AFTER FORTY June 21, 2020

The Word today in the gospel of Matthew chapter 4 tells us of what many Bible scholars say, what happens after forty.  We read that after His baptism by John, Jesus Christ went to the wilderness and did a forty day fast, then successfully defeated the temptations of the devil, after which, He started His ministry on earth.

The Bible scholars say that forty is a significant number in the Bible.  It has its roots in Judaism, which often uses the number forty—forty days, forty years—as distinct epochs or determining periods by which people and cultures are changed.  In Noah’s time, the Bible says rain fell for forty days and forty nights, destroying everything on earth, and causing new life to be born.  Moses sent spies to explore Canaan for forty days, with those at home who did not believe for victory in GOD’s order on them for conquest, punished for forty years wandering in the wilderness, the time it takes for a new generation to arise.  In Leviticus 12, we read that a woman who has given birth to a son is given a total of 40 days to be isolated, and for a daughter, to be isolated for 80 days (I believe not for discrimination as unclean or dirty or unworthy on the role of women in society, but for what we now know today as a maternity leave to nurse the baby in its early days of life, presuming that boys are born stronger physically, while girls need more tender loving care, while the mother recuperates to regain the strength she has spent at childbirth).  Several Hebrew kings and leaders are said to have ruled for forty years, considered as one generation.  Moses himself was written as having spent forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai, when he received the two tablets of the Ten Commandments.  And when Jesus died and resurrected, Acts 1:3 counts forty days after His resurrection when He ascended to heaven.

As for myself, the reason I was a late wanderer/traveller was because during adolescence, I promised to myself and made it my life goal to only do so after I turn forty, which means that for the first forty years of my life, I spent at school, earning a degree, then earning a living, and trying to establish who I am and what I can do here on earth.  Sadly, the wandering days only lasted for a couple of years, and then this pandemic struck.  It’s quite ominous since some people say this year 2020, when they summed it, 20+20 = 40.  There is something to be said here.

Since I am raised by traditional parents, I ascribe wisdom to the elders in holding on to the belief that with the pandemic we are experiencing now, the right period for quarantines and lockdowns is, sadly, a minimum of 40 days—for the disease to properly manifest itself whether positive or not, on a person or a community suspected to be so.  It is difficult economically, but we are seeing now how many communities who reopened early, have seen what they call a second wave.  I don’t believe it is a second wave though, for I think we are on a plateau and like it or not, we are going to live with this pandemic for as long as it takes its rightful toll on us, and for as long as it takes to make us change our ways, change our minds, and change our hearts.  A vaccine within 18 months? Hmmm… I hate to be extremely kill joy and spoil sport, but I am setting my sights on the most effective being in mid-2024, or after 40 months probably.

What do we do in the meantime? Do we just succumb, and gladly accept whatever fate happens to us?  I say no, because we are given this time to take a hard look upon ourselves and form the necessary new life habits and lifestyles.  Many are just scared of getting sick and being in prison that is why we are so compliant with the lockdowns and quarantines, but with the easing up, we go back to our true nature—impatience, a sense of entitlement, road rage, and greed, with many in other countries itching out to do their protests and rallies, which reasons may indeed be justified, but the circumstances and time during which we air those grievances may not be feasible.  When anybody does get diagnosed as positive, we go back to our primal instinct—we think it’s survival of the fittest, we ostracize and drive them away in the hopes of preserving only ourselves.  We get paranoid with people we do not know, people we have only recently seen, and instead of assisting and supporting them to make sure they do not get sick or if they are, that they should get healed and be reintegrated back to society, we blame the failures in testing, the lack of equipment, the lack of funds, we blame government officials, we attack and engage in conflicts just trying to pass them around.  But we are all humans, and we should all act as one, and try to think more reasonably and act more decently.

Maybe too, this is the time for what society calls the lost generation—Generation X, people who are now in their forties (early and late)—to rise and up and take the challenge.  Let us not be lost anymore, but let us take the helm of governing our societies.  We see that the political, economic and social systems our elders adopted before were ineffective in the face of a deadly, unseen enemy.  And we see how their greed and desire for power have caused casualties to pile up.  Maybe it’s time we wield whatever influence we have—financially, administratively, socially (whether in our physical communities and even in social media)—to influence and change how things are being run now, and ensure that we who have spent the first forty years of our life making up who we are, will now help make our world into the kind we can properly leave the next generation to.