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We often think of Jesus’ fast beginning when He stepped into the Judean wilderness. But the fast actually began three decades earlier when the Glory of heaven was wrapped in plain paper and given as a gift to mankind.
We are duly thankful, challenged, and inspired by Jesus’ forty-day fast from food in the Judean wilderness. Perhaps we should likewise be grateful, awed, and humbled by His thirty-year fast from praise, power, and potential in Nazareth.
To humble us, to test us, to know what is in our hearts . . . such is the sifting power of helplessness. In our daily lives, we may prefer self-reliance. But perhaps utter dependence is the truer friend of our souls.
Prior to surgery, God was not absent. The challenge was that self was so very present.
But achievements—even in small doses—can make us vulnerable to sins of addition: adding niceties and luxuries to our list of basic needs, adding imaginations onto the strong back of vision, adding
self-satisfaction to the purity of peace.
May this season of preparation provide us the opportunity to pause and be grateful for reductions. Ultimately we are grateful for the Grand Reduction, when Jesus came from heaven to earth and from earth to the cross. But we can also be thankful for the lesser reductions, when God drafts us into deserts.
let us rest assured that when Father God calls us to fast increase, decrease will purify our souls.
And still, our twenty-first-century discomfort remains mild and our first-century remembrance remains meager.
offerings. In an age suffocating in self, any willful fast from what much of the planet would deem a luxury is to be commended. However, since commendation cannot be confused with preparation, I must ask: can such polite fasts
alone truly prepare us to be awed by Christ’s resurrection?
God seems more interested in what we are becoming than in what we are giving up.
Faith, in general, is less about the sacrifice of stuff and more about the surrender of our souls.
Lent, in kind, is less
about well-mannered denials and more about thinning our lives in order to thicken...
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Decrease is holy only when its destin...
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In many ways, all fasts are Lenten experiences, and as with the history of Lent, it is difficult for me to discern which came first: the discipline of fasting or the journey of Lent.
Christian spirituality, the contemplative life, is not about us. It is about God. The great weakness of American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition. The more there is of us, the less there is of God. —EUGENE PETERSON1
In Jesus’ journey cross-ward, the disciples’ illusions of what Jesus could and should do with His power were shattered by the reality of what Jesus actually did with His power, and their personal illusions of commitment-unto-death were shattered by the reality of fear-inspired self-protection.
Whereas hindsight helps us learn from the past, regret beats us up with the past.
I invite you to fast regret. Do not feed it. Do not give it space. Let it go: God’s mercies are “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23). And meditate on Jesus’ glorious promise from Revelation 21:5: “I am making everything new!”
Roots are, historically, perhaps the most humble of God’s creations on earth. They require neither acknowledgment nor praise.
Their reward is reaped when the living stand upon them and reach for the fruit the roots made possible.
Decrease is a spiritual necessity.
But decrease for John was less about assets and more about attention. His longing was to draw his generation’s attention and allegiance to the Messiah. From John’s perspective, the true value of people seeing him was that people would then be positioned to see through him and gaze at Jesus.
Those who steward attention as means and not end stand tall and serve strong, knowing that all gifts come from God and can therefore draw attention to God.
Praise slides off such souls like water off a window2 into a cup that is offered to God alone.
John decreased so others could see the Lamb. John decreased so others could follow the One who preceded and surpassed him (John 1:30). John decreased so that the Messiah would be revealed in John’s lifetime. May our decrease likewise increase our generation’s view of Jesus.
In his day, a psalmist sang: “Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness” (Psalm 115:1).
Think of models in your lifetime of individuals who—like the psalmist in the Old Testament and John the Baptist in the New Testament—used the attention they received to increase others’ view of God. Then reflect on ways that you are following (or in the future can follow) their example.
Whereas deflection discounts and rejects praise, redirection stewards and then deposits praise at the feet of the One to whom it is due. Sincerely receive any affirmation today without apology and then tonight, offer Jesus a bouquet of praise. If at day’s end you find your intended bouquet sparse, fill it in with gratitude for God’s work in your life.
“Lent signifies not winter but spring, not darkness but light, not death but renewed vitality.”
John refused to compete with Jesus. Instead of collecting attention, John directed attention back to the Bridegroom.
And that distance between what John thought Jesus would do and what Jesus actually did was straining John’s certainty of who Jesus was.
Questions such as the one asked by John are signs of a living, growing, active faith, not evidence of a dying one. Jesus’ calm response to John echoes to us today: “Recall what I have done in the past. Accept me as the Great I Am of your future.”
Has the distance between what you thought Jesus would do and what Jesus actually did ever caused tremors of uncertainty in your soul?
Isaiah 61 was being fulfilled.
follower, self-concept is inextricably connected to God-concept. We are valuable because God is Creator. We are forgiven because God is Redeemer. If God is not who we thought He was, then who are we? Many of us dare not even ask the question.
. Around the table, a Jewish child has “That’s a good question!” drummed into his or her soul, not, “You don’t ask that question”. . . Questions are as sacred as answers.
We weaken—not strengthen—our faith when we silence sincere questions.
The Author of our faith is more than able to address the identity crises His unexpected words and ways may trigger.
“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
—C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)3
If we view faith and doubt as antonyms, we will be tempted to interpret John’s question as something other than spiritual uncertainty.
Or perhaps John had doubts. Theologian Peter Abelard (1079–1142) stated, “By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.”4 Today let your faith be messy.
The crowds were curious as well as clueless.
The disciples were devoted as long as there was little danger. But John knew who Jesus was.
Jesus sets an example for us all to sit with our sorrow.
Instead of speeding past sadness, slow down and be present to your emotions. With Jesus, sit with your sorrow and let loss do its eternal work in your soul.
Still, this was unexpected: manna for multitudes, water-walking, silencing storms and . . . death?
