Fast 40: Practicing the Ancient Spiritual Discipline of Lentنموونە

In the act of redemption, the Scripture gives us a glimpse into the agony of the process. The drama of that moment, when Jesus asked the Father to “let this cup pass,” is such a confounding mystery that, for a moment, we see God do something almost unthinkable: He shrinks back. For a split second, we see the indivisible atom of God almost split. I’m sure that before the omniscient mind of Christ flashed gruesome images of torture, thoughts of suffocation, feelings of dislocation, and precipitations of unbearable pain. In that malaise of martyrdom, He had more than bloody sweat; He had second thoughts. In that sense, it was another temptation of Christ — a temptation to the most fundamental of all biological instincts: self-preservation.

In this temptation, we see the final stage of sanctification unlocked before our eyes. It is here that the final blow is given to the Flesh. This time, it is not the self-denial of submission, nor is it the self-mortification of the wilderness; it is something far greater than them all. It is the apex of the altar: self-sacrifice. The truth is that we cannot begin to understand the nature of the cross until we understand the phrase “not as I will, but as you will.”

Self-sacrifice is the key to the Cross. It is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, aflame with Holy Fire. And it comes to remind us, as Ravenhill once said, “God never sends fire on an altar. He sends fire on sacrifice.”