My journey into lent begins tomorrow for 2015 and once again for me this year's lent is not about giving up things like soda or coffee, but instead about writing out a large piece of scripture each day and allowing it to stir an action in me each day - finding a very provocative way to live the Shema each day! Hoping to keep my readers here updated on what God is doing in this season.
I wrote the remainder of this post in 2011. Since this blog is new there are things that can be brought forward to it. This post however, is an important one because I am at the same place this year and have been since 2011. That's a good thing. This writing of mine definitely has gone "far beyond a 40 day challenge."
Over the past few weeks, I have been struck by Isaiah 58. As I began to think of what it is this year I might do different for Lent, I've struggled. I'm not one to give up on food because I always fail and it ends up being warped into a diet of sorts. Giving up on TV or even Facebook are both reasonable and great things. I just don't feel called to do that.
Lent is supposed to be about identifying with Christ sacrifice. There's much more to it, but essentially that's what I want to learn from Lent. I want to draw closer to the God of the Universe and I want to be like John the baptist and say "He must become greater; I must become less." Lent must be a death to a part of me, giving life to something else in exchange. Read Isaiah 58 with me.
"Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them."
'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'
"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?"
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Hear I am.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like noonday.
The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strength your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with dwellings."
Lenten Fast this year, for me, can't be about what food I give up or what sacrifice I make that might make me uncomfortable for 40 days...it has to be about laying my life down for the sake of others in the name of love and far beyond a 40 day challenge.
Lent must be a certain death to some part of me, if not all, so that I might give life to someone else in exchange.
Is there any deeper way to identify with Christ? Is this not what His fast is all about?
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