Children’s Book Review: "Dive Deep! 40 Days with God at Sea" from Pauline Books and Media
The Gospel of Matthew tells us that, right after His baptism, "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert." During the 40 days Jesus spends there, He will be tempted by the devil three times, over three different things.
But have you ever wondered why Jesus went into the desert? After all, if he wanted to be alone to pray, he could have gone back home. Mary would have given Him all the time and space he wanted. Or He might have visited John the Baptist and his family, who would have taken care of Him and made sure He wasn't disturbed. But Jesus goes into the desert, into a wild, solitary place.
No doubt part of the reason Jesus spends 40 days in the desert is to make up or redo the 40 years that the Israelites wandered there. Like them, he will also be tested and tempted. But He will succeed where they failed. He will not be moved to sin, and he will leave the desert prepared for His ministry, having shown His obedience to His Father.
But at Mass this past weekend, our pastor gave us another reason as well, another possible explanation as to why Jesus chose the desert.
During his homily, Father said something like, "You know, I hear often from different parishioners about how tired they are and how they want to get away from it all. They tell me they can't wait to go on vacation. But when they get a chance to go away for a while, where do they go? They go to Cancun, or they go to Disneyworld or on a 10-day cruise. Then they come back and say they need a vacation from their vacation."
"The problem is," he continued "that when we have a chance to go away, we usually fill that free time with doing more stuff. We just distract ourselves. We don't actually do the work that we need to do so that we really feel refreshed. So, we never really lay down all the extra baggage we're carrying around. "
We don't go into the desert, into those wild places within, and confront our devils. We don't look our temptations squarely in the face and say "No. I will serve the Lord."
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert.
But Jesus, despite being divine and the incarnate God, did go into the desert. He went to a place where He was uncomfortable, where life is hard. He "fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards He was hungry." (Mt 4:2) Like the Bare Branches Cross pictured above, Jesus goes to a place where there is nothing to distract Him from facing the devil and the temptations.
Lent gives us the opportunity to go to the hard places and face what we need to let go of. It gives us a chance to see the truth of our lives. This Lent, let's pray for the grace to follow Jesus' example, and join him out there, in the wild places.
Let us pray: Holy Trinity, we pray that we will respond to the promptings of the Spirit, that we will allow ourselves to be led into the desert. We pray for the strength to see our own temptations and to overcome them, leaving these 40 days of Lent being ready to do the mission You have given us. And in all things, let us praise you. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.