We begin the first full week of Lent this weekend. As everyone is well aware, Lent is a 40 day penitential season. We are reminded of our sinfulness and need for conversion. This season is also the spiritual preparation for Holy Week and the celebration of Our Lord’s Passion in the Sacred Triduum.
     But why is Lent 40 days? The simplest answer is because Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert. He spent 40 days, and so we spend 40 days. There are also other accounts in scripture where the number 40 is significant. Moses stayed on top Mt. Sinai for 4o days and 40 nights. The Israelites also wandered through he desert for 40 years before settling in the Promised Land. For these reasons the number 40 in scripture has come to be a symbol for purification. So during Lent we are purified of our sins through the 3-fold practice of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
     Jesus is showing us something else in the 40 days He spent in the desert. Throughout His life, Jesus recapitulates or relives the same experiences of the Israelites in the Old Testament. For example, as the Israelites left the Promised Land for Egypt to find refuge from famine, and then left Egypt to return to the Promised Land, so did Jesus. Shortly after Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph escaped Herod by going to Egypt, and then left Egypt and returned to Nazareth once it was safe.
     So the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert was His way of reliving the 40 years the Israelites wandered through the desert. The Israelites sinned by idolatry at Mt. Sinai by setting up the golden calf. That generation was purified by the 40 years spent in the desert, so that a new generation of people, freed from their parents’ sin, would be found worthy to enter the Promised Land. The Israelites wandered through the desert because of  their sin. Jesus was in the desert because of our sin. Those 40 days prepared the humanity of Jesus to face the triple temptation of satan.  Adam and Eve, the Israelites, and every single one of us for that matter, give in to temptation by sinning, Jesus faced the same devil and the same temptations that we do. The only difference is that Jesus was victorious. Jesus’ victory over satan in the desert points to His final victory on the Cross.
     It is no accident that we read Jesus’ temptation in the desert every First Sunday of Lent. The Collect for Ash Wednesday refers to Lent as “a campaign of Christian service” and “a battle.” Our souls are on the line, not just during Lent, but everyday throughout the year. The more we conform ourselves to Jesus, the more we imitate Him in the desert, the more we will find true conversion of heart.