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THE
SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT MARCH 7, 2004 “Lenten
Disciplines – Part II” Fr. John Spencer The
two cardinal (pivotal) Lenten Disciplines are prayer and fasting. Scripture reading is a part of the
discipline of prayer (see last Sunday’s
sermon). The other cardinal
Lenten discipline is fasting. When
the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert, he fasted for forty days and forty
nights. Although Scripture
doesn’t specify, it seems that he abstained from food but not from
water. Luke’s account of the
temptation of Christ states, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned
from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days
he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end
of them he was hungry.”
(Luke 4:1,2) Jesus
prepared for His ministry by an extended period of prayer and fasting. At the end of this 40-day fast, Satan
came and tempted Christ. Satan’s
first temptation was, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to
become bread.” Satan knew
who Jesus was – he didn’t need proof.
Remember, Satan is a liar.
He implied that Jesus needed to prove that He was the Son of God. Satan’s
challenge in this temptation was two-fold. He was tempting Jesus to establish His kingdom by signs
and miracles, not by obedience to the Father. He was also challenging Jesus to rely on signs and
miracles for His physical needs (bread) rather than relying on His Father. Our
observance of Lent is identification with Christ’s period of prayer and
fasting in the wilderness. Now,
if you count the days, there are more than 40 days in Lent – Ash Wednesday to
Easter Sunday is a forty-five day period instead of a 40-day period. Even in Lent, Sundays are not fast
days. Sundays are our weekly
remembrance and celebration of the resurrection of Christ, so they are days
when we do not fast. Jesus said,
“How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They
cannot, so long as they have him with them.” (Mark 2:19) As
we celebrate the presence of Christ with us in the Eucharist on Sundays, we
do not fast. What
is the point of fasting, particularly, what is the point of abstaining from
food? When we don’t eat, we
become conscious of our hunger and have a tendency to think more about food
than we do when we are eating! Jesus
response to Satan’s first temptation was, “Man does not live on bread
alone.” (Luke 4:4). Abstaining from food reminds us
that the source of our life is not physical food but God and His Word. The Word of God is Jesus Himself (John 1:14).
He is the source of our life.
He is our bread (John 6: 32-40).
In the physical world, bread is the “staff of life.” It represents all the food that is
needed to sustain physical life. When
the Jews challenged Jesus to show them a sign as proof of His claims, they
told Him that Moses gave them manna from heaven. Jesus replied, “Moses gave your fathers manna from heaven
and those who ate the manna died.
Here is the true bread from heaven, and if you eat this bread you will
not die.” (John 6:47-59) When
we celebrate the Eucharist, we eat the bread that came down from heaven. Now, Christians have been celebrating
the Eucharist for centuries and they have died; so, it’s obvious that Jesus
wasn’t talking about physical death.
Physical death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to us. The death to which Jesus is referring
here is spiritual death, an eternal separation from God. Jesus
could have brought down bread from heaven. He could have reproduced the miracle of manna. He could have chosen to succumb to
Satan’s temptation and performed signs and miracles to establish His earthly
kingdom. He
didn’t do it. Instead, He was
obedient to His father. As the
Apostle Paul says, “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!” (Phil.
2:8) Instead of turning the
stones into bread or bringing down manna from heaven, He gave Himself. He gave us His body and His blood, so
that we could have new life in Him. Fasting
takes our blurred vision and brings it into focus. It takes our attention from the world and puts it on
God. When we fast, when we
abstain from food, the opposite of what we expect takes place. We experience hunger – this is GOOD. It reminds us that we won’t
experience God unless we hunger for Him. The physical hunger and desire for food can awaken a
spiritual hunger and longing for God. Fasting
from food produces a physical hunger – we need to turn that hunger to
God. It reminds us that food is
necessary for life – we need to remind ourselves that God is necessary to our
life, even more than food. In
the Eucharist we have a meeting of the physical feeding of our bodies with
the spiritual feeding of our souls and spirits. The Eucharist is NOT an accident. It is a symbol, but it is more than a
symbol, it is a sacrament. This
is the way we feed on Christ.
This is the way we take Christ’s life into us. The real presence of Jesus Christ is
ministered to us in the bread and the wine, and, at His table, we feed on
Him. “He who has the Son has
life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (I John 5:12) Fasting
is also a form of being fed. As
we deny ourselves material bread – or TV – or certain reading materials – or
certain activities – we clear room in our lives for spiritual food. Our lives and our days are full –
sometimes they are over-full.
There is often little to no room for the Word of God. We need to eliminate some things,
“clear a corner,” in order to make room for Him. Our
job is to become more and more like Christ. We are to become the person God has designed us to be, not
the self we see or the self that other people see, but the self that God
sees. Am I at the place He has
called me to be on this day in my life? This
is the season of Lent. This is
the time to STOP! and TAKE NOTE! o
Where are you? o
Are you on course? o
Are you seeing clearly
or are you deluded? o
Are you being fed
spiritually? Or are you physically full and spiritually starved? If
you are off course, if you are deluded, if you are starving, there is a
remedy. That remedy is the
Eucharist. Keep
your Lenten fast. Ask God to
show you what He wants you to eliminate or what he wants you to decrease in
your life this Lenten season to make room for Him. Ask Him to show you what it is that you are relying on,
instead of relying on God. “Man shall not live by bread alone BUT by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:3-5, KJV).
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