Wingham United Church

February 22, 2026

Soul Searching

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm 32

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

     The season of Lent is to Easter as Advent is to Christmas – a time to prepare our inner selves to fully engage the big event that is about to happen. It’s a time for reflection and prayerfulness. As I mentioned last week, it is a time for soul searching. As much as the whole world looks forward to Christmas, for Christians, Easter is really the main event of our liturgical year. Our faith is based on our knowledge of Christ’s death and resurrection. His death is our atonement and the ultimate demonstration of God’s grace. As the actions of Adam in Genesis bring sin onto humanity, Christ’s sacrifice takes it away.

          That’s a lot to wrap our heads around, but without at least some understanding of what that means, our faith, and therefore our relationship with God, will never become what God wants for all his children. To understand the end, we must examine the beginning.

          I’m sure you all know the story. Adam and Eve were given everything they could ever need. All that was required to sustain them was there for the picking. Every day, they walked in the garden with God. They were completely free. Who could ever wish for anything more?

          There was that one thing, however, that God had withheld. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They didn’t need it. They were better off without it. Their relationship with God was so close that all they ever needed to do was to follow his instruction. No worries. No anxiety. No tough decisions to make. Paradise was theirs for the taking.

          But even they were not satisfied with less than everything, and the voice of temptation whispered, “Go ahead. It’s okay. If you eat of the fruit, you will become like God.” So, Eve takes a bite of the forbidden fruit, then passes it to Adam, and everything changes before they even swallow. Suddenly, they know shame – then fear. Two things that had never crossed their minds now dominate their thoughts and have done so for humanity from that day until this.

          Now, I know what many of you are going to say. “But that’s all just myth. It didn’t really happen that way.” Perhaps. Maybe it’s just a story ancient people made up to try to explain how God’s perfect Creation became so far from perfect. As stories go, it’s a pretty good one. All the necessary pieces are there to answer the questions inquiring minds ask about.

          Maybe it didn’t happen exactly like our story unfolds, but somewhere along the line, it happened. People became dissatisfied with having enough. We wanted more. We wanted to be like God. The simple life disappeared in an instant and was replaced with anxiety, shame, and fear. Instead of turning to God to guide us, we became bent on self-determination, making our own way and our own rules. We stopped asking God what we should do and tried to figure it all out for ourselves, and the gap between the Creator and the created grew into a chasm.

          That’s what sin is. Sin is anything that disrupts the relationship between us and God. We usually think of sin as something we have done wrong, like breaking one of the Ten Commandments – a specific action we have taken that has harmed another. Truthfully, however, the act isn’t the sin.

Paul points out to the Romans that sin existed long before there were rules to break. Our harmful and hurtful actions are not the sin. Sin is the motivator, the feelings and thoughts that make us do the things we do, even when we know we shouldn’t. Deep down inside, we are ashamed of those feelings, and, like Adam and Eve when they sewed together those fig leaves, we foolishly try to hide from God, as if there was anywhere God couldn’t see us or anything God didn’t already know about us.

     Sin isn’t murder or adultery. Sin is pride, greed, selfishness, envy, and anger. It’s one thing to say that I have never murdered anyone, but it is something else altogether to try to convince ourselves that we have never felt that kind of anger toward someone. No one is innocent. We all carry sin.

     That is why Easter is our highest Holy Day. It is at Easter that Jesus gave us the chance to let go of that sin, to give it to him, and let it die with him. We can let go of those feelings and urges that drive us to do things we know we shouldn’t do. We can tear down the barrier that stands between us and God and come to God naked and unafraid, if we choose.

     We can let go of bitterness, jealousy, pride, and discontent. We can let those sins die at the cross and then we can be resurrected as a free child of God, free to walk with God every day without fear or shame. That’s easier said than done. We have all been carrying these things for a long time and it feels as though they are a part of us, something we can’t let go. That is what Lent offers us.

     With Lent, we have the opportunity to walk with Christ in the wilderness on a journey of self-discovery and self-reclamation. We have this chance to focus our attention on Christ, to ask him to take away our sin and leave it in the wilderness. Then, when we pick it up again, to ask him to take it away again, and again and again if necessary, until we can finally walk out of the wilderness and back into the garden in the full light and presence of God.

     Jesus shows us how. In the wilderness, he faced the same temptations we all do. In his hunger, he was tempted to give into the desire for immediate self-gratification. He was tempted to set aside his faith and seek material evidence of God’s power and love. He was tempted to take the easy way out and use power to force the world to worship and obey him. In each case, it was in God’s Word that he found the assurance and strength he needed to resist.

     Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “That sounds like a lot of work.” It is. It’s tough work. It requires looking inward and taking a long, hard look at your life and how you live it. None of that is easy. It’s far easier to look in the mirror and say, “I’m not so bad the way I am.” That’s true. You are all good people, or you wouldn’t be here.

It’s also tempting to look around you, instead of within you, and compare yourself to others and you don’t have to look too hard to see that you are a lot better off than many, so you can convince yourself that you don’t need to do this work, that your relationship with Jesus is okay.

     That’s the snake talking. That is the voice of temptation trying to keep you from doing what you need to be doing. Yes, it’s difficult. It can be humiliating. But remember what King David wrote in our Psalm. When he refused to confess his sin, he wasted away and groaned all day long. He was weak and miserable. But, then he writes,

          “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you
              and stopped trying to hide my guilt.
          I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’
              And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”

          “Oh, what joy for those
              whose disobedience is forgiven,
              whose sin is put out of sight!”

     If your life is perfect, you can ignore everything I just said and carry on. But if you find yourself beset with anxiety, guilt, resentment, anger, or discontent, if you want to live with the joy and freedom David described in our Psalm, then take this Lenten journey with me.

Lent is a season to search your soul and uncover whatever is there that hinders your relationship with God, then ask Christ to take it with him to the cross and let it die there with him. Then, when you emerge from the wilderness of Lent into the light of the Resurrection, you will find yourself in the garden of God’s presence with a pure heart filled with joy. Anxiety, fear, and shame will be taken away. You will be free.

Rev. Colin Snyder, MDiv