From Pastor Tad
That He May Increase
The focus of Lent every year, in our fasting and preparations for the celebration of Easter, can be summarized in John the Baptist’s statement in John 3:30, “[Jesus] must increase but I must decrease.” One could say that is the spiritual practice of fasting. By abstaining from food, activities, or other things we normally have in our daily life, we decrease. Hopefully, this decrease is more and deeper than a mere physical decrease. The point of the exercise is to being us closer to the heart of God. Fasting from food has been the traditional fast throughout history. The act of denying ourselves food causes our bodies to react in a way that in time opens us to a special connection to God. Therefore, people often fast when earnestly seeking God’s wisdom or when meaningful discernment of God’s will is needed before making a weighty decision.
We Americans who grew up outside the Catholic and Orthodox traditions are less familiar with fasting in general and are therefore prone to losing sight of the goal of self-denial or self-decrease. We can accidentally get caught up in the how of our decrease and lose track of the why. As John the Baptist reminds us, the point of decreasing is so Jesus may increase into the vacuum created by the removal of whatever we are fasting from. Fasting is so much more powerful and indeed so much easier to sustain when we remember to fill the gap with Jesus, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, this Lent, if you have already chosen a fast or if you are not sure you want to participate in fasting, I encourage us all to choose a deliberate act of self-denial with the aim of filling the vacancy with something of God. An example of this would be fasting from food or drink AND diverting the money which would have bought whatever we fast from to purchase food for a foodbank. Another might be fasting from media. Cancel your streaming subscriptions and divert the time you usually spend watching shows to reading scripture, prayer and meditating on the teachings of Jesus and give the saved money away to charities or mission agencies like World Vison, Children of the Nations, or the PC(USA) One Great Hour of Sharing offering. If you choose a fast from behavior, like fasting from harsh words, judgmentalism, or anger, FILL the resulting void with kind thoughts, prayers on behalf of those who would otherwise attract your ire, speaking and acting kindly toward others.
The trick to everything is to replace the worldly thing with something from heaven. It is difficult for novice fasters to sustain a meaningful fast for more than a few hours without having something better to replace the thing removed. Even for experienced fasters, the point of fasting is not to sit endlessly in nothingness. The goal is to let God fill the emptiness with more of Himself; and for us to experience intimacy with our heavenly Father with the resulting deeper joy and a closer bond with Him. “I must decrease” is only half. “I must decease and Christ must INCREASE.”