Lent 37 40 days

40 days is a long time to spend in the wilderness.   It's a very long time to spend without food.   It's possibly an even longer time to spend completely alone  -  imagine no phone, television, music, conversation, company, laughs.   We arent told too much about what Jesus was doing when He was in the desert for 40 days.   Did the testing by the devil happen over a protracted period of days or was it all on the last day?  Or the first day?  Mark 1:12-13 says that He was with the wild animals.   Do we assume that He was able to snuggle up to mountain cats to keep warm at night - or was it more that He had to fend off the snakes and scorpions and spend 40 days trying not to be dinner for a prairie dog  ( excuse my lack of knowledge of what sort of animals might have been around at the time :) )

What were you doing on Feb 7th can you remember?  That was 40 days ago.  End of April will be 40 days time.  If someone told you you were going to have to live outside with no food from now till the end of April.........

Isolation isnt good for us in general.  But Jesus chose to exile Himself to the wilderness - the hot days and perishingly cold nights with no protection from the elements and no water.  Im sure He did it for numerous good theological reasons but today as I was thinking about it , it occurred to me that for Jesus the wilderness experience was pretty similar to the experience of people in prison. And people experiencing mental illness.  Lonely and dangerous with a battle going on between God and the devil for the very soul of man.

I firmly believe that when we get to stand before Jesus we are not going to be able to say to Him ' Ah but you dont understand because you never.......'   I suspect that alot more was going on in the wilderness time than the gospel writers ever knew as Jesus battled with temptation and embraced the hard reality of His destiny.  When we go through battles in our heads about who we really are and what we are here for  - Jesus understands what that is like.  When we havent spoken to anyone for a week and could really do with a hug - Jesus knows how that feels.   When we are lying in the dark listening to something scuttling under the floorboards and waiting for morning to come cos we know we arent going to get any sleep - Jesus has been there and done that.  When we have felt cold and hungry and at the point of giving up - He really does identify.   Jesus was a real man who experienced the full range of human emotion and the best and worst of what people can be like.    His love for us goes right down into the detail.  He didnt wash His hair or change his clothes for six weeks!  Horrors!   :)

Lord , thank you for understanding how it feels to be human. Thank you for setting aside your deity to come and get your feet and hands dirty, your belly rumbling, your mind assaulted, your body in peril so that you could bear all our human experience to the cross.   We will probably never fully understand what it is that you accomplished in those 40 wilderness days.  But thank you that you emerged with the strength and the sense of purpose which drove you on to fulfil your mission.  let us learn from You as we face our own wildernesses.   Amen