of a child’s hard work—but selfish Pride is different. It doesn’t just want to have something; it wants to have more of it than the next person. It’s the absolute antithesis of humility. Lewis explained it better than I ever could:
“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you don’t know God at all. As long as you’re proud you can’t know God. A proud man’s always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you.”
That’s why even the smallest sin is deadly serious. The essence of every sin is breaking God’s Law and placing our desires above His. In the end, all sin is Pride, and it’s just as deadly now as it was in the Garden.
The Second Adam
Since that first fall, humans have had a propensity for making the wrong choices. We were stuck in a Catch-22: under the curse of pride because we’re human, yet unable to free ourselves because we’re under the curse of being human. Someone had to “get it right” to break the cycle.
That’s why God had to come as a man. One of us had to get it right to make it right. As Paul tells us in Romans, Christ came as a “Second Adam.” He writes, “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” (Romans 5:18, NRSV).
We see the temptation scene played out again with Christ—this time not in a lush garden, but in a barren desert. Satan tempted Jesus to take the easy route: turn stones to bread, jump from the temple, or worship him to gain the kingdoms of the world. Satan essentially said, “If you’re God, then dazzle me and act like God.” But Jesus’ reply was, “Only God makes those decisions; therefore, I’ll do nothing at your command.” But for the first time in human history, a Man got it right. Jesus chose to obey God rather than the Evil One. He knew the way to win humanity wasn’t through tricks, but through love and sacrifice.
Deeper Magic
In the desert, Jesus chose the difficult path to the Cross, knowing it was the only way to undo the curse of Adam. C.S. Lewis illustrates this beautifully in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The great Lion, Aslan, voluntarily gives his life for Edmund, a boy who’d sold his life to the White Witch. Aslan dies and triumphantly rises again. When the children ask what it means, Aslan explains:
“It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there’s a magic deeper still which she didn’t know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could’ve looked a little further back… she would’ve read there a different incantation. She would’ve known that when a willing victim who’d committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”
Jesus’ innocent death—the only obedient human among the lot of us—destroyed Death and Pride. Something miraculous happened: death began to be undone.
Our Choice
Like the first Man and Woman, Christ has freed us to choose. The choice today is between embracing Christ or embracing our Pride. That starts by affirming our own need. As John writes: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth isn’t in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9, NRSV).
Lent recognizes that we can’t be redeemed until we admit we are in need of redeeming. We’re faced with the choice to admit our need, find our place, and look to the One who is immeasurably higher than ourselves. In the end, it all begins with that simple, humbling realization: we’re but dust, and to dust we shall return. Amen.