Peaceful skies looking North from Narrow Neck, Feb 27th 2023
I'm enjoying engaging with Lent this year, especially meeting together for Sunday evening Bible study. Forty days. The New Bible Dictionary claims the number forty ‘is associated with almost each new development in the history of God’s mighty acts’. This week I'm preaching on Matthew 4: 1-11, where we find Jesus in the wilderness, fasting for forty days and nights.
To me it seems forty days and forty nights can be about how long we need for God to really get our attention. God did a mighty act with his chosen people Israel, trekking through the Sinai for forty years, and God is doing a mighty act through Jesus.
The difference of course is that Jesus, though he was famished and strung out, did not fall into sin when the accuser came calling. He was ready to face the threefold challenge the devil presented to him, first appealing to his bodily needs, his human pride, and finishing with a blunt attempt at getting Jesus to worship him.
We recall of course that the people of Israel in Sinai complained against Moses because of their bodily needs, did not trust God to protect them, and while Moses was up the mountain with God for forty days and forty nights (one of those significant moments), they made an idol to worship, a golden calf. So much for their wilderness experience being a time of growth and blessing leading to the promised land, as the writer of Hebrews records, ‘we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.’
Jesus' wilderness time acts as a kind of commentary following his baptism in the Jordan. The Spirit came down and the Father speaks; 'this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.' So what? The wilderness time answers the so what. Jesus deliberately chooses the path of humbly waiting on God, the path that leads to the cross. He is not tempted by the offers of miracle, spectacle and power. I regularly seek some wilderness time in the city, sometimes beach, sometimes bush. I feel privileged to have these places so close. I have to believe I will have the wisdom to choose the humble way of waiting on God.
May the Spirit strengthen all of us, and may we encourage one another, as we journey to Easter with Jesus, waiting on Him.