A version of Romans 5. 12-19
First Sunday of Lent, Year A
Adam set the tone.
From his time onward, human beings seemed destined to do wrong and the path of wrongdoing led to a dead end.
There was plenty of sin about before we were ever given the Law.
But when there are no rules, how can you make people accountable?
Nonetheless, the way people behaved, either deliberately or out of ignorance, had its inevitable consequences, often fatal.
There was no escape.
What Adam started and we continued doesn’t stop God caring about us. While many perished as a result, God’s grace is more than a match.
It is all bound up in his gift of one good person, Jesus.
We all deserve the ‘guilty’ verdict but the effect of God’s grace is to set it aside. But be clear, nothing we do can earn this, it is a free gift.
So now the endless cycle of Adam’s sin is broken.
One person, Jesus, has achieved this for us.
Once and for all, because of God’s free and overflowing goodness, this new relationship with Jesus will rule our lives.
It’s like this; just as once a single act of disobedience decided the issue for all humankind, so now, one act of perfect goodness sets us free and gives us life. And just as one person, Adam’s, legacy put us all in the wrong, so one person, Jesus, through his faithfulness, makes us right with God.
