The Power of Forty

The trials and temptations of Lent

Mar 07, 2025

My first two performances of God, the Bible and Everything (in 60 minutes) went well. I’m moving on to Sheffield, Shrewsbury, Stone and Chesterfield, Walton-on-Thames and Newcastle in the rest of this month. Find out more details at the bottom. (My website is misbehaving)

And it’s not too late to contribute to my ‘tech fund’. Some of you have already done this, for which I am immensely grateful. Thank you. I was really touched by your kindness. If you meant to get around to contributing, there are details on that below.

It is Lent. What we should be doing – and not doing – in this season is not very clear. In the medieval period, it was typical to go without meat and dairy products, including eggs. So it was a good season to be a fishmonger.

Today, it is easy to be intimidated or shamed by such displays of penitence and piety but let us bear in mind a few mitigating factors. By March, much of the meat that was slaughtered and salted in November had gone, especially after twelve days of Christmas and a feast for Candlemas. Bear in mind that oxen and sheep were barely half the size of the ones we breed today. One wonders how much meat the average person actually ate.

Some folk needed the calories and were considered exempt from the Lenten fast. The list includes manual labourers, pregnant women, nursing mothers, children, the elderly, the sick and pilgrims (according to Going to Church in Medieval England by Orme p263). Considering the majority of men were manual labourers and their wives were pregnant or nursing for much of their adult life, there don’t seem to be many left who had no excuses and were obliged to abstain from meat and dairy. The wealthy could also perform their Lenten penance financially, essentially purchasing credits so they could continue to eat their eggs and bacon. That leaves only the clergy and artisans. So, it was a good season to go on a pilgrimage.

Questions about Lent come back to the most basic one: what even is Lent? What are we trying to achieve by any kind of fasting? The answer might lie in one fact about Lent on which we all agree: it lasts for forty days.

Except it doesn’t. Lent is forty-six days. But we don’t count Sundays. There are six Sundays in Lent. Sunday is the Lord’s Day when we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It is not appropriate to fast on a day of feasting. However, forty days remain on which to fast, the last of which is Easter Saturday.

Mosaic of the Temptations of Christ in the Basilica of St. Mark, Venice. 12th C.

But why does Lent last for forty days?

You may already have an answer to this question: Jesus Christ was tempted in the wilderness by Satan for forty days. We can read about it in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, all of whom place it at the very start of Jesus’ ministry. Mark gives us few details, but Matthew and Luke reveal the first of the temptations was related to food. Satan suggests Jesus should turn stones into bread in order to break his fast and feed himself, but Christ refuses, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3:

Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

We’ve seen in previous instalments of Cary’s Almanac that food is central to our existence. Christ commissions a eucharistic meal. At the heart of the Lord’s prayer is a request for daily bread. And Jesus’s feeding of the 5000 is the only miracle in all four gospels. But there is something even more important than food: the word of God. For forty days, we would do well to put food below the word of God in terms of priority.

So perhaps we should be thinking less about abstaining from certain foodstuffs and consider skipping meals in order that we spend time reading the scriptures. This is a good idea, as long as we use that time to actually read God’s word. Our lives are so busy. My temptation would be to crack on with tasks for the day. I must resist that desire to get things done and use every waking moment in order to be productive. I need to stop, read, meditate and pray. I must seek first the Kingdom of God. Everything else is downstream from that. Lent would be a good time to address this overly-cranked desire for increased outputs.

The time, the place

But Jesus was without sin. He did not have my overly-cranked desire for increased outputs. Through him, all things have already been made. How do you top that? So why was Jesus tempted in the wilderness for forty days?

The wilderness is a significant location. The Israelites were led out of Egypt into the desert where they had to depend on the Lord for everything, including daily bread. They had to remain faithful to God during trials and hardships. And they failed that test many times. When they were finally poised to enter the promised land of Canaan, flowing with milk and honey, they did not believe God would give them the victory. So that generation of Israelites were condemned to die in the desert, which meant that they would spend forty years in the wilderness. Jesus, then, is identifying himself with Israel when he spent forty days in the wilderness from which he emerges faithful and victorious.

The spies send out by Moses, incidentally, spent forty days in Canaan which was, in itself, a test. Only Caleb and Joshua passed. This is one of many forty day periods in scripture. Moses spent forty days on Sinai in Exodus 16 and 24. The first mention of forty days is in Genesis 7. Forty days of rain brought judgement on a corrupt generation. Perhaps this is why the Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness.

There are lots of other forties in the Bible once you start to look. Goliath taunted the Israelites for forty days. David reigned for forty years, as did Solomon and Joash. The people of Nineveh were given forty days to repent by Jonah. There was a period of forty days between the resurrection of Christ and the Ascension (Acts 1:3) in which the apostles were prepared for the task that lay ahead: making disciples of all nations.

What Comes After

A theme is emerging here. The number forty signifies trial and testing. But it is not merely a matter of resisting temptation for that period. It is a time of preparation for the task ahead: faithful service. Whatever we do with Lent, we need to think about what lies beyond. Are we ready for that challenge? Like an athlete training for the new season, we will not be ‘match fit’ for service unless we train. Have we prioritised the word of God? Let’s use Lent to feed on the bread that Jesus talks about in John 6:48-51.

I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

If you found that helpful or interesting, could you consider sharing it with a friend?

Tech Fund

As I said last week, I’ve just spent £691 on a short-throw projector and a huge 2m screen for my new show, God, the Bible and Everything (in 60 minutes). I’d really appreciate some help with meeting the cost of the tech.

Last week, seven of you answered the call. Seven is holy number, so I’m very happy with that. But can we get to 12 contributors? Or even 40?

If you like what I write here week by week, would you consider contributing? And here’s what you get: either a digital stream of my stand-up theology show, Water into Wine. Or you could watch the best thing I’ve ever written, a romantic comedy play about science and religion called The God Particle. Or both!

Thank you.

Stream Water into Wine

The God Particle