The Forty Days of Lent

I observed earlier that the season of Lent was forty days in duration.  This stretch of time excludes Sundays.  I’ll say more about that later.  But I want to say a thing or two about the time that the church assigns to Lent.

In its very early days the church devoted only Holy Week to the anticipation of Easter.  Over time the period came to be two weeks, then a month, and finally the church settled on the current duration.

There are a lot of connections to the number forty in the Bible.  God cleansed the earth with a flood that lasted forty days.  Israel wandered in the wilderness forty years in the period of the Exodus.  Moses was on Sinai forty days receiving The Law from God.  David reigned as King for forty years, as did Solomon.  Elijah fasted in the wilderness over a span of forty days.   Jesus’ fast and temptation took place over forty days.  The resurrected Christ appeared to his disciples in a forty-day span prior to The Ascension.  Finally, the Crucified Christ was in his tomb for forty hours.  It should not surprise us, then, that forty days became the duration of Lent.

When the number forty appears in scripture, there is also a sense of fulfillment.  Forty hours or forty days or forty years is “enough” time for the activity at hand.  Forty is sufficient.  It has a connotation of having contained all the time that was necessary to accomplish a given end.

Finally, forty days is roughly one-tenth of a year.  It is a tithe and therefore an appropriate time dedicated as a gift to God.

Yesterday the church began this cycle again.  I pray that we all find our sense of completeness over these forty days.