Preparation for Resurrection

Some very brief thoughts on keeping the Great Fast.

“Human” isn’t a synonym for broken or sinful. It means to be made in the image of the God who is human, for whom becoming human isn’t a degradation but a sacred participation in what he makes good.

We forget this sometimes but God cannot become what is not good. God does not become what he does not love.

“Human” is also a synonym for fragile, made from dust. And this is why ash is painted on our foreheads as we enter the Great Fast. Ash reminds us that we are human: made as icons of God, made from clay, made vulnerable.

What is painted on our foreheads in ash is the cross, which reminds us that though we are going to die we are loved by the God who dies for us and with us. And his cross means that even death cannot separate us from his love.

Humanity fell away from love when we failed to keep a fast way back when but God’s love is so authentic that God becomes what God makes and what he loves to keep the fast for all of us. The Son falls with his human brothers and sisters and in the wilderness we have made of the world resists every call to be inhuman.

Jesus our brother has already kept the fast, has reconciled the world to God, so we don’t follow our Lord in keeping the fast to change God’s mind about us or to show God that we are worthy of love. We keep the fast to remember that we are made in the image of God (stillness, not fear; humility, not arrogance), that God has already reconciled us (we don’t have to save ourselves), that the whole law is kept when we love our neighbor.

The fast God wants breaks chains of injustice, gets rid of exploitation in the workplace, frees the oppressed, cancel debts, shares bread with the hungry, invites the homeless poor into our homes, put clothes on the shivering ill-clad, and embraces our estranged family.

The Lent the ancient Christians kept wasn’t for unhealthy introspection or self-mortification. It was preparation for participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Lent, therefore, is not preparation for punishment but for godly permanence beyond death. We practice resurrection, which is synonymous with loving immigrants, prisoners, the sick, the abused, the outcast. Welcome to the Great Fast!