Fasting in the Desert

...my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land   where there is no water-Psalm 63:1

-Dr Rosemary Varghese

The Lenten practice of fasting has all but lost its currency in the present times, and even the Catholic Church has stipulated only two days, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, as days of fasting and abstinence. And yet we know we cannot dismiss it lightly, considering that Jesus began His public ministry after fasting for 40 days in the desert. We too, are on a 40-day Lenten journey, and , as we approach the final weeks of Lent, it may be useful for us to look closer at the Lord’s desert experience and how it speaks to us today.

Mathew 4 tells us that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for a specific purpose—to face the devil’s temptations. That this preparatory retreat before the beginning of His public ministry was to take place in a desert was not an accident. The desert is an inhospitable terrain.  In the Old Testament, the 40- year journey of Gods chosen people  to the Promised Land leaves us with many lasting images. Though the Lord provided for their basic needs, the Israelites remained dissatisfied and  turned against God. They preferred the chains of slavery that God had liberated them from, as long as their physical and material needs were met. It was a place that prompted them to turn to idol worship as described in Exodus 32 where the Israelites created the golden calf  and abandoned the Almighty God in favour of this idol.

 And yet, towering above all these evil manifestations was God’s presence which sanctified this entire journey.  By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.-Exodus 13:21-22. His punishment for their unfaithfulness was relentless, yet His mercy was also boundless. He provided them bread and meat from heaven to quell their complaints and physical stress. They were often punished for their thanklessness and disloyalty to God. But God never turned a deaf ear to Moses’s requests for reprieve on their behalf.

When we come to the New Testament, we witness another journey, this time with the Son of God leading  people out of the slavery of sin and Satan. He carried the burden of our sin and unfaithfulness, along with its punishment on the cross at Calvary. Three years prior to that was devoted to His public ministry, which  left Him with little personal time. Nevertheless He often went to the wilderness, to lonely places, to pray to His Father. Here too we notice how God the Father chooses these inhospitable landscapes to commune with His Son, as He did with Moses on Mount Sinai and in the desert.

The desert , then, is a powerful battleground that is central to our lives.  In its solitude, God’s presence and power can be most keenly felt  by those who seek Him in all His strength and glory. At the same time it is the place where the devil is most active, bringing people to his side by offering them what he offered our first parents-  attractive propositions of material comforts and power that can paralyse our spiritual senses and destroy our identity with our Creator.

When we look at Jesus and His desert experience, a similar picture of that awful battleground unfolds itself.   We can be sure that God the Father communed with Jesus in a very special way as He prepared for His public ministry and His Passion and Death on the Cross. In this deserted place, He must have felt His oneness with His Father and with the Holy Spirit who had accompanied Him there. However, it was also fertile ground for the devil, whose first point of attack was on the low hanging fruit— the physical hunger that grips a man who had fasted for 40 days. Satan’s first temptation  addressed this physical desire, but for Jesus it was no match to  “ every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”

The second temptation was an appeal to pride and power. Why not begin the public ministry with a grand entry, jumping from the highest point of the temple so that people will see the angels of heaven lifting the Son of Man in their hands? The results would be instantaneous. The whole of Israel would be awestruck by the event. They would become instant followers like we have on social media today. Never mind about being born again, or seeking Jesus for the waters of eternal life. The task would be accomplished.

Close on the heels of the second, came the third temptation , and this was a big offer—Satan’s whole empire in exchange for a moment of worship at his feet. The successful completion of Jesus’s mission was being offered to Him on a platter—no Passion, no Death on the cross, just the glory of the redemption of God’s people.  The only condition attached was that Jesus had to choose Satan’s path rather than God’s directive.  

For Jesus, that was the last straw. His prayer had been fortified by His fasting. It may have left Him physically weakened but His spiritual stature was beyond measure. St Paul describes this state of being in his famous quote from Romans 8:38-39  "I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 Satan was unconditionally banished from His sight.

The 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert contains a powerful spiritual message for our lives , and specially for the season of Lent. Our life journey is also a battleground of many similar desert experiences. Satan’s approach is subtle, offering practical and logical solutions  to many of our problems. If we are hesitant to take the easy and unethical  road forward, he dresses these up with biblical quotations and half-truths.  Our only guarantee against his attack is our trust and faith in God, whose mercy ensures us a safe passage through every hill and valley of life. Jesus taught us the path of fasting and prayer. Let us bring it back into our observance of this Lenten season, in order to stand strong and tall in God’s presence.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms-Eph 6:10-12