The time of trial

Thursday, July 27th, 2017

When I was a child I wondered how the ark with Noah and all those animals, could store enough food for forty days.

Then there were the Israelites who spent forty years in the wilderness. Wouldn’t most of them be dead by the time the tribe got to the promised land?

And how did Jesus do without food for forty days in the desert?

It was a while before I learned about gematria, the connection between the Hebrew alphabet and numerology, and how certain numbers describe a connection with God.

Seven is the spiritual number, nine is the number of completion, and forty is the time of trial.

We are not meant to put literal interpretation on forty days or forty years but to understand it as a serious time of change which usually involves the letting go of one story to begin another bigger story.

The bigger story for Jesus was the beginning of his ministry.

His time of trial was something we all have to experience – the temptations of the ego. Three times he realised he could use his power for himself, and three times he rejected that.

We can assume that those temptations probably popped up again, but nowhere in the gospels do we see Jesus using his power for self-aggrandisement.

He was true to the bigger story that was written for him.

What of the Israelites long journey from Egypt?

Apparently, the Exodus was nothing like the Hollywood film.

Historically, people left Egypt in small groups at different times, while some stayed.

The massive significance of Exodus, is its spiritual meaning and this is how it is celebrated.

At a certain stage of life, we leave our personal Egypt with its slavery to materialistic living and superficial values, and we go out into the desert to search for the promised land of spiritual freedom.

And the parting of the Red Sea?

This tells us that God makes the impossible possible. A path will be cleared before us, and the old values that pursue us will disappear.

The 40 years of wandering may be days, weeks, months.

It is the time of trial, a time of movement and of seeking.

The pillar of cloud by day and fire by night are metaphors for the presence of God always with us. The manna represents the way we are fed on our pilgrimage. It will be spiritual food falling in words and events that are sacrament in the way they affect us.

If we look back at times of spiritual growth in our lives, we may see a pattern, one story closing down, a time of trial, and then a new bigger story beginning.

Jesus’ final time of trial lasted three days.

His new story was of cosmic significance. It means that in all our times of trial, he is guiding us, feeding us with the manna of his love.

It is the extent of his love that brings us home to the promised land of our hearts.