the fourth day of my week long fast

Isaiah 53:1-6 NLT

Who has believed our message
   and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
   and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
   a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
   he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities
   and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
   smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
   each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
   the iniquity of us all.

I am in my fourth day of my week long fast and already I am suffering some of the problems I suffered when I was on my last fast. The difference, this time, is that I started having difficulties earlier.

But it is amazing at how the things I read, I see with so much more clarity than usually. There is a – high, for lack of a better word that you get when you fast. It is the knowledge that you have been without the basic nutrient of life. But it is also a clearness of mind that can only come that way.

I have been thinking about Holy Week. Today is Wednesday. Depending upon who you read, Jesus was waiting. You have to kind of filter through the gospels to see the events.

On Wednesday, according to Matthew, he and the apostles were going to Jerusalem and wanted something to eat. He went to a fig tree and saw it didn’t have anything on it and he cursed it. An odd thing to do. By the next day it had withered and his disciples were amazed.

On Wednesday, according to Mark and Luke, he went into the temple and once again, drove the moneylenders out as he had done at the very beginning of his ministry in John. It also said that the religious leaders were afraid of him because of his popularity.

On Wednesday, according to John, he did several things. One was that he predicted his death. In 12:28, God speaks to him and verifies his ministry. Then he goes off to be by himself.

By the time he had come to this point, the political opinion of him was dramatically opposed. They were ready to kill him, but couldn’t figure out exactly how to go about it.

Whatever it was that he did, we know that he knew he was about to die. He had boldly walked into Jerusalem the Sunday before and let everybody see him. He had come back because of Lazarus dying. His apostles and everybody else tried to talk him out of it, buthe knew it was time.

I don’t know if he knew the exact timeframe or time-table, but you know he had to be dreading it. This was, after all, the man who sweated so heavily in the Garden the night of his arrest that it looked like the consistency of blood.

He knew he had to do it, but he was not looking forward to it. He was human, and he knew it was going to be painful and protracted. He knew he would be crucified because he  said so at least twice.

John 3:14 says And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. In this he may have thought that he would be lifted up as an example, not necessarily crucified. This was at the beginning of his ministry.

John 8:28 says So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I Am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me”.

Here he knew too well what would probably happen. This was much closer to the end. He knew the common from of death, that there were no merciful deaths except for Roman citizens. And he wasn’t one.

All in all, it was the middle day in a painful week and he is probably ready to be through.

Father God, I ask you for that kind of courage and ability to face what happens, no matter how negative and painful it may be. I praise you. Amen.