Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. [Matthew 4:1-2 (NLT)]
For many in the Christian community, last Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent, a season in remembrance of the forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness and was tempted by Satan. For them, Lent is a penitential season of repentance, fasting, and self-denial leading up to Easter. The idea of fasting as a form of preparation for Resurrection Sunday comes from Jesus’ statement, “But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; and when that day comes, they will fast,” found in Mark 2:20.
Pope Benedict XVI referred to Lent as a “long ‘retreat’ during which we can turn back into ourselves and listen to the voice of God, in order to defeat the temptations of the Evil One.” On the other hand, Protestant reformer John Calvin disparaged Lent. Arguing that Jesus taught no specific times of fasting, he called Lent “merely false zeal, replete with superstition, which sets up a fast under the title and pretext of imitating Christ….” Observing Lent isn’t God-ordained; it is a personal decision each Christ follower makes. Nevertheless, I think N. T. Wright’s take on this season makes a good case for some sort of Lenten practice: “Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault-finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.”
The church I attended as a girl observed Lent. During this pre-Easter season, the cross over the altar was covered with a purple veil (until Good Friday when it was covered in black), the minister wore purple vestments, our church held pot-lucks and Bible studies Wednesday evenings, every night I placed a coin in a cardboard coin holder that would be collected Easter Sunday, and I resigned myself to no more gum or chocolate until Easter morning. Although the way I observe this season has changed, I continue to do so today.
While those who observe Lent may fast from things like certain meals or foods, social media, sweets, coffee, alcohol, television, eating out, or gaming, the season should never be more about fasting than our relationship with God. Lent is more than a season of putting away the unpleasant, unhealthy, harmful, or superfluous; it’s a season of creating good things and becoming better and more faithful. It’s as much about growing as it is about decreasing. Many people do things like donating the money they would have spent at the coffee shop or bakery to charity, doing service projects, or including additional Bible reading, devotions, a book study, or Scripture memorization to their routine.
That forty-day fast Jesus took in the wilderness, however, wasn’t his first one! It merely was a continuation of one that started in Bethlehem when God chose to take on flesh. Rather than fasting from food, Jesus fasted from Heaven to live on earth. He gave up His godliness in all its perfection to subject Himself to the limitations, weaknesses, and indignities of humanity. He knew hunger and cold; He burped, spit up, cried, and even peed and pooped in his swaddling cloths. He had to learn to crawl before he could walk and probably bumped his head and skinned his knees along the way. That was God who had to learn the alphabet and how to count. The One who was there at the beginning of time gave up Heaven to endure stubbed toes, bruises, and blisters. He experienced exhaustion, insect bites, sweating, and runny noses, and probably suffered through more than one case of dysentery. He fasted from the heavenly host’s songs of praise only to be doubted, hated, conspired against, and mocked. By the time Jesus went into the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry, He’d been abstaining from Heaven around 30 years and that fast continued until His last day when He was beaten mercilessly, hung on the cross, crucified, and died.
Giving up that morning latte at Starbucks or giving a few hours a week to the food pantry don’t seem like much when we think of all He gave up for us!
Back in 2008, my husband and I joined others from our church to see Fireproof, a movie by Alex and Stephen Kendrick. It was about Caleb Holt, a firefighter, who’s urged by a friend and his father to hold off on getting the divorce to which he and his wife have agreed. Counseling him to fight for his crumbling marriage, his father gives him a Christian self-help book called The Love Dare and urges him to go on its forty-day challenge. Having nothing to do with the game “Truth or Dare,” the book dares Caleb to improve his marriage, not by changing his wife, but by changing the way he treats her. After completing the forty day challenge, Caleb continues changing his behavior and he and his wife eventually reconcile. As I remember, the movie ends with them renewing their marriage vows. Several months after seeing the movie, I spotted The Love Dare book while browsing through a bookstore. Whether the movie gave birth to the book or the book gave birth to the movie, I don’t know. In any case, I purchased it and, without my husband knowing, took on its 40-day challenge.
To some people, today is known as Groundhog Day but, because it is the fortieth day after Christmas, many Christians know it as Candlemas, the Presentation of our Lord, or the Purification of Mary. According to Mosaic law, the mother of a boy child was considered “unclean” for seven days following the birth of her child. She then had to wait another 33 days to be purified from her bleeding before she could enter the Temple. (If she bore a girl child, her purification time was doubled.) Once a woman’s time of purification was over, she was to come to the Temple and offer up a sacrifice of both a lamb and a pigeon or turtledove. If the family couldn’t afford the lamb, a turtledove or pigeon could be substituted. Forty days after Jesus’ birth, in fulfillment of this law, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to make their offering and present their son to the Lord.
Although we try to keep Christ in Christmas, many of our ideas about Christmas aren’t Bible based. In spite of the delightful carols, the gospels make no mention of a little drummer boy, cattle lowing, Jeanette or Isabella, a partridge in a pear tree, and, rather than mid-winter, it’s more likely that Jesus was born in early fall.
I was listening to Randy Travis sing, “I’m diggin’ up bones, exhuming things that’s better left alone.” It seemed an appropriate song for this time of year when we tend to dwell on the past—not just past loves, but past losses, mistakes, oversights, misunderstandings, injuries and pain. As one year ends and another begins, we often dig up all the grievances, regrets, and ”if onlys” of our yesterdays.
When prophesying about Jesus, Isaiah called Him a “man of sorrows.” Indeed, Jesus carried a tremendous weight of sorrow upon his shoulders—the heaviest of which was the weight of the world’s sins, a weight totally undeserved by this man who was without sin. A compassionate man, Jesus also carried the burden of the world’s heartache. He knew the anguish of Jarius, the despair of the bleeding woman, the grief of Martha and Mary at Lazarus’ death, the self-reproach of the woman at the well, the centurion’s concern for his servant, the torment of the possessed man, and the distress of the lepers. He also knew the weight of the world’s rejection. He was scoffed at by people in his own hometown, many of his early disciples deserted him, and Judas betrayed him. Wanting none to perish, He wept upon his entry into Jerusalem because of the Israelites’ lost opportunity at salvation. The night of His betrayal, Jesus was filled with grief—indeed, He was a man of sorrows. But, He also was a man of peace, love, purity, holiness, eloquence and love.
Devotions of the Heart 