“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry.”
Matthew 4:1-2
Forty days sounds like a culmination, like the end of something, but at the end of forty days and forty nights, Jesus was hungry.
We are in our wilderness days now: Lent.
At the end of forty days we’ll approach the Resurrection. It’s a celebration, the highest of all Feast Days, but maybe we’ll still be hungry. Maybe forty days isn’t meant to be the end of something, but the beginning of a yearning for more.
The world’s religious traditions offer some surprising consistency in their interest and emphasis on certain numbers, 40 being one of them.
40.
Rain fell for "forty days and forty nights" during the Flood (Genesis 7:4).
The Hebrew people lived in the lands outside of the promised land for "forty years". (Numbers 32:13).
Several early Hebrew leaders and kings are said to have ruled for "forty years", that is, a generation: Eli (1 Samuel 4:18), Saul (Acts 13:21), David (2 Samuel 5:4), and Solomon (1 Kings 11:42).
Goliath challenged the Israelites twice a day for forty days before David defeated him (1 Samuel 17:16).
Moses spent three consecutive periods of "forty days and forty nights" on Mount Sinai.
40.
In Eastern Orthodox traditions, the dead wander the earth for forty days. They linger in this world, not quite at peace. After forty days, the soul finds its eternal resting place. Forty days for the family to mourn in private, and then on the fortieth day, finally, a funeral.
40.
In Hinduism, many religious prayers consist of forty shlokas or dohas [couplets, stanzas].
In Islam, Muhammad was forty years old when he received a revelation from the archangel Gabriel.
6th century Celtic Christians celebrated “three Lents:” forty days of fasting before Advent, before Easter, and before the Feast of the Transfiguration.
I began thinking about “40” partially of course because we are in the liturgical season of Lent, but also because I recently reached the infamous 6-week postpartum mark. Six weeks is forty-two days - awfully close to forty. This is usually the time you go see the doctor and they tell you life is back to normal!
Of course, most women don’t feel normal six weeks postpartum. Many are still physically healing from birth, leaking milk, sleep-deprived, adjusting to the ever-changing needs of a demanding newborn. And then I thought of that line - “he fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry.”
Forty days is the end of something, certainly, but if there is still a gnawing ache or unsteadiness, this shouldn’t be surprising.
Nevertheless, the repetition of this number, must mean something. As I researched, it turns out forty is an especially relevant number when it comes to postpartum women.
I learned about the Orthodox tradition of “churching” (keeping mother and child from the sacraments for forty days and then inviting them back with a special ritual and blessing). This practice is based on the ancient Jewish rite of purification. We see Mary and Joseph take the baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth to complete Mary's ritual purification after childbirth in obedience to the Law of Moses, Leviticus 12, Exodus 13:12-15 (recorded in Luke 2:22-40).
And even today, in the Middle East, resting forty days after having a baby is customary in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine. During this period, someone comes to the house or stays with the new mother to take care of the baby, the house and the other children, so that all new mothers have to do is rest. Similarly, in Latin American tradition, cuarentena refers to the first forty days after giving birth. It literally translates to “quarantine,” and it's a time for new mothers to rest, recover, start breastfeeding, and bond with their baby.
With the customary 6-week appointment, modern medicine seems to agree with the traditions that say it takes forty days after birth for a woman to regain her equilibrium and be ready to rejoin her larger community.
I’m thinking there is something to this 40-day rule.
In my experience, forty days is about the amount of time I need after having a baby to start to glimpse life beyond the newborn haze. It is the time when I start craving structure again, start daydreaming about new work and new plans. Having had relatively uncomplicated births, it is also when I start to feel physically stronger. I’m ready to go on hikes, get on a horse, etc. (whether I can actually do those things with a koala-like newborn on me remains to be seen… But I feel ready!)
(right around forty days postpartum is actually when I started this substack… Probably not a coincidence!)
And still I linger on that one line, “and afterward he was hungry.” When I think of Lent - the goals I tend to make, the way I use it as a sort of New Years 2.0 - I think of all I will have gained during those forty days. I think how much better I’ll be with my time (forty days off Instagram - that has to do something!), how I’ll have better control when it comes to food (breast-feeding cravings are no joke), and how I’ll be a much better Catholic having prayed so much more consistently.
Yet every Easter I feel a little empty.
I’m feasting and I’m still hungry.
Similarly, though I'm 6+ weeks postpartum and craving structure and normalcy I'm forced to realize life simply isn't back to normal. In some cruel irony six weeks is also a time of peak fussiness and cluster feeding for many babies. So even as my Notes app fills with lofty goals and creative plans, I often find myself numb and exhausted, white noise blaring in a dark room as I try to settle a screaming baby during witching hour.
I now realize maybe I’m thinking of these forty days all wrong. If I feel empty at the end of Lent maybe it’s because I’ve realized just how poor a substitute earthly food is for the spiritual longings of my soul.
If forty days postpartum my life is looking anything but 'purified' maybe it's because this is a purification by fire, a necessary and sanctifying purgatory.
The wisdom of forty days may ultimately lie in all it cannot give us. Just because we stop fasting doesn't mean we aren't still hungry. Just because the doctor says we're healed doesn't mean we aren't still hurting. But forty days is long enough for us to feel the lack - to mourn, adjust, take stock.
It is also short enough for us to remember nothing lasts forever and that while Lent occurs every year, so does Easter. As Wendell Berry wrote, the greatest liberation is in paradox:
“Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.”
Wendell Berry, “Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front”