Feb. 22, 2026 - Romans 5:12-19 - First Sunday in Lent

We have arrived in the season of Lent. The liturgical season of Lent is one of reflection and penitence. It’s a season that directs us to consider who we are without God. It directs us to consider why we are in the state that we find ourselves in the world. The Old Testament reading for today sets the stage. Here we are, a perfect world. This is the world that God created and declared, “very good.” It has everything it needs. The people in it have everything they need. There is nothing to hurt them. There is nothing that could hurt them. They live in perfect peace and in perfect trust, knowing that all of their needs will be met. They don’t even need to fear death, because everything works perfectly, never failing, never breaking down.

It’s hard to imagine living like this. Every day you wake up in the morning and you feel refreshed. You know it will be another beautiful day full of challenges that will exercise your mind and body but never frustrate or annoy. It will be another day of peace, of laughter, of delighting in daily habits and finding beauty in small things. It will be another day to spend with friends and family, doing all of the things you enjoy doing together. Work is there too, but it is work you feel good doing. When the work is done for the day, there is always the feeling of fulfillment. There is a rightness to everything you see and everything you do.

The ancient Greek philosophers described a state they called “eudaimonia.” The exact definition differed a bit depending on what philosopher you talked to, but the general idea is a state of being where all of your needs are met. But, this isn’t a lazy, lounge around all day because I have everything, state. It’s active. You have what you need and you are living a virtuous life that supports others in their own journey toward eudaimonia. Ancient Asian philosophers and religions use different terminology, but they try to describe the same state of being. Buddhist enlightenment involves a realization that there’s nothing in this world you truly need. Everything here is fleeting and temporary, so don’t get caught up in trying to cling to any of it. When you come to that realization, you will find peace. Everything is “easy come, easy go.” Confucian legal philosophy and Daoist spirituality, with the concept of yin and yang, are all about finding harmony with the world around you. Cultivate your own virtue and your place within the world and things will naturally become ordered and orderly around you.

Those aren’t the only ones. If it isn’t a philosophy that describes the best way to live now, it’s a religion that describes a paradise in the afterlife. All of them attempt to recreate a life we used to have, a life that took no effort at all to maintain, where virtue and righteousness were completely natural and everything fit together perfectly.

It’s hardly surprising that people would want to do that. Who doesn’t look around and long for better days? Who doesn’t wish the world was a little more orderly and a little more peaceful? Even those who see how the world is dysfunctional because people are dysfunctional in some way understand how vital it is that people live the way they they should and how that affects the world around them.

Very few of those philosophies or religions would admit that there once was a paradise in this world, much less that perfect people were ultimately the ones who ruined it. Even Islam’s description of creation and paradise has to make some changes. The history of creation, as the Quran describes it, has a paradise somewhere above this world, outside of it. It is only after sin that Adam and Eve are relegated to the world below.

Whether you call it righteousness, harmony, enlightenment, eudaimonia, it’s all an attempt to recapture what we once had. Once upon a time we had all of that. We had a life where everything just worked the way it was supposed to. We had a life where everything was harmonious. We had a life where you didn’t have to worry about what you needed because it all took care of itself. We had a life where everyone lived an active and virtuous life.

Whether any of those people acknowledge our history or not, they all agree that people aren’t as good, as righteous, as virtuous, as harmonious as they should be. We should all be better. We should strive to be better. Our lives and the lives of those around us would be better if we worked diligently to improve ourselves. Most stable governments have laws geared to punishing wrongdoers and encouraging good behavior. They are organized around some form of ethical principle, someone who had an idea of what kinds of things are good and what kinds of things are bad.

I’d say, for the most part, countries built on laws and ethics are going to be better places to live than those that aren’t, but even countries with laws can go very, very wrong.

The idea shows up everywhere. Buddha, looking at how people suffer but the wizened old man who doesn’t have a care in the world is the only one who seems to be at peace. Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius, who look at the kinds of behaviors that make for a well ordered society. Even Christians reading the Bible and where we came from, all end up coming to the conclusion that this isn’t just something we should strive for, it’s very possible. Many great American leaders have firmly believed that our own country, begun as it was with Christian ideals and principles, would be, if not perfect, at least a close approximation.

It doesn’t matter all that much whether you’re looking to the past and what we once had or whether you’re looking to the future and what we should have. Either way, you can come to the conclusion that our society can achieve this state of peace and harmony, and the only way for that to truly happen is if each person in it does what is necessary to bring about that peace and harmony in their own lives. After all, the philosophies sound very reasonable. The religious ideas of what brings peace make a certain amount of sense. If this state of perfection ever existed or will ever exist, then it must be possible and that means it must be possible for everyone in it. There will probably be a lot of people who aren’t interested. Perhaps they don’t see the benefits or perhaps they don’t want to put in the effort. For the rest of us, however, we can make it happen. Through intentional and concerted effort, we can do it.

One of the arguments Luther got into during the Reformation period was regarding the Ten Commandments. The issue was about a difference of opinion regarding the purpose of the commandments. One of the prevailing views was that the Ten Commandments, while a high bar to reach, were still attainable. A person could, through that same kind of intentional and concerted effort, keep the commandments. It might be difficult. It might be very difficult, but still possible. It had to be possible, because, as the thinking went, God wouldn’t give his people a command they could never keep. That would be unnecessarily cruel and punitive.

Luther didn’t buy it. “Where is that written?” he asked. God makes no such provision in the Bible. What’s more, there was once a time when people not only kept all of the Commandments, they did so easily, without even thinking about it. The Ten Commandments aren’t new. They weren’t new even as God carved them into the stone tablets for Moses on Mt. Sinai. They’ve always been there. They’ve always been the foundation for order in God’s creation. Cain was guilty of breaking the Fifth Commandment before Moses carried the tablets down the mountain. He should have known better.

Paradise sounds great. It’s something we all long for in our own way. Those of us in the world who have some sense of how much better life would be if we were perfect and if the world around us were perfect, like the idea of build that perfect life and that perfect world very much. To hear that, maybe such a thing isn’t really attainable doesn’t sit well. Why would God put such a good thing out of reach? If he wants good things for us, then we should be able to have those good things.

For all of your intentional and concerted efforts, you’ll never end up living that perfect life, much less establishing a perfect society. All of the philosophies and religions of the world that point out how to make it happen have gotten us no closer to perfection. The message of Genesis 3 is that perfection was once not only attainable, but easy. But now that time is passed. St. Paul’s message in Romans 5 is that the penalty is one we now all face. What we once had is gone and none of us can go back to it. We may claim perfection in this life, but it’s only because we change the definition. We make perfection attainable by making it less perfect. No one ends up fooled though. So-called perfect people still fail and perfect societies still break down.

The season of Lent is one of reflection and penitence. It calls on us to look at ourselves honestly, to look at how, no matter how much we try, we never manage to get to where we instinctively know we should be. Adam’s sin has condemned us. Imperfection has marred God’s good creation and everything in it. We ourselves are imperfect and nothing we do can undo the damage.

Lent follows Jesus on his trek to the cross. It’s a trek he doesn’t need to make. There’s no reason for him to be there. As the only perfect person in the world, death should never even be a factor for him. As God incarnate, nothing should even be able to hurt him. All of those who stand opposed to him should suffer the same kind of fate that has always befallen those who oppose God. They are cast down, often in a rather violent and public fashion. But none of that proves to be true here. Those who oppose Jesus not only do so unscathed, they are the ones who come out on top. The perfect man who should never have to face death is the one who is put to death.

Where Adam heard the command and disobeyed, giving up life in exchange for death, Jesus hears the command and obeys, giving up life again in exchange for death. Because Jesus takes on death through obedience, his payment for sin is able to be applied to everyone who owes their own debt because of sin.

You cannot attain perfection. No matter how hard you work, no matter how long you strive, it will never happen. No one has managed it yet and no one ever will, because all of us are born imperfect. We are born sinners. But Christ doesn’t have to strive for perfection. He’s already perfect and always will be. You cannot attain perfection, so his perfection is counted as yours. It is given to you. Christ’s perfection, Christ’s righteousness, Christ’s peace, Christ’s harmony, Christ’s eudamonia, all given to you as if they had been yours all along.

You won’t see its effects much in this world, given that the world itself and everyone in it is still imperfect, is still corrupted by sin and tempted by its evil inclinations, but God’s perfect world is coming. Christ’s sacrifice, his perfect sacrifice, his perfect payment, ensures that you will be a part of it. That perfection will find its fulfillment and you will see firsthand what God had always intended for you, what you and the world around you, have been looking for, striving for since the beginning of human history.

That doesn’t mean we should stop striving to be better, but we must certainly remember that perfection is not within our grasp. Look to Christ for forgiveness. Look to him for righteousness. Look to him to cover over all of your many, many shortcomings with his own perfect righteousness. Look to his return, when everything we’ve been waiting for is finally revealed.