Jesus prayed in the desert for 40 days
Today is the 1st Sunday of Lent and after all the merry making during the Christmas holidays, the Sinulog Festival, and yes, including Valentine’s Day, it is time to sit back and reflect on why God sent his only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ into this world? For sure, Jesus was not sent to this world so we could have a lot of fun on Christmas Day. In fact Christmas wasn’t celebrated by the early Christians, until St. Francis came up with his “Belen” or the images of the Holy Family inside a cave with the infant Jesus lying in the manger. Early Christians celebrated Easter Sunday because of the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So it is very important for us Catholics to make good use of our Lenten season… as a time for reflection of those events that happened 2,000 years ago when a lowly son of a carpenter who taught with God’s authority was flogged, spat on, mocked, then crucified on the cross for telling the truth about God’s salvation for the world. Indeed, what Christ has done for the humankind is what we call selfless love.
As we learned in John 1:9-13, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment; love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.”
So let’s turn to today’s gospel reading, which was taken from the Gospel of Mark 1:12-15.
“Then the Spirit drove him into the desert. Jesus stayed in the desert for forty days and was tempted by Satan. He was with wild animals, but angels ministered to him. After John was arrested Jesus went into Galilee and began preaching the Good News of God. He said, “The Time has come; the Kingdom of God is at hand. Change your ways and believe the Good News.”
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Whether you are studying the Old Testament or the New Testament, chances are you will get to know a little about numerology. If you recall in Genesis 7: 12, during the days of Noah as he entered the Ark, God destroyed the earth with rain that lasted for forty days and forty nights… and all the living creatures that wasn’t inside Noah’s Ark were destroyed because God regretted that he created these living things that were considered wicked.
In the time of Moses, after he had killed one of Pharaoh’s guards and it was revealed that he was really the son of a Hebrew, Moses was banished by Pharaoh into the desert where he ended in Midian for forty years tending sheep. When finally Pharaoh relented and allowed the Hebrew slaves to be freed, Moses brought them out of Egypt where they turned around in circles for forty years until they reached the Promised Land Israel.
So today’s gospel, we are taught that our Lord Jesus Christ spent forty days in the desert with wild animals where Satan tempted him. After this forty days of prayer and temptation by Satan, our Lord returned to Galilee to learn of the arrest of John the Baptist and there he began preaching the good news of the Lord saying, “The Time has come; the Kingdom of God is at hand. Change your ways and believe the Good News.”
I’m not really into numerology, but somehow, when our Lord Jesus Christ went to the desert, it was not only to pray in solitude, it was also to prepare for his mission in life. As we said, after their bondage in Egypt, the Israelites literally wandered in the desert for forty years before God allowed them into the promise land. I gathered that the number forty also represented a whole generation… whereby none of the Jewish people who left Egypt ever entered the promised land except for Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh
This gives me an idea to ponder… that the forty years of the Jews wandering in the Desert was God’s way of cleansing his people for disobeying God, when they worshiped the Golden Calf. What about us in the Philippines… do you believe that God has also cleansed us? Next week is the 29th anniversary of the EDSA Revolution… yet our nation is on the verge of collapse because of our current political turmoil. But then if you add up the years of the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship, where after his legitimate 8-years as President, he declared Martial Law and became a dictator for 14-years until he was booted out in the EDSA Revolt of 1986.
If you count all those years, from 1972 to 2015, we Filipinos have been cleansed for forty-three years. So can we finally say that God will finally bring us Filipinos to our promised land, where finally we can see a Philippines that is run like heaven by Filipinos? Let me just say that God helps those who help themselves and pray for deliverance from political bondage.
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