An Invitation to Fast Together During Lent
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Dear Friends,
During this season of Lent, I’d like to invite you to participate in corporate times of fasting. There’s a lot packed into that sentence so let me unpack it for us.
Lent is the period of forty days leading up to Easter Sunday when Christians throughout history have reflected on the significance of Jesus coming into the world to die for their sin. During Lent it's common for many Christians to fast from food as a way of turning ourselves from worldly things and setting our minds and hearts more fully on God. Which is to say, fasting has a way of revealing the fleshly desires that drive us and awakening us to our great need for reliance on God.
It’s not lost on me that many of you may have grown up in communities where Lent was associated with superficial religious activity; abstaining as a means of earning credit with God and soothing guilty consciences. If that’s your background then maybe this perspective on fasting from Richard Foster will help reframe things for you:
“More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. This is a wonderful benefit to the true disciple who longs to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface. If pride controls us, it will be revealed almost immediately…Anger, bitterness, jealousy, strife, fear–if they are within us, they will surface during fasting.”
It’s for reasons like this that we’ve set aside four days during Lent to fast together as a church. It’s important to me that you pick up on the invitational nature of these gatherings. I say this because, while Jesus assumes that his followers will fast (See Matt. 6 - Jesus says “when you fast...” not “if you fast”), there isn’t a command in the New Testament that Christians must do so. Some may decide to skip only breakfast or lunch. Whatever you prayerfully decide, we invite you individually to fast during the day, and then communally we'll gather at 6:00pm in the lower level of our church building to eat and pray together.
Speaking of prayer, that’s one of the best things that you can do while you fast and experience bodily hunger. You can pray that you would be awakened to the reality that Jesus is the bread of life. You can pray for unbelievers who hunger for meaning in life to turn to the Lord Jesus. You can pray that the Church would hunger for righteousness–abounding in good works of justice and mercy.
Lastly, as you consider this invitation to fast together, it’s also necessary to point out that Jesus stresses the importance of not being a spiritual showoff when you fast. (See Matt. 6 - Jesus says “do not look gloomy like the hypocrites…”). Jesus’s point is that our fasting should often be done in secret, so as not to draw attention to ourselves. When we fast, we want to watch out for self-righteousness while also remembering that fasting doesn’t make us more righteous. Fasting doesn't save us, Jesus does.
So with all of that framework in place, let me circle back around to invite you to fast together on any of the following Thursdays: March 20th, March 27th, April 3rd, and April 10th. At 6:00pm bring along dinner for yourself (brown bag it, Panera Bread it, etc.) to the church building and meet in the lower level. During that time we’ll break bread together and then take some time to pray together.
For those who would like to learn and think together about these things, I’ll be leading a four-week study group on Sunday evenings: March 16th, 23rd, 30th, April 6th, at 5:00pm, in the lower level of the church building. Dinner will be provided so if you’d like to participate please fill out the registration form.
Warmly,
Matt