Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the First Sunday in Lent

It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him. (Mk 1:9–13)

Because all that Christ did and suffered was for our teaching, He began after His baptism to dwell in the wilderness, and fought against the devil, that every baptized person might patiently sustain greater temptations after His baptism, nor be troubled, as if this which happened to Him was contrary to His expectation, but might bear up against all things, and come off conqueror. And the reason why He does not simply say that He went into the wilderness, but was driven, is that you may understand that it was done according to the word of Divine Providence. By which also He shows that no man should thrust himself into temptation, but that those who from some other state are as it were driven into temptation, remain conquerors.

John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 13

But He retires into the desert that He may teach us that, leaving the allurements of the world, and the company of the wicked, we should in all things obey the Divine commands. He is left alone and tempted by the devil, that He might teach us, “that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution;” from which it follows, “And He was in the wilderness forty days and forty nights, and was tempted of Satan.” But He was tempted forty days and forty nights that He might show us that as long as we live here and serve God, whether prosperity smile upon us, which is meant by the day, or adversity smite us, which agrees with the figure of night, at all times our adversary is at hand, who ceases not to trouble our way by temptations. For “the forty days and forty nights” imply the whole time of this world, for the globe in which we are serving God is divided into four quarters. There follows, “and He was with the wild beasts.”

Consider also that Christ dwells among the wild beasts as man, but, as God, uses the ministry of Angels. Thus, when in the solitude of a holy life we bear with unpolluted mind the bestial manners of men, we merit to have the ministry of Angels, by whom, when freed from the body, we shall be transferred to everlasting happiness.

Venerable Bede, On Mark 1.5