Lent is a forty day season starting on Ash Wednesday leading up to Easter. (Sundays are not counted). Is Lent just for Catholics? Is there any benefit to observing Lent? I think it can be very beneficial to countdown to Easter, the same way that many Christians countdown to Christmas by observing Advent. Some people give up something for Lent as a way to identify with the suffering that Jesus endured on the cross. People will fast sweets, red meat, or alcohol or coffee. Other people might fast from watching tv. I think doing something like that can be good if you do that to remind yourself every day of what Jesus went through, but I also think it can become a legalistic thing or even a source of spiritual pride. I’ve seen people give up social media for Lent. They usually make a big announcement. I think if someone is going to fast something for Lent, they should follow Jesus’ directive for fasting. He said in Matthew 6:16-18, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Just because some people misuse something, though, is not a reason not to fast for Lent. I think it’s something that is very personal between each person and the Lord. What makes observing a season of Lent valuable, in my opinion, is that we should use it as a time of self-examination. As we approach Good Friday, we can use these forty days of Lent to examine ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit to work repentance inside our hearts. The thing is, we could fast from hamburgers but still be holding onto sin in our lives and completely miss the point of Lent. Lent is only as meaningful as we allow it to be. If we can spend extra time in the Word and in prayer and reflect on the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, I think there is immeasurable value in spending forty days in thinking about repentance.
Have you ever wondered why it is a season of forty days? I did a little research on the history of Lent. After the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, it became a formal observance[i]. The forty days were to imitate the forty days that Jesus fasted in the desert. After realizing that the forty days are significant, I thought about other significant forty days that the Bible records. The first being in Genesis 7. When Noah was on the Ark, the rain fell for forty days and forty nights. Another is recorded in Exodus 24:18. It says, “Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” Also, 1 Kings 19:8 tells us that Elijah “… traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.” Even Ezekiel had a significant forty day fast of sorts. Ezekiel 4:6-8 says, “After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.” I say that it was like a fast, in that he was definitely “giving up” regular nourishment and behavior.
Most significant, of course, and the reason Lent lasts for forty days, is the forty day and night fast that Jesus endured in the desert before He began His public ministry. While I don’t want to put too much focus on what different numbers in the Bible mean, I also don’t think we should dismiss them outright. We can recognize these patterns and see them, not as mere coincidences, but as more evidence of the incredible omniscience of God. The way that the huge amount of fulfilled prophecy in Scripture testifies to God’s omniscience. I also think acknowledging these patterns and consistencies throughout Scripture helps us view the Bible as a single book, as opposed to the incorrect idea of viewing the Old Testament and the New Testament as two different messages that don’t agree. We should study the Bible in its entirety. Scripture should interpret Scripture. When we study a particular book of the Bible or one particular verse, we risk misinterpreting what it is saying unless we interpret it in light of the whole Bible. I think we see the greatest support for this idea in how Jesus consistently recalls Old Testament verses. Even in the account of Jesus’ forty day fast, Jesus’ response to the devil is to quote Old Testament verses to knock the temptations away.
Let’s read the account as told by Matthew 4:1-11:
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
The first response Jesus gives to the devil’s first temptation is to quote part of Deuteronomy 8:3 which says, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Jesus, even though He was literally starving from hunger, does not give in to the devil’s attempt to get Him to turn stones into bread.
Having failed the first time, the devil tries again. He wants Jesus to prove that He is the Son of God and this time, the devil quotes the Bible. He quotes Psalm 91:11 &12, “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Jesus responds to that challenge by quoting part of Deuteronomy 6:16, which states, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.”
The devil makes a third attempt by offering to give Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” if Jesus will bow down to him. Jesus responds with Deuteronomy 6:13, “Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.”
The devil wanted Jesus to sin and thus ruin everything He had come to earth to do. This event happens right after His baptism and before He begins His public ministry. I used to think that He went out in the desert by Himself to fast and pray in order to ready Himself for ministry. But the text doesn’t actually say that. It says, Jesus “was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” I think it is really important to make this distinction. Jesus didn’t need to ready Himself. Even though He took on human form, He didn’t lay aside His divinity. He never stopped being God. Why the Spirit wanted to lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted, I don’t know because the text doesn’t tell us, but we can make some guesses.
First, this is the only time that scripture records Jesus fasting. What is fasting and what is it supposed to do? To my surprise, the Bible does not command Christians to fast. The only verse I can find where God gives specific instruction to someone to fast is in Joel 2:12 which says, “’Even now,’” declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’” In other mentions in the Old Testament, when people are fasting, the fasting occurs during a period of mourning. For example, David fasted and prayed when his son was dying. 2 Samuel 12:16 reads, “David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground.” Most references to fasting, especially in the Old Testament, are related to sorrow, but I could find nothing about why or how fasting should happen.
In the New Testament there are a few verses which say things like Acts 13:2 says, “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’” Or the verse like I referenced earlier about not letting people know when you are fasting like the Pharisees do. But strangely, I could not find a specific verse explaining why we should fast. So when the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted, not only do we not know why the devil was allowed to tempt Jesus, we also can’t say conclusively why Jesus was fasting for forty days. When researching this topic, the only explanations I came across were people who supposed that Jesus fasted in order to make his fleshly body come under submission. I think that is inferring a lot into the text that isn’t there.
Also surprising to me is the New Testament only records four instances of the believers fasting. And in Acts 2, when it describes how the believers were following the Lord, they do not mention fasting as a spiritual activity. Rather, it says in Acts 2:42-47, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Nothing is mentioned about fasting.
Now, this analysis of biblical fasting might seem counterproductive to a sermon on Lent and the benefit of setting time aside as we wait to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection. Shouldn’t I be encouraging people to observe Lent and fast? To be honest, when preparing to write this sermon, this was not what I expected to discover in Scripture, but I never want to misinterpret Scripture just so it fits my sermon outline, though. I want Scripture to direct my theology. I’m not saying that fasting isn’t good or important, I just want to be clear about what Scripture does and doesn’t say about fasting.
What we do know about fasting is that it is something that believers in the Old and New Testament did in times of times of mourning or trouble. Jesus fasted for forty days, and He assumed believers would fast in the future. Therefore, I think fasting is a good thing. It is not a mandate, but based on the instances where we see people fasting, it seems valuable when we add it to times of prayer.
When Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days, it seems possible that He was echoing the forty-day theme we see in multiple places in Scripture. Or rather, those other forty day events were foreshadowing Jesus’ forty day trial. Lent, as it was originally purposed, is indeed an echo of these forty days, as well. When we take part in Lent, we too are setting aside forty days to focus on repentance, asking God to work in our hearts and show us any areas in which we need to repent or draw nearer to God. That is always a good thing.
Taking our cue from Jesus’ forty day fast and encounter with the devil, maybe these three areas that the devil tempted Jesus in are three areas in which we should regularly ask the Holy Spirit to examine us in, especially during this season of Lent. Maybe these three things that the devil tempted Jesus with are things the devil tries to tempt all of us with today.
The first thing the devil said to Jesus was, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered him by saying, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” I think the devil wanted Jesus to prove He was the Son of God and provide for Himself, rather than looking to the Father to be His provider. The more I read the Bible, the more it seems clear to me that more than anything else, God wants relationship with us. He wants us to depend upon Him. Whether it’s the Israelites depending on Him to provide literal manna for them to eat, or Jesus pointing to the birds of the air and saying that in the same way that they do not worry about what they will eat, so we too should not worry, but trust God to provide for us. All throughout the Bible, we see God telling His children that He will provide for us. The devil wants us to look to ourselves or to others for provision, instead of to God.
The second thing the devil wanted Jesus to do was to throw Himself off the temple so that God would rescue Him. Why is that a temptation? What does that accomplish? Again, the devil was questioning Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. The devil does the same thing to us. He wants us to doubt our standing with God. He wants to attack our identity as a child of God. If he can get us to doubt our identity, then we will also doubt God. We will become insecure and weak in faith. Jesus replied by saying, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” How often do we want God to prove that He is real and come to our rescue instead of resting in faith? We want God to prove Himself to us when we doubt our standing with Him. We want proof when we lack faith.
The third temptation was when the devil told Jesus that if He will bow down and worship him, then he would give Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world.” Jesus responded, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” The devil tempts us the same way. He offers us more success, more popularity, more fame, more comfortable of a life, if we would just bow down to the ways of the world- which is just another name for the ways of the devil. I think it’s pretty rare, though it definitely happens, for people to consciously bow down to the devil, but I think it’s pretty common for all of us to bow down to him in many little ways.
We need the Holy Spirit to work inside of us and show us where we have failed in these areas. He can reveal to us where we have trusted our abilities more than God’s ability to provide for us; where we have doubted our identity in Christ and failed to trust Him and want proof before we will have faith; and finally, the Holy Spirit can show us any areas in our hearts or lives where we have bowed down to the devil’s ways. Once revealed to us, if we respond to those same temptations the same way that Jesus showed us how, then the devil will flee from us, too.
During these forty days of Lent, we can set aside time to focus on what Jesus did for us when He came to earth to become one of us. As we near Good Friday, let us ask the Holy Spirit to work inside us and show us if we have fallen to any temptations. The good news is that Jesus will forgive us if we repent. He can help us resist the devil and our flesh. Over the next few weeks before Easter, we will look closer at the events that happened to Jesus, leading up to the cross. May the Lord work repentance and change within our hearts to draw us even closer to Him.
Pray: Heavenly Father, we pray that this Lenten season You would work repentance in our hearts in any areas that we need to find forgiveness. Help us, by Your Holy Spirit, to trust You to provide for us. Where we doubt Your ability to help us, please grow faith in us, and please show us if there are any things that we are bowing down to, instead of only bowing to You. Please help us to keep our hearts and minds upon all that Jesus has done for us. We love You and in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
[i] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lent. March 3, 2022.
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