Meaning of These 40 Days of Lent – First Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

We do not spend 40 days of Lent idly and superficially. Otherwise, we would be just as hypocritical as the Israelites, whose meaningless sacrifices that God rejected, for their hearts were just as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:10-17).  As we begin our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday, in its Gospel Reading (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18), Jesus teaches us how we spend these days with contrition and humility through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It is indeed, to fight temptations of our egos, which make our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving means to draw attention to ourselves.  This teaching of Jesus for our Lenten journey reminds us that we cannot let our egos because they can corrupt our Lenten experience into hypocritical superficial one.

Along with any other factors associated to sin, it is our egos that need to be cleansed to ensure our Lenten journey is meaningful and transformative. To reflect this point, the First Reading (Genesis 9:8-15) recalls the Deluge, through which God cleansed the human wickedness with the flood water (Genesis 6:1-8:22). In the Second Reading (1Peter 3:18-22), Peter explains the Deluge as a prefiguration to salvific baptism, by which our we put our old sinful carnal aspects to death and rise with a cleansed life, renewed by the Holy Spirit, because of Christ’s death and resurrection.

The Gospel Reading (Mark 1:12-15) is a brief description of Jesus spending 40 days and nights among wild beasts in the Judean desert, after his baptism in the Jordan River, led by the Holy Spirit, fending off the temptations by the Satan, and ministered by the angels, before beginning his public ministry (cf. Matthew 4:1-17//Luke 4:1-15). This is to juxtapose our 40-day-long Lenten experience, centered on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, to the 40 days and nights that Jesus spent in the Judean desert. Furthermore, because the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert can be compared to the 40 years that the Israelites spent in the desert during to reach the promised land in Canaan (Exodus 16:35).

Desert is not suitable for human habitation, though it is where some wild beasts live. It is rather a hostile environment for humans. But it was where God led the Israelites into. He did not deliver them into the land of milk and honey directly from Egypt. Rather, the way God delivered the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land was to go through desert for 40 years. And it was to test their faith by affliction (Deuteronomy 8:2). In this sense, desert is a place of affliction to have our faith tested.

After his baptism, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the Judean desert, to be tempted (Mark 1:12). In other words, the Holy Spirit brought Jesus not only to subject him to fasting for 40 days and nights but also to be tempted by Satan. This is to test the humanity of the incarnated Christ, upon his baptism, in preparation for his public ministry, which started in Galilee and culminated in his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. And Jesus managed through his 40 days, dealing with wild beasts, fighting hunger, thirst, and temptations by Satan, so that our baptism can be salvific (i.e. 1 Peter 3:18-22).

Now we know that these 40 days of our Lenten journey reflect the 40 years that the Israelites were tested in the desert during Exodus and Jesus successfully fighting interferences by wild beasts, hunger, thirst, and temptations afflicted by Satan.

Imagine yourself, spending 40 days and nights, fasting in the desert among wild beasts. Toward the end of this experience, Satan attacks you with his temptations to spoil your 40-day fasting. How would you find yourself fighting this? How can you make sure that your prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, are not compromised by disturbances of what wild beasts represent and by temptations, especially as your hunger increases as Lent advances.

During the deluge, it rained for 40 days (Genesis 7:17) to cleanse the human wickedness of the earth. As described in the First Reading (Genesis 9:8-15), after the deluge, God established the salvific covenant with Noah and for his descendants. Likewise, what will follow our 40 days of “Lenten desert”, uncompromisingly committed to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, is a renewed life with the new covenant established by Jesus.

Now, picture yourself at the end of your Lenten journey to enter the Paschal Triduum at the sunset of the Maundy Thursday. Then, do you see yourself totally renewed by the Holy Spirit, finding yourself dying with Christ and finding the risen Christ in you (i.e. Galatians 2:20; Philippians 1:21)?