One thing the Lenten readings keep circling back to is pride. Not the cartoon version of pride that shows up as obvious arrogance, but the quieter form that sits underneath so many human problems. According to the tradition, the first sin in Eden wasn’t violence or cruelty. It was the belief that we could decide what is good and evil for ourselves. It was the temptation to step into God’s place.

That same pattern shows up again and again in the Gospel passages we hear during Lent. The disciples are already thinking in terms of rank, position, proximity to power. Who gets to sit at the right hand? Who gets the place of honor? It’s the most human instinct in the world. We want to be close to the throne.

And Christ calmly flips the entire idea over. “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… but it shall not be so among you.”

In other words, the normal operating system of human hierarchy is not the one he’s installing.

Greatness, in the kingdom he describes, looks almost inverted. The one who wants to be first becomes the servant. The one who wants to lead becomes the one who carries burdens. Authority is not something to display, but something to spend on behalf of others.

That theme echoes in the other readings too. Don’t perform holiness for applause. Don’t judge so quickly. Reconcile before you worship. Love even your enemies. Measure generously, because the same measure comes back to you.

Taken together, it paints a picture of Christ that is easy to forget. He isn’t a warlord, a crusader, or a mythic king in armor. He moves through the Gospels almost like a quiet countercurrent to human pride. Wherever people try to climb higher, he points lower. Wherever people try to secure honor, he talks about service.

And Lent becomes a kind of mirror. Not a finger pointed at other people’s hypocrisy, but a small examination of our own reflex to climb, to judge, to be right, to be admired. The strange promise of the Gospel is that letting go of that climb isn’t humiliation. It’s freedom.

“Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”