“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
With everything going on right now, I think it’s understandably easy to forget that we are in the season of Lent, the 40 days of fasting and discipline before Easter. I, myself, accidentally and absent-mindedly ate takeout orange chicken this past Friday even though I had made “No-Meat-Fridays” part of my Lent fast.
Mea culpa.
Funny enough, even though the days are all blurring together for some of us and causing us to forget what day of the church calendar it is, much of what is going on is still making us experience the true meaning of the Lenten season.
Think about it: what are some of the things we have given up over the past few weeks? Watching sports on TV? Spending gratuitous amounts of money at Starbucks? Heading out to Guitar Center to stare longingly and covetously at all of the musical gear that I can’t afford?
Was that last one just me?
However, think about it this way as well: what are some of the things that we have taken up over the past few weeks? More time with family? Helping those around us with their grocery shopping? Walks and bike-rides outside (with small groups of people, of course)?
A forced (but still beneficial) time of sabbath?
The 40 days of Lent are meant to commemorate Jesus’ time in the desert fasting and confronting Satan (“the tempter”). Matthew 4:1-11 shows us that Christ’s first temptation was to break his fast. Jesus was fully capable of turning stones into bread as his tempter commanded him to, but rather than succumbing to temptation, Jesus quoted and acted on a short section from the book of Deuteronomy: “... man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
Jesus performed many food-related miracles while on Earth: changing water into wine and turning a small snack into a feast for 5000+ people just to name a few. He could have easily turned that stone into bread, but Christ took comfort in being in the presence of the Lord and following his commandments. He knew that what the Lord had in store for him was better and more beneficial than anything that humankind can dream up.
Present circumstances are inconvenient to say the least, but now more than ever, we as the Church have been called to give up our temptations and idolatries and trust the Lord as Christ did in the desert. We must remember that God’s plans are far and away better than anything we have in mind.
To paraphrase the book of Deuteronomy: “... man does not live on sports or Starbucks or boutique reverb pedals that would totally sound perfect with my Fender Telecaster alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
To catch our Lent verse of the week, follow @fccbrea on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter:
-Travis Morrill
Communications and Facilities Administrator at Friends Community Church