The Season of Lent
By Liaf
It’s that time of the year again. We look forward to Easter and spring preceded by the Lenten season. This season started off as "Fat Tuesday", Mardi Gras, or "Doughnut Day" or whatever one wants to call it depending on their upbringing. After a week of wild whatever (I’ll let that to the reader’s imagination, beads and all), the solemn part of Lenten season began as "Ash Wednesday". We are taught that this season represents the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, and it is thus a suitable time for reflection and preparation for Easter. For those who know me, I tend to humorously blast traditions, especially this one that has its roots in paganism. However, I do not want to focus on the pagan aspect of this tradition, but the 40 days that Jesus was in the wilderness. Let’s look to the Bible and understand.
I want to point out three things that indicate to me what time of the year Jesus really spent in the wilderness. Of course skeptics will explain away each and every point I will make in spite of the fact that there is not a stitch of evidence to support their view that the 40 days took place in February or March.
Let’s turn to Mark 1:11-13: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased [this is at Jesus’ baptism] . And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; ………… There are two things in these verses I want to point out. First of all, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness immediately after his baptism. Whereas Matthew’s gospel says "then", and Luke’s gospel has him going into the wilderness after he returned from the Jordan, Mark’s gospel shows there was no time wasted. Either way, I personally do not believe there was any great amount of time between his baptism and his going into the wilderness. The second thing I want to throw in is that the number 40 in scripture always represented testing. That’s just an extra I threw in for now. "What’s the point?" you may be asking. If we can pin point the time of the year of the baptism, we can get a general idea when our "Lent" should really be.
Here is the first thing I want to point out. Turn to Luke 3:23. And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age… No. I do not believe he was "about" thirty years of age, if by that we mean an age too far from thirty. If he was, how old do you suppose he was? 28? 31? 32? 27 ¾? Are those ages "about" 30? The Bible says that the age at the beginning of service was thirty (Numbers 4:23). The word "about" is not quantitative. Do not let that upset you. 30 years and one day old is also "about" 30 years old. Therefore, we must look to other scripture to shed light on the matter. After all, no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation (II Peter 1:20). Now let’s turn to Luke 4:24-25. God made it that you hardly have to turn the page of your Bible to get a clue. This next passage tells (what I believe) is the length of time of Jesus’ formal ministry with his own people (after being baptized). And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land… This historical event regarding Elijah that Jesus was referring to foreshadowed of a time when a similar famine would strike the land. What famine was this? This was a famine where people would not hear the Word of the Lord. No prophet was accepted in his own country. There once was a literal famine that lasted three and one half years, and now Jesus was indicating a new kind of famine would occur during the length of his ministry. This makes sense. In the end times, the two witnesses (who were seen at Jesus’ transfiguration) will also testify for three and one half years making the total testimony in the land of seven years, the perfect number. Now let’s do some simple arithmetic. If Jesus was crucified at Passover (in the early spring), and he had a ministry for three and one half years, when would he have started? This would bring one to about early autumn. Looking back even further, if he was thirty years of age when he started his ministry, one can see that Jesus was born in the autumn as well.
My second point considers the timing of Jesus’ birth. If we turn to Luke 1:5, we read about the priest named Zacharias who was of the priestly course of Abijah. Most of the time, people hear passages such as this being read and yawn while missing a very important point. Perhaps they even think that such words are thrown into the scriptures to make it sound more "scriptury" but otherwise have no value. God does not have anything in his Word without a good reason. The reference to the course of Abijah is found in I Chronicles 24:10. King David divided the service of the priests into weekly courses in rotation. There were 24 in all, and Abijah was the eighth. This gives one a clue. Historical records (from Josephus the famous Jewish historian) and also from the possibility of certain timing patterns which I will not elaborate on here, this course during this time in history would have taken place about Pentecost (early June). The vision that Zacharias had (that resulted in his becoming dumb for a season) was the annunciation of the future birth of his son by his wife Elisabeth. This son would be John the Baptist. In spite of supernatural occurrences, babies still took nine months to form, and from this we can see that John was born around March (or maybe early spring). In verse 26, the Bible says, And in the sixth month [i.e. of Elisabeth’s pregnancy] the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph ….. The Bible goes on from this point with the familiar story of Mary’s conception by the Holy Spirit. This is the passage that shows that Jesus and John the Baptist were 6 months apart. If Jesus was born 6 months later than John, that would come to about early autumn. If we work our way forward to Luke 3:23, and Jesus began his ministry at 30 years of age, again we see that this would have been in the autumn and hence the timeframe that he began his ministry.
The third and last point I want to bring out is not directly related to scripture, but the stone monument that scripture testified to. See my message about the Great Pyramid. There is a geometrical right triangle formed in the area of the ascending passage, the horizontal passage to the "Queens chamber" and the "well shaft". This triangle’s long leg has the dimensions involving the number 30, and a hypotenuse of about 33.5 pyramid inches. This triangle (and thus named the "Christ triangle") is replete with the numbers 30, 3½, and 33 ½. Again, the indication is that Jesus was born in the autumn, was baptized in the autumn, and had a 3½ year ministry that ended in his crucifixion in the spring when he was 33 ½ years old. By the way, according to the Great Pyramid’s chronological dating, the end of that 33 ½ inch triangle works out to spring of 33 AD, so the starting point agrees with the scriptural interpretations I gave thus far.
Actually, since Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days after his baptism, that could push "Lent" as late as November, but probably not much later than that. In addition, Luke 3:23 seems to be woven with the thought of Luke 3:22 regarding his baptism rather than Luke 4:14-15. The Pyramid dating gives the date of the baptism as October 29 AD making "Lent" from about mid-October to late November. In all cases, evidence seems to strongly indicate the autumn.
When do we celebrate Lent now? Around February-March as opposed to October-November. Almost 180 degrees out of sync here. I think the point I am making in this entire message is that upon knowing the truth of God’s Word, we should not beat ourselves up over traditions of men because we forgot to give something up or do not have the will-power (as noble as the effort really is). Instead of self-improvement, we can only be "improved" by looking to Christ, the ultimate focus that ends the season. Only when we die to ourselves (our Adam nature) by identifying with Christ’s death, can we be raised again through his resurrection as a new creation (man).