The Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent is always the same: the temptations of Christ. Mark’s account is the shortest and perhaps the least fulfilling. He simply states that Jesus went into the desert for forty days and was tempted by the devil. Matthew, however, gives us more insight into the nature of those temptations. Luke who tells us that these temptations were continuous throughout Christ’s life. In fact, Luke ends the temptation narrative with these words “…and the devil departed from Him awaiting a more opportune time” (v. 13).

Matthew, whose Gospel we hear this weekend (4:1-11), describes them as an full-frontal assault to entice Jesus to compromise Himself and His mission. Each of the temptations attack Christ’s identity as the Messiah and what the nature of His Kingdom will be. The evil one suggests that Jesus deviate from the Father’s will; that He choose another road other than the road that leads to the cross.

Now, let’s take this a step further. The temptations of Christ to compromise are also the temptations of the Church and of every Christian. If the temptations are an attempt to turn Christ aside from His mission, and an attack against the very nature of His Kingdom, then they also attack the nature of discipleship.

“At the heart of all temptations, as we see here, is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary; if not actually superfluous and irrelevant, in comparison with all the apparently more urgent matters that fill our lives… (Temptation) does not invite us directly to do evil –no, that would be far too blatant. Rather, it pretends to show us an easier and better way…” (Benedict XVI)

In the end, however, the temptation is the same: to choose another road, an easier and more appealing road, other than the road that leads to the cross.

Christ, however, emerges victorious from the desert and immediately begins the proclamation of the Gospel, including the conditions for following Him.

“Repent and believe in the Gospel! … If anyone would follow me, let Him deny himself, take up the cross, and follow me. … Whatsoever you did to the least of my brethren you did to me.”

Repentance – making those “real life” changes that conform us more completely to Christ and His teaching - walk hand in hand with faith in the Son of God. The way of discipleship means patterning our lives on Christ’s self-giving, taking on the humble role of the servant, and forgetting about what’s in it for us. If we think we can have it any other way, then we’re deluding ourselves. Worse yet, if we think we can have a relationship with Christ on our own terms, not His, then we’re back at that tree in Eden. We have placed ourselves, not God, at the center of all things.

Lent is about conversion, a deeper turning toward God and neighbor. If our prayers, sacrifices, and other disciplines during Lent are not bringing turning us more to the love of God and neighbor, then, frankly, we’re doing Lent all wrong.