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Writer's pictureTodd Siefker

From Pocket Fuzz to Ant Hills

I’ve often thought the word ‘Lent’ was a strange name for such an important season in the Christian church. Why would anything be named after pocket fuzz?


In Spanish it makes more sense. The word ‘Lent’ in Spanish is called ‘La cuaresma.” The word ‘cuaresma’ comes from the word ‘cuarenta’ which is the number forty in Spanish. Since Lent lasts forty days—naming it after the word ‘forty’ makes more sense, to me, than naming it after ‘pocket fuzz.’ I'm probably off here. Lent probably has some deep meaning in Greek or Hebrew.


Nevertheless, there was another ‘cuaresma’ that we often overlook—the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness. The two bookends of Jesus’ ministry could be marked by these two cuaresmas—which were incredible acts of self-imposed sacrifice for a greater cause. The reason behind the sacrifice at the cross is the central message of Christianity. But what about the other bookend of his ministry—the self-imposed 40 day sacrifice in the wilderness? It barely gets a yawn.


Maybe one of the reasons we don’t imitate Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness is because if we were to not eat for 40 days, nearly all of us would drop dead and Christianity would have some major logistical challenges with continuing to exist. This is may be the same reason we don’t imitate the crucifixion either. We had to pick and choose how we would imitate Jesus. Instead of reenacting fasts and crucifixions, we chose bread and wine, which was probably for the best.


Instead, we kind of brush that forty day fast aside. It is more interesting to focus on the high drama between Jesus and the devil. We continue to do gravitate toward drama. Look at the news cycle. It is all about drama. The news centers on who blasted who and how so and so reacted, which is what we focus on in the beginning of the fourth chapter of Luke’s account. But what about the wilderness? The literally outdoors here? Is it significant when Luke writes, “The Spirit led him into the wilderness”? Is it significant that nearly every person who has started a major religion has not only come from the wilderness but has also practiced fasting and self-deprevation? Buddha fasted outside for 49 days. Muhammad stayed in a cave high on a mountain and set aside one month of fasting for him and his followers. Jesus fasted 40 days.


Luke clearly points out that Jesus “ate nothing” for forty days. Such a feat borders on fringes of human limitations. Living without food for that long of a period could have easily resulted in death. It isn’t surprising at all that while undergoing such extreme physical stress, he encountered his demons. If one reads this as a modern who ascribes to science, it is still psychologically feasible that one would experience hallucinati