Ash Wednesday Sermon: "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"

+ Ash Wednesday – February 26^th, 2020 +

Series A: Joel 2:12-19; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

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

Here in the Northwest, trees are an important part of our life and livelihood. Timber for our homes. Paper for books. Clean air to breath. Spring blossoms. Summer shade. Fall colors. Jobs. Food. Art. And so much more. It’s hard to underestimate exactly how important, even necessary trees are for life.

And even if we haven’t thought about it this way, the same is true in Holy Scripture. From the first “Let there be” in Eden to the tree of life in Revelation, trees are an important, even necessary, part of our Lord’s work on our behalf. And many of these trees stretch out their sacred limbs and point us to the tallest and most important tree in the Scriptures, the tree of Jesus’ cross.

So, this Lenten season, we’ll be spending some time each Wednesday looking at some of the well-known, and perhaps lesser known trees of Scripture, and how they each, in their own way, point us to the cross of Christ, our tree of life.

Sounds interesting, you might be thinking, but what do trees have to do with Ash Wednesday? To find that out we go back to Genesis 2 and 3. To the Garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

⁸ The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. ⁹ And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Like the other trees God created in Eden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a gift and for Adam and Eve’s good. Not for eating, as the tree of life or other trees were given for, but for listening. For hearing God’s Word and following his ways. In his lectures on Genesis, Martin Luther said this tree of the knowledge of good and evil was given by God to Adam to be Adam’s church, altar, and pulpit. A place where Adam and his family was to yield to God, hear his Word, and keep his word.

It was God’s Word that made the tree what it was, just as it was God’s Word that created all things in the first place. 

So, when the devil appears before Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent, it’s no surprise, then, that the first thing he attacks is God’s Word with those famous words of deception: “Did God really say ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

And here we see the difference between God’s Word and the devil’s word. God’s Word creates, the devil’s destroys. God’s Word makes something out of nothing, the devil cannot make new things, only corrupt things that already exist. God’s Word gives freedom, truth, and life, the devil’s word sows slavery, doubt, and death.

It was not as if God was holding out on Adam and Eve, or withholding something good from them, after all, God gave them every tree in the garden for their good. For food, for life, for labor. Though this is precisely how the devil temps them, to think that this tree of the knowledge of good and evil is God’s way of keeping something even better from them, when in fact, it was shielding them from physical and spiritual death.

⁴ Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

It’s impossible for us to imagine what this would’ve been like for Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. No sin. No death. No evil. Only knowing good. But of course, we know that Genesis 3 changed all that – and not just for Adam and Eve, but for all creation, for all people, for you and me. We live, not in the perfect goodness of Eden, but in the cursed soil of Adam’s disobedience and rejection of God’s Word. Where thorns and thistles choke. Where the devil tempts us as he did our first parents to doubt and despair God’s Word. Where the curse of sin and death eat away at our world and our lives like dry rot infecting a healthy tree. Lifeless limbs. Decaying branches. Dead trees. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Genesis 3 is really the beginning of Ash Wednesday.

Thankfully, Genesis 3, does not end with temptation, rejection, and death, but rather with God’s promise and protection. The Lord sacrificed an animal, the first of many sacrifices, to cover Adam and Eve’s shame, guilt, and nakedness. The Lord also sent them out of the garden, which sounds like a punishment, and it is, though it is also an act of mercy. God would not let Adam and Eve live forever in their sin and death, lest Adam put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” So, they leave the garden, but not without the Lord’s promise.

To the serpent he said, “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

If the tree of the knowledge of good and evil points us to our sin, it also points to our Savior, Jesus. Who was born of a woman. Born succeed where Adam failed. Born to overcome where Adam was overcome. Born to be tempted for us who are tempted. Born to take Adam’s sin, and our sin upon himself on the cross. Born to hang on a cursed tree for you. Born to crush the head of the serpent on the tree of the cross, that, as we pray during Holy Week, where death arose, there life also might rise again, and that the serpent of the cross who overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the cross be overcome. 

Upon this tree hangs all our sorrow, sin, and sadness, all our doubt, despair, and death, all our temptations and toils. What in sin we have done, Jesus has undone. The death we deserved, Jesus has died once for all. 

Today, from the tree of life where Jesus was crucified for you, he gives you the fruit of his salvation, his body and blood shed and given for you.

And in this tree of Jesus crucified, you are rooted, planted, grafted into his death and life now and forever. 

A blessed Ash Wednesday to each of you…

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