Take, Eat, and Live - Sermon for the 1st Sunday in Lent

First Sunday in Lent, February 26^th, Year of Our + Lord 2023
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Take, Eat, and Live – Genesis 3:1-11, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11

   Take, and eat, said the Lord to the Man and the Woman.  Take and eat, from any and every tree in the Garden, except one.  Take and eat from the oranges and the apples, the pears and the almonds, take and eat, even, from the Tree of Life.  Just don’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Trust Me on this one.  Do not take and eat from that tree, for in the day that you do, you will surely die. 

   Take and eat, hissed the Serpent to the Woman, take and eat from this tree God has
forbidden.  You shall not surely die.  He is just being selfish, keeping His best from you.  Take and eat, for it is lovely, and then you and the Man, that silent preacher standing behind you, then you will be like God, knowing good and evil.  Take, and eat!  Go ahead.

   Take and eat.  Life revolves around taking and eating, and now death does, too.  The Man and the Woman learned of evil, and it destroyed them.  As nutrients from good food course through our blood, feeding every cell of our body, so also the poison of sin, the knowledge of evil, attacked them throughout their bodies, overwhelming their souls.  Eating from the Forbidden Tree changed everything, driving the Man and the Woman from the Garden of God’s favor, no longer able simply to reach out and be satisfied with an unending supply of good fruit.  No longer invited to eat from God’s Tree of Life.  Now their stomachs had to be filled with food they scratched out of the ground, bitter meals, seasoned with sweat and tears.

   Adam and Eve took and ate, and through them we also know of evil, and we struggle to resist its temptations.  Our appetites betray us, again and again.  The love and the need of good food can turn neighbors and nations against each other; wars are fought over bread and water.  There is plenty to go around, really, but spoiling and hoarding and fighting and hatred and ignorance mean that some have a bounty, and others starve.  Some nations overeat and grow soft and heavy, while others barely get by.  We still must take and eat to live; but what God created to be a constant joy is all too often a source of worry, fighting and sadness. 

   Taking and eating.  Our evil-knowing appetites drive us to gorge on more than just food.  Men and women, instead of being perfect helpmates, now spend as much time trying to rule over each other as they do trying to love and serve one another.  Worse, they can become hungry for some other person, someone other than the one they are married to.  

   Children hunger to leave their parents before they are ready.  Or, they refuse to leave childhood, and eat up the family fortune.  Employers hunger to abuse employees, and workers hunger to cheat their bosses.  We take and eat, we consume, whether it belongs to us or not.  You, and I, so readily take and eat, and eat, and eat, feeding the gods of our stomach, turning good earthly gifts into food for destruction.  We worship the created things instead of the Creator. 

   And yet, the Creator still provides for us, despite our sinfulness.  He keeps us alive for His purpose.  You see, from the beginning He has had a rescue plan to feed His people for salvation. 

   Take and eat, said the Lord to His people Israel.  The disaster that the Man and the Woman brought on us all came through eating, and so also the delivery that the Lord promised.  Salvation from sin, death and Satan, promised already as they stood in shame, covered by leaves, this salvation would also be delivered through food.  Despite how we have twisted it, ‘take and eat’ is still God’s way.  It has been, since the beginning.  

   As Moses brought God’s people out of slavery in Egypt, the people feared starvation in the wilderness, and longed to return to their Egyptian masters, who filled their bellies to keep them slaving away.  So the Lord gave them manna and quail, bread and meat for each day, miraculous food to take and eat, morning and evening.  Through the years, the people grew tired of the manna, and longed for the cucumbers and leeks of Egypt.  But despite their ingratitude, the Lord each day brought more quail, more manna, more blessing, to take and eat. 

   Take and eat.  Even more than food for their bodies, the Israelites needed forgiveness.  And reassurance, in the face of their trials, reassurance that the Lord had a plan to save them.  He met this need with the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle and Temple.  Through animal sacrifices, God forgave Israel, foreshadowing the coming of the Once for All Sacrifice, the greater Sacrifice to come, which gave power and grace to the animal sacrifices, even before it was completed. 

   Take and eat.  Some of the sacrificial food, the meat of the lambs and goats and bulls and doves, was burnt whole, completely given over to the Lord.  But from other sacrifices God instructed some be given to feed the priests and Levites and their families.  And some was returned to the families making the offerings.  The Lord returned meat to His people, in order that they also could take and eat.  Divinely appointed fellowship meals, all tied up with God’s forgiveness plan.  Meals given for the people to take, and eat, in the House of the Lord. 

   Take and eat.  God’s people all too often despised their Temple meals, as they had despised the daily manna which had sustained them throughout their time in the wilderness.  Other gods threw bigger parties, it seemed, sacrifices and rituals that met other bodily appetites.  Gods who were less demanding, false gods, happy to let people feed all their appetites, good or evil.  Following God’s special, holy way, never eating pork or shellfish, always paying attention to His details, seeking His holiness, hearing His Word, depending on His promises, all this was more than most Israelites could stomach. 

   Israel satisfying their appetite for sin caused the Lord to turn them over to their enemies, again and again, so they could from Whom the truly good bread comes.  When they repented, the Lord rescued His people, again and again.  And God always preserved a faithful remnant.  But Israel for the most part followed the god of their stomachs, and ended up exiled, enslaved, starving in the wilderness of their sin.   Israel was a people specially chosen by God to dine at His table.  But like the rest of the children of Adam and Eve, most of the children of Israel rebelled at God’s menu. 

   Take and eat.  Once again the serpent, or rather the one who had spoken through the serpent, Satan himself, tempts a Man.  But this time it is the New Man, 40 days starved in the wilderness.  Satan tempts Him to take and eat, to indulge Himself.  But this time this preacher Man, come to rescue His Bride, had the right words to reject Satan’s temptations.  This New Man, Jesus Christ, knew temptation that none of us could even have begun to face.  Yet He did not think to feed His 40 day empty stomach, nor indulge an appetite for earthly glory or pleasure.  No stones to bread, no testing God’s love and protection, no worshiping Satan for the sake of an earthly kingdom. 

   No giving in to temptation for Jesus, because He knew that the True Man lives on every Word that comes from the mouth of God.  Jesus knew this because He is this:  He is the very Word of God, made flesh, the Father’s only begotten Son, now made also to be a man.  Jesus knew that there was no limit to God’s love and protection.  He had no need to test it, for He was, and is, God’s love, given for the life of the world.  Jesus did not have an appetite for empty, earthly, false worship, for He has been face to face with the Father forever, and will be at the Father’s right hand, forever, both honoring the Father in all He does, and receiving with the Father and the Spirit the worship of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. 

   Jesus in the wilderness showed that He is the New Man, fully relying on God’s Word, completely faithful, able to resist all the temptations that Adam and Eve, and we their children, give in to so easily. 

    There would be one more temptation for Jesus, the temptation to hold back the final meal.  The temptation to avoid the pain, to not make the final sacrifice, to not give Himself as the Bread of Life, broken for the sins of all people.  But faithful Jesus came through, giving Himself, body and soul, for you.  Now your access to the Tree of Life is opened again, through Jesus.  Now He feeds you with forgiveness, in His Word and in His meal, both given for you to take and eat. 

   So take and eat.  You know you need it.  You know your sinful appetites are still trying to starve the new man, the new woman, the new righteous person that the Spirit of Christ has created in you.  You are caught in a battle, waged in your own body and soul, over what you will eat.  Will you eat the food of sin and Satan?  It tastes good for a minute, but quickly rots, false food that will make you starve and die.  Or will you take and eat the food of Jesus, which gives life, new and everlasting? 

   Take and eat, be fed by Jesus, for life.  Hear the Bread of Life, which teaches you the truth about your earthly appetites, and creates a hunger in you for the Bread of Heaven.  Hear the testimony of Jesus, which encourages you to confess your faith in Christ before God and men.  Your baptismal faith in Jesus is your access to His altar, where Jesus is both Host and Meal.  Here sins are forgiven and strength for Christian living is given to all who believe these words:  given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.  Take and eat, and live.

   Take and eat.  Simple instructions, with eternal consequences.  Ponder what it is that God offers.  To hear, but take lightly His Word is to mock the temptation and suffering of Jesus.  To receive His Body and Blood without repenting of your sins, that is, to come to the table with no intention and no desire to turn from your sin, this is to mishandle God’s Holy Things.  To take and eat without repentance is to court disaster.  This is why Paul says, some take the Supper to their own condemnation. 

    But for all who hear the Word and confess their guilt, for all who agree that the Lord could justly condemn us all, for all who want to turn from their sins, for such repenting sinners, Jesus’ Word and Jesus’ Meal are forgiveness, food for eternal life.  A foretaste of the heavenly banquet.  A satisfying meal which calms the conscience and awakens love for God and neighbor.  Know your sin.  Know your Savior.  Repent and believe.  Take and eat the Bread of Life, as often as you can.  Be satisfied with God’s foretaste, however humble it may seem, knowing that through it God will one day bring you to eat the sweet fruit of the Tree of Life in heaven, to feast with Jesus, forever and ever, Amen.