(The second of seven weekly Lenten reflections.)  In Matthew 3, we read of Jesus’ baptism.  He goes up out of the water; the Spirit comes down out of heaven.  And in the very next verse, the same Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness.  During Lent, the tradition of a forty-day fast reflects that period of our Lord’s testing and preparation.

The number forty rings with Old Testament echoes.  Moses fasted for forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai when receiving the Ten Commandments (Exod 34:28).  There’s also the story of Moses sending twelve men, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, to explore the land of Canaan for forty days (Num 13-14).  Joshua and Caleb believed that the Lord would give them the land, but the other men spread fear and dissent, and the people rebelled.  When God threatened to strike them down with a plague, Moses intervened, and the people were consigned instead to wander in the wilderness for forty years, so that none of those who grumbled against God would enter the Promised Land.

And now: Jesus’ forty-day wilderness fast provides the opportunity for the Son of Man, by his obedience, to get right what God’s people once got wrong, by their disobedience.

Jesus, a man who has gone forty days without eating, is hungry.  Who wouldn’t be?  The devil appears to him and says, “Isn’t it funny how these rocks here look like little loaves of bread?  I’ll bet that would be mighty tasty right now.  Hey, that gives me an idea!  If you’re the Son of God, why don’t you just take a few of these and make yourself a snack?”  If ?  Satan’s tactic is to probe and exploit our weaknesses: doubt, the need to be in control of our circumstances, or a million other cracks where sin might enter.  In this case, hunger is the door through which temptation comes.

After all, how often did the Israelites grumble against God because of hunger and thirst?  In Exodus 14, we read about their incredible escape from Egypt through the Red Sea.  There they are, having been rescued by God’s miraculous intervention, standing on the shore with their plunder, looking back at the piles of Egyptian corpses on the opposite shore.  At that moment, they feared and trusted God.  (Ya think?)

Then suddenly it seems as if all this is forgotten.  They’re grumbling about not having fresh water.  Then they’re grumbling about not having meat–and even wishing they were back in Egypt, where in their fevered memory life was sweet and the food abundant.

Truth be told, if I were that hungry and thirsty, I might be delusional too.

But God’s obedient son will get it right.  He quotes Scripture–Deuteronomy 8:3 to be exact–“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  In that passage, Moses is reminding the people of God’s faithfulness in their wilderness wanderings, of how he answered their hunger with manna.

The God of the Bible repeatedly shows himself trustworthy in the face of his people’s needs.  The temptation is to let hunger rule the day, forgetting to trust God’s sovereign care, and clamoring for a miracle to erase our need.  In John’s version of the miraculous feeding of over 5,000 onlookers, the people made the same mistake: they put Jesus’ messiahship to the test by asking him to produce bread (John 6:29-34).  The parallel to the devil’s temptation of Jesus is truly chilling.  But Jesus refuses both temptations.  He passes the test.

We need bread to survive, but life is not about bread.  It’s about knowing God to be true to his word.  To fast during Lent is an exercise of spiritual discipline, in which we remind ourselves to trust in the sovereign provision of God even in the midst of our hunger.

Because if we come to Easter without that hunger, we just might miss the miracle.