What good is fasting
when you keep on fighting and quarreling?
This kind of fasting
will never get you anywhere with me.
You humble yourselves
by going through the motions of penance,
bowing your heads
like reeds bending in the wind.
You dress in burlap
and cover yourselves with ashes.
Is this what you call fasting?
Do you really think this will please the Lord?“No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry,
and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them,
and do not hide from relatives who need your help.“Then your salvation will come like the dawn,
and your wounds will quickly heal.
Your godliness will lead you forward,
and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
Then when you call, the Lord will answer.
‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.
Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!
Feed the hungry,
and help those in trouble.
Then your light will shine out from the darkness,
and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.
The Lord will guide you continually,
giving you water when you are dry
and restoring your strength.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like an ever-flowing spring.
Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.
Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls
and a restorer of homes. (Isaiah 58:4–12 NLT)
Today is the first day of Lent, also known as Ash Wednesday. It is a day when many begin a period of prayer and fasting leading up to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Some give up sugar or meat or social media, a kind of fasting that involves denying something we crave to remind ourselves that our deepest craving should be for Christ. Rather than attempting to give something up, others hope to add good habits found in spiritual disciplines, such as meditating on Scripture, hourly prayers, or giving alms to the poor.
Whatever the tactic, the design of Lent is to prepare our hearts, spirits, minds, and emotions – all of what makes us who we are – for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. As we orient our entire selves toward the cross, the grave, and the resurrection of Christ, we are also practicing, in part, what it means to live within the peace that is found only through Christ.
The biblical understanding of peace is more than simply the absence of strife or conflict. True peace – the peace proclaimed in the priestly blessing in Numbers 6, prophesied in Jeremiah 29:11, exemplified by Jesus’s life and ministry, and taught by Paul in Ephesians 2 (among others) – is defined by completeness, wholeness, the way things were meant to be. This is the meaning of the word shalom in Hebrew.
In Isaiah 58, God, through his prophet, calls out the people of Israel for their false piety. It’s true that they were fasting and acting penitent, but it was all a show. God doesn’t want false piety: “No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help” (Isaiah 58:6–7).
These are acts of justice. They are also acts of shalom, of peace. To fill the empty stomachs of those who cannot feed themselves is, in some small part, to help restore them back to a place of health and wellness, back to a place of shalom.
During these days of Lent to come, let us together examine what biblical peace means for us today – peace between us and God, among individuals, within ourselves, and in our interactions with creation. Not only will we look at what Scripture says about peace, every Saturday will feature a story or profile of peace in action: people of God who are acting as shalom-bearers in a world increasingly in need of God’s peace.
“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
Michael Benson is the NAB Communications Director.