Lent and the New Creation in ChristRead Time 9 min

The First Sunday of Lent situates us within the great theological arc of salvation history: creation, fall and redemption. The Church does not begin Lent with moral advice but with the loving call of God to say NO to sin and YES to obedience to God.

In Genesis, Adam is formed from the dust, created in the image and likeness of God, and given life by the breath of God. Humanity is therefore both material and spiritual, created for communion. The prohibition concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not arbitrary; it establishes a boundary that protects our dependence on God. It signifies that moral autonomy belongs to God alone.

The serpent’s temptation is fundamentally theological before it is moral. It introduces suspicion about God’s character: “Did God really say …?” Sin begins as a distortion of divine goodness. The promise, “you will be like gods,” suggests that divinization can be seized rather than received. This is crucial. The Church Fathers, especially St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius, taught that humanity is indeed called to share in divine life (theosis), but as a gift, not grasping. The fall, then, is not merely disobedience; it is a rupture of trust and a disordered exercise of freedom.

The immediate effects — shame, alienation, hiding — reveal that sin fractures: relationship with God (fear replaces communion); relationship within oneself (disintegration); relationship with others (blame). This is what Paul later calls the reign of sin and death.

In the Second Reading, Paul provides the theological key to interpreting Genesis and Matthew. Paul contrasts two representative heads of humanity: Adam and Jesus. Paul does not present sin merely as imitation but as participation in a fallen condition. Through Adam, humanity inherits a wounded nature, traditionally called original sin. This does not mean personal guilt for Adam’s act but a deprivation of original holiness and justice that disrupts the original plan of creation. Paul emphasizes the superabundance of God’s plan of salvation: “Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more.” Grace is not merely a repair mechanism; it is a new creation. Christ does not simply restore Eden; he elevates humanity beyond it. Redemption is not a return to innocence but an entrance into filial adoption.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons viewed the temptations of Jesus as a crucial reversal of Adam’s disobedience, where Christ, as the “New Adam,” overcame the devil in the wilderness to restore humanity. By resisting temptation, Jesus undid the fall, proving obedience to God and reclaiming human nature.

Key aspects of St. Irenaeus’s theology on the temptations:

• Recapitulation: Irenaeus emphasized that Christ “recapitulated” (summed up) human history in himself. Just as humanity was defeated by the devil in Adam, Christ as the new head of humanity defeated the devil, reversing the fall.
• True Humanity and Obedience: Irenaeus insisted that Jesus was fully man, facing real temptation. His victory was not just divine power but a victory of human obedience — the obedience that Adam failed to provide.
• Reversal of the Fall: The temptations in the desert are viewed as a direct response to the temptations in Paradise. The disobedience in Eden was undone by the obedience in the desert.

This obedience anticipates the Cross. The desert is a proleptic Calvary. The devil tempts Jesus to bypass suffering and glory through compromise. Christ refuses. True kingship will come through self-gift.

Theologically, temptation reveals that freedom is not mere choice but orientation toward the good. The human will is weakened but not destroyed by sin. Grace does not eliminate freedom; it heals and elevates it. Lent is therefore ascetical participation in Christ’s obedience. Through:

• Fasting — we reorder disordered desires.
• Prayer — we restore filial trust.
• Almsgiving — we reject possessive autonomy. To see ourselves as brothers and sisters and not as enemies.

The First Sunday of Lent presents not merely a moral exhortation but shows us the plan of salvation. Humanity was created for communion, fell through mistrust, and is restored through the obedient love of the Son.

Lent invites us to allow Christ’s obedience to become the form of our own freedom. In him, grace does not merely counteract sin; it inaugurates a new humanity.

Let Psalm 51 become our response: “Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.” Lent invites us to honesty; not shame, but truth. We acknowledge that like Adam and Eve, we sometimes listen to voices that pull us away from God. Yet the psalm reminds us that God’s mercy is greater than our failure.

Happy Lent!