The Message of Revelation (1) s2

1705-14P 1 “FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS” (1) I. WE MUST MOURN AND GRIEVE. (Esther 4:1-17) A. Mordecai knew how to mourn his loss. “1 SUBJECT: Mourning, grief, and fasting. When Mordecai learned all that had been done, F.C.F: Should I really be happy all the time? Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and PROPOSITION: Since we still live in a fallen world, we must grieve and mourn our losses. ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he INTRODUCTION: cried out with a loud and bitter cry.” Now we need to A. I have to apologize for the message this make a distinction between the emotional or evening, and let me explain why. Every Bible affectional response of grief and the outward preacher faces the tension between the big picture and manifestations of it. We would say that from the the vital details. And in a narrative or story text like depths of his soul, Mordecai was gripped with dread, we find in the book of Esther, we want to keep our fear, anger, sadness, outrage, and even guilt. And he eye on the big picture, the overarching theme, which expressed this deep distress through outward is the major point God wants us to see. And in Esther, conventions common to his day. He tore his clothes, a the main point is that God is present and active in sign that his heart and hope had been rent asunder. He every circumstance, even those where his presence is put on sackcloth and ashes, signs of death, perhaps difficult to trace. As you recall, a prominent stylistic symbolizing his burial clothes and the dust to which feature of this book of the Bible is that God is never he would eventually return. And he cried out with a named or even explicitly acknowledged, nor do we loud and bitter cry. The distress of his soul poured find overt religious practices like prayer, worship, or forth in a torrent of grieving. sacrifice. And yet, through a series of striking events, There is some evidence that the Persian culture seeming coincidences, evil is defeated and God’s of the day practiced fasting as a form of grieving, but people are rescued. these were typically Hebrew, biblical expressions of But the details of the book are so interesting grief which we find repeatedly in Scripture. Are these and provocative and offer divine commentary on mere cultural expressions? Are all cultural expressions many, many other aspects of life so that it’s tempting of grief equally helpful? I wonder. to slow down and focus on them, running the risk of B. What is the typical, culturally acceptable losing the flow of the story line and entering into the expression of grief today? Well, it’s nothing like that joyful experience of the triumph of God. of Mordecai. If Mordecai dressed as he did and B. I’m going to give in to temptation this behaved as he did today, he would likely be evening and focus in quite narrowly on a clearly committed. We don’t go in for all that stuff anymore. biblical subject that is neglected today, in part because Instead, we allow some polite, discrete sniffing, or an of our natural distaste for the subject, but also due to occasional tear, quickly wiped away. I recall standing some bad theology, some poor teaching, some in line for a funeral visitation and one of the family doctrinal error or at least inattention and carelessness. members began sobbing, loudly and uncontrollably. When Mordecai hears of his enemy’s Wow! Was that ever awkward! It was very devastating plan to wipe out all of his fellow Jews uncomfortable. Everyone felt the urge to make it everywhere in the empire, which is virtually better, or at least to make it stop. Didn’t she know the everywhere, he is rightly overcome by inconsolable rules? Was there something wrong? Should we call a grief. He literally refuses to be comforted. There is no doctor? I think we were a little afraid that if we were comfort. He is overwhelmed, shattered, broken, in a similar situation, we likewise might lose control, undone. There is a depth of emotion, of pathos, of and it would be embarrassing. affection that deliberately refuses relief. He is not Part of the problem comes from a spiritual masochistic. He does not desire or enjoy his pain. But expectation that if we are Christians we also Stoics. it is necessary, required, unavoidable, and he You know that the Greek philosophy of Stoicism, embraces it nonetheless. opposite Epicureanism, taught that happiness was C. And I wonder if we allow ourselves the attained by avoiding emotional extremes. Don’t get to same necessary response to the outrageous and happy and don’t get too sad. Don’t become angry or grievous aspects of life? Since we still live in a fallen distressed or outraged or joyful, and emotional world, we must grieve and mourn our losses. flatness is the way to happiness, kind of like Mr. ______1705-14P 2 Spock from the planet Vulcan. But when we read the Bible we don’t find emotionally flat and stiff people like Mr. Spock. We find people who soar to the II. WE MUST MOURN AND FAST. heights and drop into the depths because they are fully engaged in a broken world where God is still alive and A. We in the evangelical camp today do not at work building his kingdom, a world where there are make much of fasting, even though our original remarkable victories and devastating losses. leaders, Luther and Calvin both practiced fasting and Yes, “he will wipe away every tear from our encouraged it. The discipline is common in the Old eyes,” and that’s started, but it will not be complete Testament, and our Lord Jesus also both practiced until glory. Yes “we do not mourn as those who have fasting and assumed it. “When you fast…” he said in no hope,” but we do mourn. Who says we are to be the Sermon on the Mount, not “If you fast….” happy all the time? In some circumstances, the sudden I used to fast on a fairly regular basis, on death of a child, the death of a loved one who Wednesdays and Fridays. And sometimes it was consistently resisted the gospel, it would be inhuman awkward. I would go visit the elderly in their homes, not to grieve and mourn, inhuman, which means it is and they would always offer me a bite to eat. Hmm. rightly human to do so. Our Lord Jesus was fully I’m not suppose to let people know I’m fasting, but human and fully divine. He entered fully into our how do I graciously decline the coffee cake they broken world and he was a man of sorrows and baked just for me? I usually ended my fast early that acquainted with grief. day. C. Consider the horror of Mordecai’s situation. Part of my problem was that I did not really Not only did he hear the frightful report of the king’s understand the purpose of fasting. Others that I had irrevocable edict, the death sentence for all his people, read promised that when you fast you feel closer to don’t forget that he himself was partly to blame. He God, warm prayer flows like a flood, you would feel was the one who refused to bow before Haman. He more awake, alive, and alert, and you would become was the one who drew the attention and the ire of this super-productive at work. None of that was true for powerful devil to cast his wicked eye on the Jews. It me, never, not once. All I ever felt was weak, anxious, was Mordecai’s doing, he was responsible, he shared agitated, and HUNGRY! And because of the in the guilt, he was to blame! complication of calling on people and avoiding the Part of our trouble as well is that through our lunch they offered, I quit. constant exposure to entertainment and to the B. But what if fasting was supposed to make unending news cycle, we are faced with tragedies real me feel just the way I did feel: weak, sick, and and imaginary on a daily basis. It tends to burn out our starving? What if that really is the point? I’m not sure compassion reserves and we then turn a tepid eye to that the people of Mordecai’s day fasted because they the real and nearby troubles of our family and lost their appetite. I have felt nauseous with grief neighbors. Several years ago an older person in our before, but that passed rather quickly. What if God congregation began to chide me on Sundays for gave us fasting as a spiritual discipline not because we failing to pray all of the headlines on Sunday morning. felt like not eating, but to help us feel the way we “You forgot to pray for the victims of the typhoon in really should feel? What if fasting helps our body Cambodia, and for those hurt in the bus accident in catch up to our spirit? Tennessee, and what about those poor farmers and You notice that Mordecai put on sackcloth and their drought in California?” ashes not because he suddenly did not feel like Can we change a cultural expectation of polite washing and wearing ordinary clothes. Rather, it was and quite limited grief overnight? Can we restore an outward expression of the inward reality. He felt as burned out receptors of true sadness and mourning though he had died, and now he wanted to look that that we have over used and weakened through way on the outside. And you notice that when the entertainment? What I’m asking is whether or not we king’s dreadful death sentence was announced all over can regain our full humanity? I think that’s also part the empire, the Jews responded outwardly with the of sanctification, of growing into Christlikeness. And grief they felt inwardly. “3 And in every province, an essential part of it is fasting. wherever the king’s command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, ______1705-14P 3 with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of B. We can fast because, but we can also fast them lay in sackcloth and ashes.” This wasn’t for unto. We can fast because a tragedy has struck, and show, obviously, for the impending loss was real. And we know that by starving temporarily, we can more it wasn’t their natural response—they had been fully experience, feel the sadness of our loss. But we trained what to do when tragedy and loss struck them. can also fast unto. We can affirm the truth of the C. We eat and snack often for recreation. I do. Scriptures, the brokenness of this world and the I love to eat! Love it! Here’s a little secret: I love to horrors of hell in the age to come, and we can cook. That’s because I love to eat, and if I cook, I get deliberately choose to afflict ourselves, to sober to choose what we eat! But if we eat and snack ourselves up to this troubling reality. And perhaps, continually, we are often, never really hungry. We then, fasting becomes an aid to prayer. As we feel the never feel real hunger pangs. We never really feel the pain and weakness, we enter into the suffering of the pain, the anxiety, the weakness, quietness, lost. We can in a small way feel the pain they will desperation, even delirium of being really, really endure infinitely and eternally, and we can hungry. And when times of tragedy strike us or those commiserate with them and compassionately pray for we love, we do not allow our bodies to catch up to the them out of our pain. tone and tenor of our spirits. C. The book of Leviticus records various festivals and holy days the Lord commanded for his III. WE MUST FAST AND MOURN. people. One of these solemn days was the Day of Atonement. This is from Leviticus 23: “26 And the A. The flip side of this is that when we choose LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “Now on the tenth to fast, to place our bodies in a state of painful day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It deprivation and weakness, we help our spirits feel the shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you reality of living in a hazardous world that is broken shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to and ruined by sin where daily tragedies abound and the LORD. (Just so you know, to “afflict yourself” is we feel nothing. to fast.) 28 And you shall not do any work on that very For example, I subscribe to the doctrine of the day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement eternal, conscious punishment of the unrepentant. for you before the LORD your God. 29 For whoever “For God so loved the world that he gave his only is not afflicted (fasting) on that very day shall be cut begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not off from his people. 30 And whoever does any work on perish but have eternal life.” The inescapable that very day, that person I will destroy from among corollary to the best known verse in the Bible is that his people. 31 You shall not do any work. It is a those who do not believe in him WILL PERISH. So I statute forever throughout your generations in all believe that right now people who live in my your dwelling places. 32 It shall be to you a Sabbath neighborhood and some of my close family members of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the are headed to everlasting destruction. Some people I ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from have known, some of my relatives, are already there, evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.” and will be there forever. The nightmare never ends, The Day of Atonement was the day in which the terror never ceases but only grows exponentially, the people solemnly confessed their sins and the Lord Jesus said, “where the flame is not quenched and the publically forgave them. Could it be that God worm does not die.” commanded fasting so that they would actually feel I am thoroughly orthodox on the doctrine of pain, to help them actually feel sorry for their sins? hell, the everlasting wrath of God poured out on the We should also note that they fasted only from unrepentant. I believe that…. But I seldom feel it. I sundown to sundown. When I fast typically I eat seldom if ever shed a tear for those people I know supper and then eat nothing till the next supper. So and count as friends, and for my close family fasting is 24 hours not 36 hours. And please don’t do members whom I am quite certain are headed for anything crazy like trying to fast for 40 days. As I said horror that never ends. before, Moses did so, Elijah did so, and Jesus did so, It’s true! I affirm it! It is unspeakable! Yet I but nobody else did. So if you think you have risen don’t really feel it. And I think I need to start fasting above the Apostle’s Peter and Paul (and Abraham and again. King David) then go ahead and try to fast 40 days. It ______1705-14P 4 will literally be your funeral. And we will have to mourn and grieve for you and your suicidal silliness.

CONCLUSION

Are Christians supposed to be happy all the time? Well, no Christians in the Bible were. And Christ wasn’t either. So living in a fallen world, we must grieve and mourn, and God gave us fasting, afflicting ourselves, to sober us up and enable us to enter into the grief and sorrow of our losses and the losses of our loved ones. 

______