Mortality in Resurrection

1 Lent — 2.22.2026

Genesis 2:15–17; 3:1–7 • Psalm 32 • Romans 5:12–19 • Matthew 4:1–11

Lenten blessings to each of you, beloved Church.

Scripture gives us sixty‑six books filled with every kind of story. Some we know by heart. Some we wrestle with. Some we wish weren’t there. And some come alive every time we return to them. Today’s readings hold all of that at once.

On Ash Wednesday, we stepped into Lent with Joel’s truth‑telling and striking image:

“Before the people of God is a garden like Eden, behind them a desolate wilderness.”

That’s the posture Lent invites us into — standing in the middle, looking both ways.

• What has happened… and what could be.

• What drains us… and what gives life.

• What we’ve lost… and what God is still forming.

And that’s exactly where Genesis places us this morning.

The tree in the middle of the garden is impossible to ignore just like the cross we marked on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. The more we’re told not to look, the more our eyes drift toward it. In Romans 7, Paul names this tension so honestly: “The very thing I know I shouldn’t do, I do anyway.”

And that’s where the story turns in Genesis.

The moment the fruit is eaten, something shifts.

The creatures try to become like the Creator.

From that moment, mortality enters the story and begins shaping humanity’s life — our life as dust.

But Lent is not only about mortality.

It’s about mortality in resurrection,

mortality held by God’s love,

reshaped by Jesus’ cross,

and redeemed by Jesus’ resurrection.

That’s why each Sunday in Lent is called

a mini‑Easter or maybe a mini‑resurrection,

with a whisper of “Alleluia” sneaking through

even when we refrain from saying it.

On this first Sunday in Lent,

• Genesis shows us how mortality begins and how the human story turns toward dust.

• Psalm 32 shows us what that mortality feels like — in the ways we hide, resist, and dig in our heels like a stubborn animal whenever we feel wronged or don’t know how to move forward.

• Romans 5 shows us what God does with that mortality, revealing that even as sin and death entered through one human, the first Adam, grace and life overflow through Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who brings us into new creation.

• And then Matthew shows us how Jesus steps into that mortality and turns the story of dust around.

Jesus is led into the wilderness for forty days.

Forty is the number Scripture uses for in‑between spaces:

• Israel wandering forty years

• Moses on the mountain forty days

Forty is the number of “not yet.”

The number of “God is doing something new, but we can’t see it fully yet.”

Jesus steps into that same space,

the space Joel describes,

the space Psalm 32 names,

the space Romans 5 explains,

the space we live in.

Jesus faces the same pressures our mortality faces.

Each temptation begins with something true:

• hunger — we really do need daily bread

• vulnerability — we really are mortal

• the desire to be safe, seen, and significant — we really are made for belonging and purpose

None of these are sins.

None of these are choices between good and bad.

They are simply the conditions of being human — being mortal.

The temptation comes down to the voice we choose to trust.

So the tension is not:

• daily bread or God’s Word

• mortality or resurrection

• my kingdom or God’s kingdom

The tension is:

Will we let these real human needs be shaped by God

or exploited by something less than God?

Satan is basically saying, “Forget about the cross.”

At the heart of it all is trust.

And here is the Good News

And I want you to hear this again and again today:

Jesus didn’t wait for our perfect faithfulness to save us, as I said on Ash Wednesday.

Jesus meets temptation not with superhuman strength, but with trust.

He shows us what mortality in resurrection looks like, a life that listens for God, moves freely in grace, and trusts instead of resisting.

And that’s where the story meets our own.

Each tempted moment confronts us with a simple question:

What do we see, and whom do we trust?

The Tree? The Serpent? Or the Creator?

And again — the Good News:

Jesus didn’t wait for our perfect faithfulness to save us.

This past week, as many descendants of Chinese heritage celebrated Chinese New Year around the globe, I was reminded that 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse.

Now, I know many of us don’t celebrate the lunar calendar but the symbolism is striking and worth noticing.

In Chinese tradition, the Fire Horse represents freedom, speed, passion, and success. It runs fast. It runs wild. It refuses to be restrained. These are the messages circulating on social media these days.

That made me hear Psalm 32:9 in a deeper way:

“Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle.”

You don’t need to celebrate Chinese New Year to understand the point.

We all know what it feels like to run ahead without thinking…

or to dig in our heels and refuse to move.

How ironic — or maybe how perfect — that in a Fire Horse year, when so much around us urges us to run faster and achieve more, Scripture invites us to move freely with God.

The horse wants to run.

Lent teaches us where to run.

Not away from God, but toward God.

Not in fear, but in freedom.

Not in stubbornness, but in grace.

Because — say it so that we remember —

Jesus didn’t wait for our perfect faithfulness to save us.

We often hear the phrase, “Be yourself.”

But the truth is: we keep discovering ourselves — deeper, wider, more honestly — as we age, as we return to God, as we let God shape us.

Lent is not about becoming someone else.

It’s about becoming who we truly are as people held by God through both dust and resurrection, and letting God’s love shape us.

As we discover more of who we are, our responsibilities shift, too.

And to grow into those responsibilities, we all walk through both failure and success.

But if we are convinced that dust is held together by God’s love,

then love is not measured by failure or success.

Love gives us the courage to keep walking the path from mortality toward resurrection.

A Takeaway Question for this week:

What daily reminder helps you trust the God who holds you and will raise you?

Closing Prayer

May the God who meets us in the dust hold us in mercy this week.

May Christ walk beside us in every wilderness we face.

May the Spirit guide our steps — not by force, but by grace —

so that our lives run freely toward the One who loves us.

Go in peace, held together by God’s love.

Amen.