Here we are on the cusp of another invitation to a season of prayer and fasting at our church. And this is what I’m thinking about:
Fasting is the stunt show of the Christian life.
Growing up in North Carolina, every October brought the spectacular treat of the North Carolina State Fair coming to town. To this day, it is still a really great fair that is part of the culture and tradition in the mid-state area. The rides…the games… plus, where else can you see the world’s largest pig AND a two-headed sheep? But some of my favorite memories pertain to the racetrack located on the fairgrounds. During the fair, this racetrack was, in my mind, home to one of the greatest stunt shows on the planet: Joey Chitwood and the Hell Drivers.
Now… I don’t think Joey was making any grand theological declarations with his team name. I think he probably just thought it sounded apropos for a stunt team adept at blowing stuff up and driving a man on the hood of a car headfirst through a flaming wall.
Cars would be driven on two wheels, jumped through flaming hoops and over school buses. And in one of my favorite moves, they would slide the cars to a stop only a few feet from where the front row of people were sitting. Today, I think most of the show would likely not be feasible or legal. But it was the 80s, and everything was more dangerous. Don’t let the acid-washed jeans and permed mullets fool you—we lived on the edge. We didn’t wear seatbelts or bicycle helmets, and our stunt shows weren’t OSHA approved.
Every time I think of fasting, I think of a stunt show. Because we can approach fasting like a stunt—like an extravagant act that’s REALLY going to get God’s attention. Look out everyone….hold my communion cup. And herein lies what I think is the greatest danger of this stunt show—that I would make it about me and what I am doing. Even about what our church is doing.
As if the gospel and the concept of grace don’t say this over and over—it ain’t about me and what I do but rather about God and what He is doing and has done.
It’s a danger spoken of cover to cover in the Bible… warning us against the secret poison of hypocrisy wrapped up in a pretense of piety presented as a public image. When that creeps in… the show is over, so to speak. As the prophet Jeremiah warned, “though they fast, I do not hear them.” Jesus warned us in the Sermon on the Mount, if the show is about us, all we will come out the other side of a fast with is empty stares.
The early church father Philo said that when the outward (bodily) senses are feasting, the mind suffers from a famine. Good grief, that is convicting. For the time and slice of the world we live in—everything’s a feast. It’s like we are living in one of those freaky 300-item mega-buffets in Pigeon Forge… it’s amazing, but you know something just ain’t right about it. Material abundance has a knack for famishing the soul.
For all the lingering questions I have about the mechanics of fasting, this much I know: the blueprint of our faith, Jesus, practiced this self-denial to focus on and hear from the Father. Jesus draws us in with an amazing offer about fasting. There is a reward here for you and me. Humbly fast and pray from a heart of faith and there are benefits to be realized. Spiritual benefits. Spiritual reward. The candidness of Jesus saying that has to get our attention.
If there is benefit in repentance? I want it.
Benefit in grieving or lamenting? I’ll take it.
Benefit for seeking the counsel and guidance of God? I need it.
Benefit in appealing to God to move and act? Yes, please.
Benefit in experiencing God’s presence and power in my life in a unique way? By all means.
The reward is ultimately Him. However a person wants to say it… Lord speak to us through this fast… reveal Yourself through this fast… show Yourself.
I’m the little kid sitting in the stands. I’ve put in no work or effort to make this show happen… I didn’t plan it or practice it… I’ve just sat myself down and taken a few moments away from all the other attractions—just to put myself in the place to take in the show. I’m here… I want to see and hear. Sometimes in quiet awe and other times with rapturous cheering. This ain’t my show… it’s His.