Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days

Claudia Hernaman, 1873

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, and since our word this week is ash, of course I’m choosing one of the strongest of Lenten hymns for our Hymn of the Week, “Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days.” Before I come to that, you may well ask, “What’s the origin of our word for the season — Lent?” In French, the season is called Carême, which apparently is the name of a new television show about a master chef and sometime spy by that name. But their word for it comes from Latin quadrigesima, or fortieth. You can see it more clearly in Italian, Quaresima. In German, it’s Fastenzeit, or Fast-time. But English Lent comes from Old English lencten, meaning — spring-days! It’s because the days are lengthening. We’ve got the only European language in which a word for this season of the year ended up being the word for the 40 days before Easter. Or rather the 46 days before Easter, since the six Sundays don’t count toward the fast — Sunday is always a feast-day, no matter what.

Why forty? It is because Jesus fasted in the desert for forty days and nights before he began his public ministry, and there he was put to the test by Satan. John Milton thought this encounter so significant, he devoted a short epic to it alone, Paradise Regained. Think of that: Milton saw that if we understand that temptation in the desert, wherein food, worldly power, and glory are offered to Jesus on the devil’s terms, and Jesus rejects them, we will see that same Jesus who says to the Father, when he prays on that dread night in the garden, “Not my will but thine be done.” What we lost by the disobedience of one man, we gain by the obedience of the greater man: the first Adam breaks faith with God, striving to become like God by his own deeds and not by God’s free gift; the second Adam, who is the Son of God, takes upon himself our flesh and all its infirmities, hunger and thirst, weariness and natural aversion to pain, and humbles himself, opening our way to a Paradise infinitely greater than the one that Adam lost.

Now someone may ask, “Why did Jesus fast for forty days and nights?” It was no whim. The rain that drowned the world in the days of Noah fell for forty days and nights. Moses went up Mount Sinai for forty days and nights without food or drink, and he came down from the mountain with the Law, fire-written on the stone tablets. Jesus, in doing what he did, gave his disciples-to-be an unmistakeable sign. He does not bring the New Law, in stone. He is himself the New Law, which is to be written on the human heart. That’s why he says, “You have heard it said to men of old,” and then he cites the Law of Moses, but he follows it with what is higher and holier and apparently impossible for us sinners to attain — it is impossible, without grace. And he says, “But I say to you,” showing us that, unlike Moses, he need not be a spokesman for God. He, the Son, speaks on his own authority.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been any good at fasting. I wish I were. If Jesus asked you at the time to accompany him into the mountains, would you have gone? We’ll all say, “Yes, sure!” But our habits say otherwise. Which is easier to fast from, snacks between meals, or pride? Meat on Friday, or self-promotion on Thursday? The author of our hymn this week, Claudia Hernaman, brings to mind that more difficult fast in the context of the easier one — though we don’t find the easier one easy at all, do we? Perhaps body and soul are more intricately interwoven than we usually like to think. Fasting, then, or any Lenten discipline, ought to be defined as a power, as “exercise,” to use Milton’s word, as of somebody training to be in trim for battle. It’s interesting, too, to consider that Mrs. Hernaman, married to an Anglican minister, devoted most of her many publications to the religious education of children. Hard to think of children and Lent at the same time, isn’t it? Small children of course aren’t supposed to fast, and what great sins do they have to confess?

But here I’ll let Mrs. Hernaman speak for herself, from the preface to a book of hymns and devotions she wrote for children, under the initials “C. F. H.”: “It is hardly necessary to say that ‘The Child’s Book of Praise’ is designed for both sexes, in every class of life, who by Holy Baptism, have been made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven — “called to be Saints” — and bound to walk, day by day, with faithful and loving perseverance, in the Cross-marked Footprints of the King of the Saints. It must be still less necessary to add how very far the writer of the book has failed to reach her own aim. For, this is the feeling which, if not uppermost in her mind, is only second to the earnest hope that her failings will be kindly interpreted, and her humble endeavors may be turned to the Glory of God, and the Salvation of Souls.”

You see, to walk with Jesus is to walk in those “Cross-marked Footprints,” and that’s for everyone. They shine with glory.

Debra has noted lately that Youtube no longer is providing old recordings of the beautiful traditional hymns that we like to share at Word & Song. Here, however, is a very fine organ arrangement (with soft congregational singing) of a wonderful hymn. Our son will be playing this hymn at the organ this week.

Lord, who throughout these forty days
for us didst fast and pray,
teach us with Thee to mourn our sins
and close by Thee to stay.

As Thou with Satan didst contend,
and didst the victory win,
O give us strength in Thee to fight,
in Thee to conquer sin.

As Thou didst hunger bear and thirst,
so teach us, gracious Lord,
to die to self, and chiefly live
by Thy most holy word.

And through these days of penitence,
and through Thy passiontide,
yea, evermore in life and death,
Jesus, with us abide.

Abide with us, that so, this life
of suffering overpast,
an Easter of unending joy
we may attain at last!

Word & Song bthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymns, poems, films, and popular songs, as well as a Friday podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. To support this project, please join us as a subscriber and please do share our posts.