Text: George Hunt Smyttan ( 1822-1870) Tune: Martin Herbst (1654-1681)
1. Forty days and forty nights
You were fasting in the wild;
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted, and yet undefiled.
2. Sunbeams scorching all the day;
Chilly dew-drops nightly shed;
Prowling beasts about your way;
Stones your pillow; earth your bed.
3. Shall not we your sorrow share,
And from earthly joys abstain,
Fasting with unceasing prayer,
Glad with you to suffer pain?
4. And if Satan, vexing sore,
Flesh or spirit should assail,
Christ, his vanquisher before,
Grant we may not faint or fail.
5. So shall we have peace divine;
Holier gladness ours be due;
Round us, too, shall angels shine,
Such as ministered to you.
6. Keep, oh, keep us, Savior dear,
Ever constant at your side;
That we may with you appear
In your resurrection-tide.
REFLECTION
Here we see our Lord take on the battle with the tempter that our Mother Eve lost. After which God promises her that her seed will come one day to bruise the tempter’s head. In a way, all of Scripture is the story of God winning us back, even wooing us like a lover does his bride. For this we need a knight in shining armor! And Jesus surely is that.
If Epiphany is the story of the showing of Jesus’ divinity, Lent is the story of his humanity. Now we will watch him suffer in the flesh and show us what it is to be truly human, as he suffers all the sorrows and griefs that can be had. And the story goes from bad to worse. While this shows Jesus winning the first round rather handily, he has suffered in the process, battling for forty days while fasting.
What Jesus shows us in this major encounter on his way to the cross is that the battle with the devil is hand to hand conflict. We are tempted, not always to be evil, but to prefer lesser goods than God. It might be hard to discern in one’s commitment to a good cause or a necessary one, even, that it has become one’s god rather than Christ. The devil presents three somewhat desirable possibilities to Jesus: food created by him as his father had fed the Israelites with manna—really he isn’t saying make yourself a sandwich, but use the power you have and show you are God. Then the promise of the world and power over it, the only cost worshiping the devil for one’s own gain. There are a good many who have made that bargain, doing some evil, they think, to have the power to do good. We saw the failings of that in the Godfather movies. Macbeth and his wife make that deal: just kill Banquo and you will receive power. It just leads to one bloody affair after another. Tempting God to save you by throwing oneself down from the temple is another version of that—thinking God is in our power, rather than we in his.
Many people think that going to remote places will bring them closer to God. While that may be, the Christian tradition began with people understanding that one did battle with the devil in the desert, alone, hungry and without succor. Christian history has many a saint who goes into the wilderness to fight, from John the Baptist, Jesus, to the Desert fathers. Their retreat to the desert, led by Anthony the Great around 270, began when he heard a sermon suggesting one had to sell all and follow Jesus. The movement spread and began to create monastic communities that lad the foundation for the great monastic movement that dominated the Dark and Middle Ages.
The Grand Inquisitor of Dostoyevsky investigates this tale more deeply than anyone. He prosecuted Jesus-who has returned to earth-for not obeying Satan. If he had fed men they would have followed him and done good. If he had been saved by the angels, people would have believed in him as God, or if he had ruled over all, he would have brought peace to the world. The ultimate conclusion is that Christ chose not to for our freedom. There is more, but read it for yourselves, it is one of the great pieces of literature in the
world.
Ultimately, we see here, Jesus beginning to restore the world after the fall which he will do through his temptation in the garden, his death on the cross, and resurrection and ascension. We go through the terrible suffering of Jesus and see how deeply he understands both us and his calling to free us. The way to the cross is also to show us the depths to which human beings in the grip of evil can do to one another, even their God. It makes us understand and rejoice more fully in the victory at Easter! “Keep, oh, keep us, Savior dear,/Ever constant at your side;/That we may with you appear/In your resurrection-tide.”
HYMN INFO
This hymn has not been so well known as a couple of others on Jesus’ battle with evil but its use has increased in recent hymnals. Written by an Englishman, Smyttan, it tells more of the story of the temptation of Jesus than most well known hymns. Smyttan is not very well known. He took holy orders after his schooling at Corpus Christi College at Cambridge. He served as Rector of Hawksworth, Notts. He published some poetry before his death, but there are conflicting tales on his death in 1870. He is known for several hymns, but this has become his most well-known. The tune by Martin Herbst, a German pastor, was first associated with Aus der Tiefe
LINKS
Orchard Enterprises
Chet Valley singers
Richard McVeigh
Hymn Channel