40 Days and 40 Years

 Our Youthies are on their summer choir tour. Their devotional theme this year is Numbers in the Bible. The number for their first day is 40. (By a happy accident, we did day 1 on Sunday, so I have had  a little time to think about this.) Forty is an important number in the Bible. It usually involves a time of testing,  preparation, or purification. The rain fell and the waters rose for 40 days during the Great Flood. Moses lived as a shepherd with Jethro's family for 40 years after fleeing Egypt. He was up on Mount Sinai for 40 days receiving the Law. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years after they refused to enter the promised land. Elijah spent 40 days traveling to the Mountain of God after his confrontation with the Prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness.

I always like it when a set of  readings provides context. Today's devo is a good example because it covers Deuteronomy 8:2-5, in which Moses addresses the Israelites' experience in the Wilderness, and then Matthew 4:1-11, in which Jesus quotes Moses as a way of responding to Satan's temptation. Moses explains God's provision of manna as an object lesson that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God." As soon as we read that passage, I started wondering if we would follow up with the temptation in the wilderness. Lo and behold, we did! Jesus recites the same lesson back to The Adversary as a way of refusing the temptation to provide for Himself out of His own power, or assert His divine authority. He could certainly have done that. He was hungry. This is one of my favorite moments of biblical understatement.

Fasting is physically and emotionally taxing. As an observant Jew, and One who later told His disciples "When you fast . . . ," I expect Jesus already had some experience with fasting. In the First Century, Jews tended to fast on Mondays and Thursdays. (We know this from the Didache, which contrasted the Christian tradition of fasting on Wednesday and Friday with Jewish practice.) Even so, fasting for six weeks is a different sort of experience than fasting for a day or two each week. I have never attempted a fast like that. Even much shorter periods push us out of ourselves, tax our reserves, and may leave us not just hungry, but hangry. Fasting is a mirror which clarifies as it purifies. We might not like what we see in that mirror. It also teaches to rely on 

Scripture also tells us "He was tempted in every way, yet without sin," so I understand these three temptations as real temptations. This isn't shadow-boxing or a morality play with a predetermined outcome. Jesus' human soul and will could have made the wrong choice and opted for self-assertion here. The Son of Man was really, really hungry. The Son of God could have tested God the Father. Jesus might have taken the easy way out when shown all the kingdoms of this world. He did not, because as Philippians tells us, He Is someone "who, though by very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be exploited." He emptied Himself not just once, but time and time and time again because He knew Who He is, knew His Father, and knew how to say "No" to Himself. 

When things got tough for Him the Word of God quoted God's words written given through Moses. The One who later called Himself the Bread of Life reminded Himself, and us, we do not live by bread alone, but by God's Word written on our hearts and guiding our actions. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path," the Psalmist says, and "You word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you."  Psalm 119 is a long meditation on Scripture, and what it means to live it out. It took Jesus entering our circumstances, and the apostles meditating on Who He is, to show us that ultimately the Word of God is a Person: "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we beheld his Glory, the glory as of a Father's only Son, full of Grace and truth." 

The Living Word proceeding from the mouth of God speaks us into existence. The written Word records God's intentions for His people, and all the ways He was worked to bring us back from our rebellion and our exile. The Word became Flesh to show us the way back to God, which is quite literally back through Himself, in a way which redeems every part of us, body and soul. God also provided the manna, the quail, the water, the bread, and the wine we need for daily life because God loves all of us and not just our immortal souls. The choice Jesus made at the end of his 40 days in the wilderness was to trust God's timing as the Israelites were able to trust God's provision through their 40 years in the wilderness.

Jesus said "no" to Himself and "yes" to God's way of doing things. Even when Satan quoted scripture back at him out of context, He remained faithful. Afterward, He went forth to preach the coming of God's Kingdom.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.