Ash Wednesday — A Reservation
Isaiah 58:1–12
Do we even know what we are getting ourselves into? Today, Ash Wednesday, is the start of the season of Lent. It is the gateway into forty days of fasting, reflection, and repentance. It is the reservation for the meal to come, the deposit to save our seat at the table at the end of the journey. But do we really know what are agreeing to in making the reservation? On what do we need to reflect? From what are we being called to repent? What fast is required of us before the feast?
These questions are at the center of the test of Isaiah 58:1–12. Israel had been doing its thing. The people had been worshiping in the prescribed ways, had been planting and harvesting, buying and selling. They’d been living the life that they thought they were supposed to be leading as God’s chosen people. They were prosperous and as comfortable as citizens of an agrarian society could be. They did all of the right things.
And yet, something was off. the prophet was instructed to announce to them their rebellion. Announce it… they don’t know. They’d been fooling themselves for sometime. “Day after day they seek me, and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness.” (vs. 2) All of their fasting, burnt offerings, and sacrifices, all of their elements and actions of worship were hollow and self serving.
And so the question turns back to us. As we begin this journey to the cross, as we accept the ashes to reserve our seat at the table, do we know what we are getting ourselves into? Do we know our rebellion? Has the disruption of COVID announced it us? Are we concerned for God’s grief and our role in it? What act’s of our faith are being revealed as self service rather than in service to God’s kindom?
These are the questions into which our fast must wade, the questions that must intensify our hunger and deepen our thirst. These are the questions that will serve as our guides in the wilderness as we journey toward the table in Gethsemane. Take up your fast so that you arrive hungry; for God, for grace, for mercy, for justice, for a faith that is more than merely personal.
