He Fasted For Our Sake
THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
"THEN was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an-hungered."
Ash Wednesday not only marks the Christian with an outward sign of repentance and a call to conversion but also marks the beginning of the Lenten fast. Wilderness and desert imagery serves as a helpful metaphor or picture for these forty days. We use language such as "journeying into the wilderness," evoking the memory of Israel's forty-year journey through the desert. And this is a beneficial association, one which St. Paul wants the church to be attentive too.
He begins the tenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, writing "For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness... Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come."
His intention: to keep us from faltering in the wilderness as Israel did by succumbing to temptation. You see, they failed to believe in the God of their redemption and strove by their own strength to survive in the desert by "bread alone" (bread, by the way, which God rained from heaven). In the wilderness, they disregarded the Lord's promises and commands and fell into idolatry. They did not rely nor feed upon the Words of God.
Though the negative example of Israel is given for instruction, the church, since the beginning, has not associated the Lenten fast with Israel. Instead, it has always placed the season of Lent within the fasting of our Lord Jesus Christ, the True Israel, who for forty-days, did not live by "bread alone, but by the very word of God." Jesus, who was tempted in the flesh, as human as you or me, battled temptation and was found the victor.
The Lenten Fast is, in a very real way, our participation in the fasting of Christ. You see, we are joining Christ in his wilderness journey. Scripture calls us to be imitators of Christ, to imitate him in every aspect of our being, in love, in patience, in grace, and in mercy. And, we are to imitate him in his fasting, for there is great benefit in walking the Lenten road of bareness with our Lord. The Fathers of the Church, from the earliest times, saw this great benefit, and they lovingly shepherded God's people into observing the great Lenten Fast, year after year after year.
The Antiquity of observing a holy Lenten fast is plainly seen in the writings of Chrysostom, of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and in St. Augustine Bishop of Hippo who writes in 400's, "That forty days should be observed before Easter, the custom of the Church hath confirmed." And from the Apostolic Tradition, written in the early 200's, we read, "One Fast in the year of forty days we keep at a time convenient, according to the Tradition of the Apostles."
Of course, from scripture, we see that the Lord Jesus Christ anticipates his followers keeping fasts, saying, "Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward" (Mat 6:16). And his assumption that the church will call and hold periods of fasting comes from the people of Israel, who frequently, in times of great distress or national apostasy, called corporate times of solemn fasting.
But what is the chief aim and purpose of observing the Lenten fast and practicing abstinence? Well, I can find no better answer to this question than that which was posited by Pope Leo the Great in the mid-4oo's. (By the way, there's usually an excellent reason as to why a saint is remembered as "the Great!"). Listen to what he says, "Dearly-beloved, [we keep the fast] so that we may be able to overcome all our enemies. [So] let us seek Divine aid by the observance of the heavenly bidding, knowing that we cannot otherwise prevail against our adversaries unless we prevail against our own selves." Here we find spiritual wisdom which tells us that enduring basic impulses such as hunger and thirst are the beginning to overcoming the temptations of the flesh, the world, and the devil.
And, to what end? Why should the Christian life include the work of putting sin and unholy desire to death? Because these are not only harmful to our lives, but more importantly, cause our love of God to wane, and if left unchecked, will lead us into idolatry: loving created things above our Creator who is all-worthy of loving obedience and fidelity. We run the risk of repeating the mistakes of Israel in the wilderness.
With all of this in mind, we now have a better understanding of why on this first Sunday of Lent, we are presented with our Lord's fasting in the wilderness. To this point, I'd like to draw your attention to today's Collect found on page one hundred twenty-five, a prayer which begins, "O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights." You may notice that our prayer is addressed to the Lord Jesus Christ instead of to his Father.
Now, the reason why this Collect is addressed to Jesus is the church's desire at the beginning of Lent to identify with him in his forty days and nights of fasting, and by the Father's grace, to reap the spiritual benefits of union with him. We are praying to the Lord Jesus Christ The Great Denier of Self, who did so for our sake. In fact, His birth, life, and death were one long act of self-denial: in the words of the Apostle, he "emptied Himself."
Have you ever thought of his fasting in this way? He fasted for our sake. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was "made like his brothers in every way" (Heb 2:17). He was fully God, but he was also fully human. And as a man, he faced endless temptation. Again, from Hebrews, "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15). Tempted but without sin. Unlike Israel in the desert, he withstood the trial. And unlike Adam, Jesus overcame temptation. But he did this for our sakes.
As the New Man, the Second Adam, Jesus fasted in the body by abstinence from food and drink, and in the soul, by his bearing our sins. In our Lord, there was no sin as St. Peter tells, "He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth" (1 Pt 2:22), and since fasting is the expression of penitence, humiliation, and mourning, his fasting was not for himself. And here's the point: Jesus fasted for us both in his identification with man as a sinner before God, his Father, and also as providing an example of godliness to man.
In the eighth chapter of his epistle to the Romans St. Paul writes, "if you live according to the flesh [as our natural bodily desires and affections propose] you will die, but if by the Spirit (by his presence, power, and guidance) you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
By embracing the discipline of fasting during Lent, which should be offered in love to the Lord Jesus as a service unto him, we place ourselves in the position where the Holy Spirit is able to help us mortify, or put to death, the worldly, fleshly desires of our human nature and body, and in their place follow the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Ghost, thereby enabling us to obey the teachings of Christ. And isn't this what the entirety of the spiritual life and Christian discipleship is all about? Lovingly obey the commandments of the Lord. But in all of this, Christ is our strength and our example.
Returning to our Collect. Having addressed our prayer to Jesus, we make our petition: "Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honor and glory."
We are asking for grace. Grace to use our fasting and abstinence, not as an end in itself, as if our work of fasting holds any merit in itself, but as a means of self-control as a means to more perfect obedience to the impulses of the Spirit. Not abstinence, but obedience, is the pathway to true holiness; but we need such abstinence as may make it easier to obey.
At whatever cost, we must follow and obey the motions of the Spirit; for thus alone can any high Christian character be attained, or, indeed, any Christian character at all. We fast unto obedience to fulfill the commandment to love. Is this not what we heard in the reading from Isaiah?
"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?" (Isa 58:6-7)
Friends, the aim and end of our resistance to temptation is to manifest the greater glory of God through our increasing likeness to Christ, through our union with Him in all things, and especially in His victory over temptation and constant denial of self. To die to self, that we might live towards God and love our neighbor as ourselves. If this not be the reason for our fasting, then it will not be an acceptable fast unto the Lord. Nor will our Lenten prayers and almsgiving be a pleasing offering. These will all be in vain, as ashes scattered in the desert wind.
Let us heed the Lord's words spoken to Isaiah, "When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause" (Isa 1:15-17).
Therefore, we are exhorted today to observe our Lenten fast as an offering of love unto our God. And we need grace: grace for us to use our fasting and abstinence to this high and lofty end. In baptism, we received the grace of adoption to become the children of God. Beloved, we don't have to wait for grace, for it is ours already. We have already received the grace of Divine acceptance despite past sins, and given the grace of salvation by which to conquer the power of inward sin; this and so much more have we already received in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our task is to not receive this grace in vain, for we most certainly have received it. Understand that every temptation is leveled against our position as redeemed children of God. To help us, we must remember how much we stand to lose by sin if, by sin, we should forfeit our birthright. To realize the blessedness of sonship is to value it so highly that we will do anything to retain it. For to become sons and daughters of God- realized sonship- is the conquest of evil.
As children of God, we have experienced God's grace through regeneration, and it is the means even now by which we have and will overcome any and all temptations. But still, we are encouraged to pray for more grace. Grace to face temptations from without and within. Grace to fight against the world and the devil and the inward battle against the conscience; that whispering voice of the old man who lurks within, twisting and discounting the realities of grace.
But the old man is a liar. For we are new creatures in Christ, Sinners yes, but forgiven; once alien to our Father, but now sons and daughters. Once enemies of God, now friends. We are citizens of heaven, yes still in this world, BUT with allegiance to a different kingdom, not the kingdom of this world, but of heaven.
So with St. Paul I beseech you also, "that ye receive not the grace of God in vain; (for he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." As you come to Lord's Supper and grace comes to you in the Eucharist, know this: that the bread and wine are the pledges of these truths. God loves you, and he intends to assure you, to affirm your identity in Him, no matter what the world says or even the convictions of your own conscience that so often attempt to betray and unsettle this truth.
May your fasting be rooted in the knowledge and love of Christ. And remember Jesus fasted for our sake so that we might break forth from the encumbering bands of sin, to love and serve Him freely with every fiber of our being. Lord Jesus, Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honor and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen+
