Feasting and fasting in Japan. We did the former, but not the latter. I tried to fast, had the thought, but simply could not. The food was too enticing. The justifications too overwhelming. It was family time. It was an unmissable time. Eventually, I ran out of time.
I am capable of the best self-serving arguments. What’s the point of fasting for the sake of fasting if feasting remains on one’s mind? Wouldn’t that make me a hypocrite? (Albeit a thinner, leaner one?) And of what good is diminished flab or defined abs if it reduces fasting to dieting? But I know by now that my best arguments are always lies. For it is easier to concoct belief than to contend with truth. Truth was, it was precisely in the midst of plenty that I needed to fast. In failing to fast, I have failed to exercise empathy.
A Godly Fast
On that sombre note, I turned to Philippians 2: “Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:6-8)
Imagine that. Emptied himself. Deity, not ‘diety’. Reduced to humanity -the very frailty I so ably demonstrated in Japan through my failed fast. Submitted to shackles. Contained for the cross. God Himself. God fasted from the fullness of His godly nature when He became man.
Lessons from a Boy
In Japan, I spent a precious moment with Druk, a Japanese baby we met in Bhutan, now all of 4 years old. Druk was admiring the busy lives of ants near Yoyoji Park. In turn, I wondered at his fascination with something that I’d not normally have noticed. Ants are beneath me (literally). Even in the act of walking, I may have callously crushed a few without knowing. And yet here was Druk, taking a moment out of the busyness of our Japan itinerary, forcing me to pause, and encouraging me to look upon these ants through the eyes of a child.
And I had a thought – not an original one, for I am sure someone more able has waxed lyrical on this. But it was a thought nonetheless born out of a pause. And in that pause, I wondered. If Christ adorned the habiliment of humanity, that distance traversed must be greater than me taking the form of an ant.
Can I even contemplate being an ant? I cannot imagine the reduction. And yet look how ant-like I have been. Busy, (hopefully purposeful and single-minded) yet always with feelers out, as if unsure of what is next. A single entity enmeshed in a large-scale ant economy. And I realise that I have been an ant for so long that I needed that transcendental jolt to remind me that I am more, made for more, paid for in full by a God who became man to redeem this ant.
Slow Down for Fasting
To return to the point of this post, to fast, one must become slow. To become slow, one must exit the extant flow. Whether it is a rat race we’ve been in, or an ant-like existence we’ve lived out, we can and need to exit the flow.
I hope that this weekend, we will all take time to pause (how funny that phrase rings – time to pause.) Let me rephrase – let us shed our form of an ant, and put on a child-like mien. Let’s be mesmerised. Revel. Wonder. On what? You may ask. It does not matter how or where you start, as long as you begin. But since this is Easter, I pray that however you contemplate, may your reverie end at the foot of a cross. Have a blessed Easter weekend, everyone!
