Fasting into
Feasting
Have you
ever fasted before? I know that it might
seem like a strange question to ask on Easter Sunday, but just bear with
me. Have any of you ever fasted? Fasting means that you purposely go without
food for an extended period of time - not because you’re on a diet (that’s
different!) but as a way to worship your Lord.
I haven’t either. I like food too
much! I don’t know how I would mentally function! But many Christians who have gone before us fasted
for religious purposes. Some 2000 years
ago it was a regular practice. It was a
way to show one’s humility before the Lord, to demonstrate sorrow over sin and
repentance.
The Old
Testament Israelites fasted on any number of occasions as well. Especially during the era about 500 years
before Jesus came into this world, God’s people seemed to have added quite a
few different times of fasting into their yearly worship schedule. On a specific day during the fourth month of
the Jewish calendar they fasted; and they did so again in the fifth month and
the seventh month and the tenth month each year. But these times of fasting weren’t really to
show their humility before the Lord and they weren’t necessarily used as times
of repentance either. These four days of
fasting every year were in commemoration of past disastrous events in Israelite
history. In the fourth month they fasted
because that was when the city of Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian Empire; the
fifth month was the destruction of the temple, the seventh month was in
remembrance of the assassination of one of their leaders during the exile, and
the tenth month marked the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar. By fasting, God’s Old Testament people were
doing something similar to how many people in this country put their flag at
half-mast on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor or those who put flowers on the
grave of their loved one each year.
These fasts were not joyous times or festive occasions. They were somber events during which the
awful things of the past were commemorated by the current generation.
But
these times of fasting were soon to be done away with because of the grace of
their Lord. Listen to the amazing thing that
the Lord promised to his people through the prophet Zechariah: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: The
fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and
glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah.” Not only would the people no longer
commemorate those awful events with fasting, those very occasions would be
times of joy and happiness; they would actually become festivals and feasts of
praise to their Lord. And their Lord
would do that for them by sending his Son as their Savior. But that’s what our Lord does! He takes the awful things of this life and
the horrible things, the depressing situations and the heart-wrenching circumstances,
and he turns them into something for which his people will praise his
name.
Three Days of
Distress
Now fast
forward five plus centuries to the final days of Christ on this earth. And think about the awful events that the
disciples witnessed for the last three days of that week during Christ’s
suffering, death, and burial. Can you
imagine what it must have been like for Jesus’ followers on the Friday of his
crucifixion, the Saturday following, and the early hours of that next Sunday
morning? It must have been horrible! It must have been completely miserable for
them in every possible way. Because they
had just seen their Savior beaten and bloodied; they had watched as their
Savior was scourged and nailed to a beam of wood; they had witnessed their
Savior crying out to his Father in agony; they were there when he eventually
give up his final breath. And I would
imagine that his disciples didn’t sleep very much for those three days. They certainly didn’t on Thursday evening, other
than a couple short naps in the Garden of Gethsemane when they weren’t supposed
to. I doubt they slept a whole lot on
Friday night with the brutal execution of their Savior fresh in their
minds. And any sleep that they got on
Saturday was undoubtedly restless and sporadic.
And so by the early hours of Easter Sunday morning, they had to have
been emotionally frazzled, mentally exhausted, and in a state of sadness that
they had never thought possible. Their
God had died, after all! Right in front
of them! His corpse was lying in a grave
at the moment and so now what? Now what
were they going to do? Now where were they
going to go? Now whom could they believe
in if not in their God?
The Relief of
the Resurrection
But
then, sometime soon after dawn that day, a few of the women rushed back from
the gravesite and told the disciples that Jesus’ body was no longer in the
tomb. Still highly skeptical, the
disciples didn’t quite know what to think.
But then, hours later on that same day, a couple followers of Jesus ran
back into town and told the eleven disciples that Jesus himself had appeared to
them on the road to Emmaus. The
disciples were still not sure if it could all be true, but that cloud of
sadness started to lift just a little.
And then that evening, as most of them were gathered in a locked room of
a house, Jesus suddenly stood before them, revealing himself to them in the
flesh for the first time after he rose from the dead. Astonished, bewildered, amazed, and probably
a little disoriented, all of the sorrow and distress that the disciples had
been experiencing for the past three days was suddenly gone! Because their Lord was no longer dead! He was no longer hurting or bleeding or suffering! He was alive!
Right in front of their eyes!
Everything was suddenly going to be OK!
Everything had actually turned out alright!
And as
the days and the weeks went on, and as Jesus appeared to his disciples a few
more times before he ascended into heaven, they began to realize that the awful
events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday were not going to be times at which
they fasted and mourned in the coming years; instead these would actually be
the dates on which they worshiped their Lord and praised his name. Of course, that was only going to be the case
because of the resurrection. We might
call it The Resurrection Effect. Jesus’
resurrection on Sunday put those times of sorrow on Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday into a whole new light. And
they soon understood that his arrest in the garden hadn’t been unfortunate, it
was necessary; and his suffering at the hands of his enemies hadn’t been
completely devastating, it had been planned for; and his torture and his death
and his burial hadn’t been the worst things that they had ever witnessed; in
fact, they had been the best. But that’s
The Resurrection Effect. The
resurrection of our Lord from the grave turned every awful thing that happened
to Jesus into something extraordinary for us.
It made the worst possible acts into the most celebrated. It converted death into life, sorrow into
joy, darkness into dawn. That is The
Resurrection Effect. And it’s just as
real for us today as it was for those disciples back then.
Unfixable Situation
It
better be. It has to be. The resurrection of
Jesus has to have an effect on every
one of our lives still today otherwise we are still lost, otherwise we are
still stuck in an unfixable situation. And
the unfixable situation is simply this: God clearly lays out laws and commands
that we must follow. And if we do, we
will be able to get to heaven. The
problem is: we can’t. We cannot even
come close to living up to the standard that God has set. So it is an unfixable situation. And there’s nothing we can do to get
ourselves out of it. And so I’m not
going to stand up here today and tell you that if you just put your mind to it,
if you just try harder, you can get yourself out of the deep dark places you find
yourself in. No, we are helpless,
hopeless when it comes to the ability to turn our lives around on our own. You aren’t that good. You aren’t that talented. You aren’t that likeable. And neither am I. And so I’m not going to tell you to try
harder. That would be worthless advice. I will tell you what Jesus did, though. And I will encourage you to lean on him. Lean more on your Lord. Tightly hold onto his death on the cross and
firmly grasp his resurrection from the tomb.
Because his death and resurrection are the only things that will work.
The Resurrection Effect
But that’s
why he died and he rose in the first place, isn’t it? To fix the unfixable situation we were in
because of our sin. And so Jesus came,
Jesus lived, Jesus suffered, Jesus died, Jesus rose. And on the day that stone was rolled away
from his empty tomb, everything that he had done for us was set in stone. His resurrection guaranteed that what he did
on the cross actually worked, that what he had always planned for us was
fulfilled, that he was powerful enough to do what needed to be done and loving
enough to want to do it. It’s The
Resurrection Effect. And his
resurrection has an effect not only on our eternal lives but also our lives
here on this earth. Because if our Lord
could and did take care of the most important thing with the power of his
resurrection - our life in heaven - he can certainly take care of everything
else in our lives as well.
Please
understand that Christ’s resurrection won’t just matter to you sometime in the future,
it matters to you in everything you do every day of your life! It’s true!
With the glorious resurrection of your Lord always in the forefront of
your mind, the gloomy times you go through in this world won’t seem so dark. Because your living Lord reaches out his
pierced hands to you and says, “Are you hurting? Are you struggling? Are you all alone? I have hurt for you. I have struggled for you. And for you I was left all alone. I am now with you and you will never be alone
again. Are you being treated
cruelly? Are you weighed down by
responsibilities? Are you dealing with a
death? I have been treated cruelly for
you. I have been weighed down for
you. And for you I have experienced
death myself. But then I rose; I live;
and I reign. Everything you are going
through, I already have. And everything
that I now enjoy, you soon will. It’s
going to be fine. It’s going to get
better. I’ll make sure you get through
this. And I promise you will one day be
with me forever.” That’s The
Resurrection Effect. The power and
promise of his resurrection has an effect on every single aspect of your
life. Today, Easter Sunday, makes every
day better. It makes every day
liveable! And might I even say: It makes
every day great.
But
should that surprise us? Should our Lord’s
love and mercy surprise us? Because that’s
what he promised 2500 years ago through Zechariah! Half a millennium before Easter Sunday
existed, the Lord told his people that the fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh,
and tenth months would be turned into days of rejoicing and feasting and
celebration. And over the years that’s
what has happened, hasn’t it? I’m going
to assume that even though you are counted as God’s people, none of you have
ever commemorated the day on which Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians or the day
when the temple was destroyed or when a man named Gedaliah was assassinated or
when Nebuchadnezzar began his siege against the capital city of Israel! Those times of fasting have long been
forgotten. Instead, what annual events do
God’s people celebrate today? Events
like Christmas, Pentecost, and Thanksgiving.
But also events like Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We actually celebrate the night on which
Jesus was betrayed and arrested! We
celebrate the day on which Jesus was tortured and murdered! Why would we celebrate something like that? Because we can celebrate the day on which
Jesus rose from the dead. His
resurrection makes the days of his death and betrayal worth singing about. Because now those are the days of our
salvation! Those are the days of our
victory! It’s The Resurrection
Effect. It turns death into life, sorrow
into joy, darkness into dawn. Enjoy The
Resurrection Effect today, my friends.
Revel in it! In fact, enjoy The
Resurrection Effect every day of your life.
You won’t be disappointed. And
why wouldn’t you want to?
Amen.
“ Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!” - Rev. 19:6-7
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