No one expected it. There was no one, to my knowledge, who believed God would become human and identify with us in our misery. That, however, is the message of Lent. God entered our world to stand with us not against us. Lent is forty days because Jesus was forty days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. This trial is a picture of his whole mission, shouldering the human condition, standing with us, not apart from us. At that time there was a community, where the Dead Sea scrolls were later found, that separated itself from the rest of the world. It saw the world as "us and them". The religious leaders who lived among the people still stood apart from the people and also thought in terms of "us and them". Jesus came and turned everything upside down. He said he came to set the world on fire. He was going to burn down all that set itself against God's true purpose. God is love, one of his disciples would later write. Another would say, Love bears a