40

Why 40 days for Lent? 40 is a familiar number in the Scriptures. Moses was up on the mountain with no food or drink for 40 days and nights; the flood was of 40 days duration; the children of Israel were 40 years in the wilderness; Jesus' fast was 40 days and 40 nights. It seems to be a sacred span of time. A generation of human life in the Scriptures seems to be 40 years. Perhaps that is the meaning. Lent does indeed remind us that we are dust and to dust we shall return and so the human life is a brief stay. How shall we seize the opportunity of this season to alert one another of the importance of using this brief sojourn to prepare for that which is across the Jordan, so to speak? What about some intentional conversations about mortality? How might we initiate some coffee shop sorts of dialogues along the lines of "have you given something up for Lent?"