• GOOD FRIDAY COMMUNITY FAST

    April 9, 2009

    Posted in: Uncategorized

    Since the beginning of the practice of Lent, there have been a few common elements that have played prominent roles throughout.  Almsgiving and fasting are two that remain.  The giving of alms involves sacrifice of the product of one’s work, but fasting is a different kind of sacrifice altogether.  Fasting hurts, physically hurts.  Taken to extremes, it can even do damage to the body.  Fasting is one spiritual practice that confirms the connection between soul and body.  It is one of the most misunderstood, misused, and often completely missed practices in the Church today. 

    Scot McKnight defines fasting as, “the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life.”  In his book on fasting, he emphasizes that the kind of fasting we see in Scripture and throughout the early church was rarely, if ever, a means to an end, as it has become today.  In other words, fasting was not used as a tool of spiritual discipline nor as an add-on to make one’s prayers more effective.  Instead, it was a natural, physical reaction to moments of genuine grief or sincerity.  It was done both individually and communally.  Throughout much of early history, the church fasted the entire forty days of lent.

    This year, we have chosen to designate the day leading up to our Good Friday Vigil to fast as a community.  Traditionally, fasts started at sundown one evening and were broken after sundown the following evening.  So, we are encouraging everyone who is able to fast from food from Maunday Thursday night until our vigil on Friday evening.  If you feel you are not physically or spiritually prepared to fast for an entire day, please consider fasting either breakfast or lunch on Good Friday.

    Just as Israel was called to an annual “Day of Atonement,” which included self-denial or literally “affliction of one’s throat,” we can culminate our forty days with a physical response to the spiritual and emotional gravity of the repentance to which God has been calling us, with a Good Friday fast.

    For more info, read “Fasting” by Scot McKnight.

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    • sscriv said...

      1

      Gary, thanks for posting this info. Really insightful.

      “Fasting is one spiritual practice that confirms the connection between soul and body. ”

      This really stood out to me. Again, affirming that all of life is sacred–even our bellies and appetites. They can all be curved to recognize the grievous nature of the public humiliation, violence, and abandonment unto death that Christ was willing to engage in for all of creation to be restored back to Him.

      I hope the community fast will make me/us more aware of the darkness of Good Friday.

      04/9/09 12:58 PM | Comment Link

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