Perhaps you too are one of those who, during this season of Lent proclaimed by the Church, inwardly ask the question: What good does this fast do me? Why, in this day and age, should I follow the crowds and submit to the rules of churches? Why should I fast? The ability to explain why someone acts one way or another is a mark of a rational person and, even more so, one of the chief traits that distinguish a human being from the animal world, as well as distinguishing a mature person from a young child. The second essential distinguishing feature is the ability to take responsibility for one’s actions and their consequences, which likewise seems a rarity these days.. But about motivation. As humanity we have progressed in the level of our consciousness, because we are able to ask questions, reflect on spiritual and historical matters, and also debate the traditions of the Christian church. One of these traditions is the season of Lent (the time from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday). Lent is a time of self-examination, a time of renunciation, a time of good deeds and of drawing closer to God. Symbolically, the 40 days of Lent (not counting Sundays, which together would make 46 days) are conceptually taken from the Gospel account of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Let us remember that the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness so that he might be tempted by the devil. Jesus fasted for 40 days, answered the devil’s temptation with the Word of God, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, having defeated the tempter, went back to the city and began to serve people, spreading the power of God’s presence and healing. When we resolve to observe Lent, do we understand that we are being called to live and behave like Jesus? Are we ready to imitate Jesus: To endure temptations? To experience rejection from those around us? To carry our own cross without blaming others for our problems? To forgive another without biting and cursing? Not to raise our voice when someone provokes us? To make peace with those we do not wish to speak to? To deny ourselves and trample on our own egoism? One could fill another couple of dozen lines with similar questions. For they are worth asking continually, and not only during this quiet season, but all year round. Their purpose is one – to prompt us to consider whether we truly wish to be more like Jesus and closer to God. Perhaps it is not relevant to us? Why do we take part in fasting at all? Scourging one’s own body without understanding why I am doing something makes no one better; often the effect is the opposite – a person who denies himself something remains inwardly aggressive and only harms those around him. Often as Christians in society we behave like pests, rather than like the salt of the earth or the light of the world that people aspire to. Fasting that is not lived in humility and with the aim of becoming a better person is very likely something out of the story of the Corinthian believers, to whom Paul addressed the words:“If I have not love… it profits me nothing.” / see 1 Cor 13 / An interesting monologue of God on the theme of fasting is reflected in the book of the prophet Isaiah:
Why have we fasted, they say, and You do not see it? Why have we mortified our flesh, and You take no notice? – Yet consider: on the day that you fast, you still pursue all your own affairs and oppress all your workers to do their work.
Consider further: you fast only to quarrel and to strife, and to strike with a wicked fist; you do not fast in such a way that your voice may be heard in the heights of heaven.
Is such fasting pleasing to Me, is it such a day, when a person truly inflicts suffering on his flesh? When a person bows down his head like a reed, when he puts on sackcloth and sits in ashes – can you call that fasting, and such a day pleasing to the Lord?
Is it not rather the fast that pleases Me, namely: when the bonds of the yoke are loosed, when those who are oppressed are set free and every yoke is lifted from their shoulders?
Is it not so? When you break your bread for the hungry and take into your house the poor who have no shelter; when you see the naked and clothe them and do not turn away from your own kin, then your light shall break forth like the dawn, your renewal shall come more quickly, your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall accompany you.
When you call, the Lord shall answer you; when you cry for help, the Lord shall say: behold, here I am! When you put an end to all violence in your midst, the pointing of the finger full of contempt, and all evil speech, when you open your heart to the hungry and feed the afflicted soul, then your light shall shine in the darkness, and your darkness shall be like the bright noonday.
And the Lord shall always guide you and feed your soul even in barren places and strengthen your limbs, so that you shall be like a fruitful garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
You shall rebuild the old ruins, you shall restore the foundations of former generations, and you shall be called the repairer of the breach and the restorer of dwelling places. /Isaiah 58:3-12/ The poet, evangelist and chaplain Rudīte Losāne clothes a meditation on the Passion season in these words: Why brood on how to wrong yourself,Why torment yourself with guilt?Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow or the day afterYou will say so yourself to friends and acquaintances. Why heap upon your shoulders needless burdens?Life itself is not sparing of them.Better to take care that joy may arise anew,That it may be felt at every step in life. Let Christ not have borne the cross in vain,Let Christ’s suffering not be in vain,Take even a little of His joyAnd your walking will be light. All is fulfilled, it only remains to trustWhen in life one truly has to suffer.And from the wounds cut into Christ’s bodyTo draw strength and to cast the burdens away. That is why God has suffered in our place,That is why God resolved to come into this world,So that from birth until the very sunsetHe could shield us from pain. Why invent needless burdens for yourself?Why, child of man, do you wish to suffer? Better to take care that joy may arise anew,The true burdens, let there be strength to cast them away. /Rudīte Losāne, poetry collection “Sāļais Medus”, 2010/ Aļesja L.