“Jesus answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.” (Matthew 9:15)
I had two tablespoons of plain oatmeal for breakfast Sunday morning and felt like I’d consumed a house. Or an entire Thanksgiving spread—a cornucopia, if I may. Or something else unapologetically large. He is risen!
Thus ended Holy Week and the curious seven days of my fast: with much genuine joy and celebration—my Lord has risen! Mourning was over! I am redeemed! But curious it was. Having never before fasted, I must have gone in with some kind of preconception about the impending holiness which would alight on me as soon as I undertook the experiment—because a few instances of meekly returning snacks to the cupboard and a few days of a rumbling tummy had me wondering what it was I really was doing and why.
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross." (Colossians 2:13-14)
Fortunately, what with so much free time on my hands (I also became super aware of how much I unconsciously snack and what a luxury that is), I had plenty of opportunity to chat with God about it. If I was free from the Law and all that distasteful equipage of rules and regulations associated with religion, free from what Paul calls the “written code”, why was I depriving myself of even plain cooked rice? My salvation is not and was never based on works—the last forty days of Lent had been a reflection on my depravity and need for God’s grace.
“Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord… For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.” (Psalm 25:6-7, 11)
It took the end of the week and the joy of Easter for me to begin to appreciate what God had been showing me. It started with me realizing I had made a commitment to Him and then kept it. I had been tempted—the words Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3 during His own temptation (Luke 4) spring to mind: “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord”—but had not sinned. Yet God does not love me more for it.
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27)
Having always been a performer accustomed to the normal (that is, worldly) order of things—reward flowing from success and punishment flowing from failure—God had seen a need to subvert my ingrained code of expectation and entitlement. What He showed me was the deep-seated, visceral joy of doing something for Him merely because I love Him and want to honor and bless Him. And God is delighted by every little way I choose Him, delighted that “[I] did what [I] could” (Mark 14:8)—that despite my smallness compared to His glory, I could offer up this: something outrageously counter-cultural and disciplined for His Name’s sake.
It isn’t that He explicitly demands worship from me; it’s that worshipping God simply because He is worthy, the only One who is worthy, is a restoration of the natural order of things. It’s His Kingdom coming amidst the broken relationships created by the Fall and coming to rest in my heart.
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:4-5)
