Lent 2023: Week 1

Here we are in lent.  The season of having multiple considerations when you are buying the PCC biscuits.  In my experience someone will undoubtably be fasting chocolate in preparation of the celebration of Easter and the chocolate egg, so chocolate free options are helpful.  What about drinks?  Consumption of fizzy drinks and caffeine takes a nose-dive in lent too, so a good host will make sure they have alternatives available for guests.

My first experience of fasting was not in lent, but as part of a monthly rhythm of worship in a community I was part of as a young adult.  We would fast food over breakfast and lunch one day a month and pray for a variety of things together through the day. 

Our preparation for these fast days was to eat as much as we could, as late as we could the night before and prep dinner for the next day.  It is amazing how hungry you feel when you miss two meals intentionally.  My focus was always on what I was missing and so my tummy rumbled constantly as a reminder of each meal or snack I was sacrificing.  The way I and my fellow fasters got through this longest day of the month was to buy the thickest milkshakes and smoothies we could find and sup them throughout the day.  They were drinks, right? So, they were ‘allowed’.  5pm on the dot was dinnertime! At last!

This is, of course, not a hero’s story of fasting!  But fasting does bring to the surface what is lying underneath for us.  If we struggle with anger, fasting will bring that to the surface. If we feel anxious or fragile, fasting brings this to the surface too. My experience of fasting showed me how wrapped up in myself I was and what I thought I needed to get through the day.  I was so focussed on what I was missing that I missed the gift of Christ that was waiting for me.

In the gospels of Matthew and Luke we have the gift of an extended account of Jesus fasting in the wilderness. For forty days, Jesus was tempted and ate nothing. The temptations of Satan attempt to draw Jesus’ attention on to himself and what he could gain or prove.  In his book ‘In the Name of Jesus’ Henri Nouwen writes a challenging reflection on the temptation of Jesus and how it shines a light on the temptation of all leaders to be relevant, spectacular and powerful. Hungry? Make these rocks bread and satisfy your own hunger and be useful and relevant by satisfying the hunger of the people around you too. Want a kingdom? Satan will give it you a spectacular one. Want to demonstrate that you have power at your fingertips? Manipulate or test the power of God to put it on display.

Nouwen examines Jesus’ response.  Bread won’t satisfy our real deep hunger, only the love of the Father can do that. The kingdom of God has a king who came ‘not to be served but to serve’ (Mark 10:45). This is what makes it spectacular, and it is he alone who we worship. Finally, real power is found not in testing or manipulating God’s power, but in being humbled to be led by the Spirit, acknowledging we are blind and weak and in need of being led by the one who sees more clearly than we do.

One thing I love about the telling of Jesus’ time of fasting in the wilderness in Luke 4 is the role of the Holy Spirit. Verse 1 tells us Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit into that time of wilderness and fasting.  Fasting is not something we do to try to earn or muster up the presence of God.  By His Spirit, God leads us into and through fasting.  The presence of God is already fully with us and within us as we fast.  Therefore, whatever and however we fast this lent, we can be confident of God’s presence.  When uncomfortable aspects of our character and how we deal with distractions and addictions come to the surface as we fast, we don’t need to pretend with God, but acknowledge the truth in His presence so we come to a place of real repentance and change.

I have been contemplating what we mean when we are invited to receive the eucharist with the words ‘feed on him [Christ] by faith and with thanksgiving’. When fasting, rather than focussing on what we are missing, becoming totally distracted by that thing, may we turn our face to Jesus and look to feed on him.  Doing that with faith means we anticipate that all we need is found in Jesus.  Loving him and thankfully choosing him with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength means that we are filled with joy that gives us strength in our hearts, minds and souls – life that is overflowing!  

Fasting, in this light, is a time of feasting on Christ.  It is a time of abundance, not lack.  It is a time of satisfaction, not starvation. This might look like not worrying about what kind of biscuits we have at our church meetings, because who cares about biscuits when we get to celebrate Jesus together!? Focussing on what we do not have leaves us miserable. Jesus robustly defends His relationship of love, reliance, service and obedience with the father and the Spirit in his time of fasting and temptation as it is challenged. Luke says he emerges ‘in the power of the Spirit’(4:14). Even in Jesus, something significant happened in that wilderness time of fasting and testing that empowered him to live faithfully, obediently and in trust in the years that followed. May we also lean into and defend our relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit in this time of fasting and watch to see the power of the Holy Spirit at work.

Fasting is a time of feasting on Christ.
It is a time of abundance, not lack;
of satisfaction, not starvation.

Published 1 March 2023