To Seek From Him
Week 1: Lenten Fast 2024
Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.
Ezra 8:21-23
Pray
From Fasting to Feasting
In our humanity, Lord, we turn to our own power. We rely on ourselves because of an evil, unbelieving spirit. We look to our own strength that fails and our own hands that are emptied. We find there is no power in us to do anything without your spirit in us. Lord, when we are tempted in the wilderness, draw us away from the deceitful enemy of self-sufficiency, and draw us into the sufficiency of Christ. All we have we have been given — grace poured out according to the measure of Christ. Your strength and your hand are good and can do all things. Have mercy on us.
Lord, work on our behalf, that in our dependence upon you we desire above all things to feast on your word and live in abundance to your glory in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Power and Provision
The Christian life is a life of fasting.
According to John Calvin in his book Institutes of the Christian Religion,
“the life of the godly indeed ought to be tempered with frugality and sobriety, so that as far as possible it bears some resemblance to a fast.”
A regimen of fasting can have material benefits. That means, it’s good for the physical self to help eliminate toxins and catalyze proper function in the body.
But the fast that concerns us here is one of religious health rather than physical health.
People might “give up” chocolate or alcohol for lent. Or people might give up things such as watching TV or using social media.
But this temporary giving up of non-essential consumption is not the sort of fasting we see in the Bible.
Biblical fasting eliminates one essential thing to put greater focus on a different essential thing. A fast is temporary deprivation that brings a return of abundance.
In other words, we give up a necessary thing for a short time and then take it back up again in greater fullness than before.
It sounds a lot like Jesus’s teaching in the Gospel of John — when Jesus teaches that his life is his to give up (literally “lay down”) and then to take back up again.
Jesus teaches that his followers will also give up their lives, dying to sin and living to righteousness.
Because of God’s promise and our savior’s death and resurrection, our fasting in this life will turn to feasting in the life to come.
Nevertheless, if the eternal reward is certain, it begs the question: why must we fast?
When Jesus taught about fasting, he assumed his followers fasted according to customs practiced by all people, Jews and gentiles alike. He never commanded they should stop the practice out of obedience to him.
Furthermore, Jesus himself fasted for 40 days.
During that time, Jesus learned something about the humanity he took on: namely, he was hungry.
Jesus also taught something about the humanity he took on:
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”
Luke 4:3-4
Well, if not bread and food alone, what else is there?
The dialogue between Jesus and the devil according to St. Matthew tells us that the what else is “every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Of course, with these words and these 40 days, Jesus points us back to the words of Moses and Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness.
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 8:3
How did God choose to teach Israel to depend on him?
He humbled them and let them hunger. Yet he sustained them.
He did this not as a punishment or payment but as blessing. For humility and hunger bring us to a keen awareness of our dependence on God’s power and provision.
Proclaim Christ exalted.
Let us fast from all food together from 12 noon today until 12 noon tomorrow. Please feel free to define your own parameters for joining in this fast, e.g. times, days, and dietary needs, as we seek to draw near to the Lord during a season of penitent prayer.
