First Sunday of Lent

To speak about Lent, and to practice it, is to speak about sin.

Sin is a reality in the world - and if you don't believe that, go insult someone and see how they react. Or, better yet, see how you react when someone insults you.

If we're looking for an answer, a reason why humanity faces the problems it does, the answer is sin.

Why do we have poverty, war, violence, exploitation, corruption? At it's most basic level, it's sin - the rejection of God. And that drama has been played out almost since the dawn of humanity.

Look at that story in our first reading. God created our race and God doesn't create things that are bad. He made us in His image and likeness - that means humanity is good. He gave us a place to live and everything we needed to be happy.

But it wasn't enough. When given that temptation, Adam and Eve (yes, they were both there) decide that they know what's better for them than the God who created them; and once that choice was made, it could never be taken back.

Sin has consequences. Think about your own lives. Anytime we hurt another person, there are repercussions. Even if we are reconciled, the ripple effect of sin goes out into the world. As the first parents of humanity, Adam and Eve passed down that deadly inheritance to the rest of us. Sin was here to stay and there was nothing we could do about it.

But God wasn't done yet.

Human nature was wounded by the sin of Adam and Eve, so help had to come from outside of humanity. For our relationship with God to be repaired, God had to come down and fix it.

Our gospel, which is so perfect for this first Sunday of Lent, is the story of Jesus  - God and man - confronting temptation and sin on our behalf. After his forty days of fasting, Jesus dealt with the same temptations that have faced humanity from the beginning and showed us that we can choose God.

Because God did become incarnate on the earth just to look at us and say, "You're all doing everything wrong. Just follow these rules and you'll be ok." He came to live a human life as it was meant to be, ultimately culminating in his complete self-offering to God the Father on the cross.

The three temptations offered by the Devil should sound familiar to us, even if we hear them in different ways.

First, he tempts Jesus to provide bread for Himself. It's almost definitely an understatement when Matthew writes that Jesus was hungry - He had fasted for forty days - He must have been starving! But Jesus didn't come to take the easy way out, He came to do the will of the Father.

We face this temptation anytime we let our physical desires overrule what we know to be right. This could be gluttony or sexual lust; whatever it is, the temptation to see our spiritual good - doing God's will - as secondary to what we want. Jesus shows us that our life does not rely so much on bread - physical things - as much as on following God's word.

Second, the Devil challenges Jesus to make a spectacle of Himself - to jump off the top of the Temple so that everyone could see Him miraculously survive. Now, it would have worked. People would see Jesus perform this miracle and it would have been pretty obvious that this guy is the Messiah; but, again, Jesus didn't come to take the easy path, He came to walk our path.

This temptation is to that old sin of pride - self-worship, self-gratification. It's that self-centeredness that leads to rejecting God, for Adam and Eve and for us. Anytime we focus on ourselves we are going to lose sight of the only one who can truly satisfy us, the Lord.

Finally, the Devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and says, "All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me." This is a temptation to idolatry - worshipping a false God.

Humanity has faced the temptation to idolatry throughout its existence and still faces it today. Whatever becomes more important than God is our idol. It can be wealth, possessions, even other people. Jesus' response is that God alone is worthy of worship. He alone is our Creator and He alone can hold that first place in our lives.

Jesus rejects these three temptations and shows us that we can and must reject them as well; but not alone. It is only by relying on God's word that we can follow Jesus' example.

We have just started the great season of Lent - our forty days in the desert - and we shouldn't be surprised when temptations come our way. Not just temptations to eat meat on a friday or to do that thing that we gave up, but to see God's will as not that important compared to our own. The temptation to push God to the side, rather than right in front of us where we can follow Him.

Let's follow the example of Jesus and the advice of the Church during this Lent: let's reject the temptations of the Devil relying on the word of God (especially in the Scriptures); let's strengthen and purify ourselves through fasting, as well as increasing our devotion to prayer and the sacraments; and let's give of ourselves just as Jesus did, especially to those most in need.

Lent is our time to be strengthened, to place our focus back on following the footsteps of Jesus who suffered with us and for us.