Lent

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #13

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,

Week 2 Going where you don’t want to go

It is getting time for the evening meal, and you don’t want to eat at home.  Then comes the classic question, “Where do you want to eat?” with the classic answer, “Anywhere is fine with me.”  This must be very common because all across the country, restaurants have sprung up with names like “Anywhere,” “Anything’s Fine With Me,” “I Don’t Care,” and, of course, “It Doesn’t Matter”1.  When we have a group deciding on a restaurant, and no one has a preference, we then do eliminations: for example, ‘I ate at Applebee’s last week, so not there’ or ‘I don’t feel like Italian food tonight.’  This seems to be more productive.  Sometimes it is easier to know where you don’t want to go.

There is some discussion in the commentaries about whether Jesus fasted for 40 days and then was tempted or if he was tempted the entire 40-day period and then had the final three temptations that Matthew and Luke discuss.

Mark 1:12-13   The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Our English version seems clear that Jesus was tempted for the entire 40 days, and the Greek version even more so.   Matthew and Luke then record the 3 specific temptations, but Mark does not.  It’s not hard to imagine 40 days of temptations.  We are told to expect trials and temptations.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  1 Peter 4:12

We are told that this is the norm.  God told Cain that “sin is crouching at the door”.  Peter says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8).  We are surrounded by trials and temptations — that is the fallen world we live in,

So the Spirit “drove him out into the wilderness”.  The Greek verb is very forceful.  ‘Ekballo’ means to ‘throw out’.  This is the verb used when Jesus drives out the moneychangers in the temple, or when Jesus ‘cast out’ demons, or when Stephen is ‘cast out’ of the city and stoned.    It is the same as when the people in his hometown of Nazareth throw him out of town and then take him to throw him off a cliff.  This was not a friendly suggestion to Jesus by the Spirit to go to the wilderness.  This was no gentle nudge.  The Spirit forced Jesus to go where he did not want to go.

As we have discussed, the wilderness is not a place many would choose to go.  On a trip to Israel in 2016, the bus stopped at the edge of the Judean wilderness, and we were instructed to go off by ourselves for 40 minutes.  It was oppressively hot and dry.  There were no trees, no shade, almost no vegetation, and no signs of water.  40 minutes was long enough.  I could not imagine 40 days.  And in Jesus’ day, it was dangerous.  Mark tells us, “he was with the wild animals.”  That seems an odd detail to throw in a short passage.  That area used to be home to large and small predators.  (We were told the large ones (like lions) were no longer there.)  But this is not a place you choose to be day and night alone. I wonder if Mark was painting the wilderness as an anti-Eden place — Eden was a place of abundant vegetation and fruit of all kinds, the wilderness was desolate.  Eden had abundant water, “there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground” such that a river flowed out of Eden, but the wilderness was dry.  The animals in Eden came to man without fear, but the animals in the wilderness are “wild.”2  But both were a place of testing and interestingly, Adam and Eve’s temptation was about something to eat, just as the first of Jesus’ temptations by the devil.

No one would choose to go to a place of testing, with an encounter with the devil after 40 hard days.  Jesus was forced there at the beginning of his ministry.  He will be forced to go somewhere else he doesn’t want to go at the end of his ministry.  

Matt. 16:21   From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is “greatly distressed and troubled.” He prays and asks if there is any other way to accomplish God’s plan of redemption.  The way of the cross was not the way anyone, including Jesus, would want to go.  But praying in the garden, Jesus makes a choice that Adam and Eve should have made. 

God asked Adam and Eve, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

“Will you follow my will or your own will?”  Adam and Eve fail at the tree of discerning good and evil.

God asked Jesus, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

And Jesus answered, “Not my will, but your will be done.

  Jesus is obedient about the tree.

“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree”  Acts 10:39

God sent Jesus somewhere he didn’t want to go, as he did other Bible characters.  Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh, Moses didn’t want to go back to Egypt, Ananias didn’t want to go pray for Saul.  Abraham left his home, having no idea where he would end up. And then there is Peter.

 Jesus tells Peter, “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). Then Jesus gives Peter the same instruction he gave him at the beginning, “Follow me.” I have been to Rome and have seen the spot where, 34 years later, Peter was led, a place where his arms were stretched-out and nailed to a cross. Peter had learned to be obedient, to be faithful to go somewhere he didn’t want to go.  I believe at some point in all of our lives, God will ask us all to go somewhere we do not want to go.  It may be to minister to an enemy or to people who don’t like you; it may be leaving your home to unknown places, or it may be to a place of desolation or testing. It may be to martyrdom. 

Jesus followed God in everything, even to desolation and death.  

The one who restores our soul may lead us through paths of righteousness that look to us like the valley of the shadow of death. There are some dark valleys in this world.  Some of you have walked in the valley. Some of you are walking there now.  There is the valley of pain; there is the valley of depression, the valley of despair, the valley of illness so severe it is the shadow of death, the valley of grief over a loved one.  We all will walk through those valleys — places we don’t want to go.  And on that day, may Jesus remind us:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

There they are, the most common command in the Bible (“Do not fear.”) and the most common promise in the Bible (“I will be with you.”).  They are inextricably linked.  As God told Joshua before they entered the land:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”    Joshua 1:9

The same promise is given to the disciples right after Jesus tells them to go into all the nations.  Jesus’ last words in the gospel of Matthew:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  Matthew 28:20

Jesus willingly went into the wilderness and willingly went to the cross with no fear, knowing God would be with him.  God promises to be with us in the deepest, darkest valleys of death, comforting, healing, and feeding us with cups running over with goodness and mercy. 

Jesus continues to say, ‘Follow me’.  If we follow him, we know he is there with us.  And if we follow Jesus, we are sure to end up going somewhere we would have never thought about going.  But we will never go alone. Are we willing to go where we do not want to go?  Have you been to the wilderness this week?

1. I have heard the “It Doesn’t Matter Family Restaurant” just below Montgomery, Alabama is a great place.

2. Talking about the ‘wild animals’ in Mark, Skip Moen said, “This sinful world into which Jesus enters to accomplish his mission is less like a pristine garden and more like Jurassic Park.”  Yikes!

The Year of the Lord’s Favor #9 – A note on the timing of Lent and our journey this year

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

In 2024, Lent begins on Wednesday, Feb. 14 (Ash Wednesday) and concludes on Thursday March 28 (the Thursday before Easter Sunday). The word ‘Lent’ comes from an Old English word meaning ‘spring season’ from the Old Dutch ‘lente’ or the German ‘lenz’ that referred to the ‘lengthening’ of the days in this season from winter to spring.  The observance dates back to around 325 at the council of Nicea when a 40-day time of fasting before Easter was established. The dates for the time of fasting have been altered several times, as have the fasting requirements.  Currently, the most-followed dates are 46 days, as the 6 Sundays in the season are not fast days.  

Depending on which source you read, it may have originally been a time of fasting before a candidate was baptized.1  As baptisms in the church began to be done primarily on Easter Sunday, then a more official fasting period was recognized.  It became a 40-day fast, following the 40-day fasts of Elijah, Moses, and Jesus.  The requirements for the fast have also varied tremendously through the years, originally requiring only 1 meal a day after 3 pm with no meat, fish, or dairy.  Currently, in the Catholic Church, only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are mandatory fast days.  And now, ‘giving something up’ for Lent has replaced the food fast for most who follow the tradition.

We will talk in the coming months about traditions that are contrary to scripture, and how Jesus said “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” (Mark 7:8) to the Pharisees.  But not all traditions are contrary to scripture.2  I believe any time that you set aside for God is good.  And there are, as mentioned above, Biblical models for a 40-day fast.  This year, the 40-day fast of Jesus in the wilderness will begin this Saturday, Feb. 17 as his baptism in the Jordan was Feb. 16 in 27 A.D.  In that year, the sacrifice of the Passover lambs would have been April 11 (remember the dates of Passover and Easter vary every year.)   Jesus would have concluded his 40-day fast on March 28, which is, coincidentally this year the conclusion of Lent on the Thursday before Easter.3

While Jesus’ 40-day fast in the wilderness is not a preparation for the Passover/Easter event, this year the dates do overlap.  So this year, whether your church tradition observes Lent or not, we can all observe this time of preparation.  Jesus’ time in the wilderness was a preparation for his year of ministry.  We can follow with him and use this time to prepare to follow him through his ministry in the 4 Gospels.  

This Friday, our study will be on Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, on the day it happened in 27 A.D.  Then we will follow Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days.  We will take that time to examine the idea of wilderness in the Bible, the ideas of testing and tempting, and the idea of fasting.  Then on March 28, when Jesus’ 40 days ends, we will discuss the 3 temptations as recorded in Matthew and Luke.

1. The Didache, a 1st Century Christian text, recommended that the candidate for baptism and ‘others that were able’ to fast and prepare for the sacrament of baptism. (Didache 7:4)

2. During the time of the Reformation, many theologians pushed hard against any Catholic traditions including Lent.  This is very interestingly like the hard push against anything Jewish in the 300s and following, when at the same Council of Nicea it was forbidden to share a meal with Jews or worship on a Saturday.  John Calvin in Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) said “Then the superstitious observance of Lent had everywhere prevailed: for both the vulgar imagined that they thereby perform some excellent service to God…”  In both instances, the church, I feel, overreacted and ‘threw the baby out with the bath water.’  They were so against the Jews and later the Catholics that they renounced everything Jewish or Catholic.  And because of this, for hundreds of years, the Church missed out on the Jewish roots of our faith and the rich history of our faith that was maintained by the Catholic Church.  Sorry, Mr. Calvin, I have to disagree with you here.  Now that being said, let’s not make the same mistake of throwing Calvin out with the bath water.  I own a set of Calvin’s commentaries and find his thoughts very useful (sometimes).

3. For those of you who are detail-oriented and count the days, we will have 41 days instead of 40 because this year is a leap year.  Jesus’ calendar in the 1st Century had a ‘leap month’ and this 13th month comes into play in the year Jesus is crucified.  We’ll talk all about how this works when we get there next year.