2023 Daily Lenten Journey – Day 4

We awake from sleep. We prepare for a day of work. We return home satisfied, we hope, for the good things accomplished. We rest and sleep for another day of work. Day after day. Year after year. We do all this to fill our stomachs, put a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and a make a name for ourselves in retirement. In retirement, we hope to rest and enjoy the remainder of our life. Too bad, it is all for naught.

Since we are returning to the beginning for our annual Daily Lenten Journey, it is important to focus on the first days we humans were alive. Trees, fish, birds, land animals, even creeping creatures were all created with a word from God. We are different. We were created with His hands out of the dust of the Earth. Still, being made by God’s hands isn’t the only thing that makes us different. All the animals might walk around and eat, but we humans are ‘living beings’ and that makes us different.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up — for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground — then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.  And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.  The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.  The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush.  And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria.  And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”  So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 2.4-9

All the other animals are living creatures. Humans are living beings. The difference is the “breath of life.” When God created humans, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and God became a living being.” Without the breath of life, we may awake from sleep, work and eat and enjoy a sunny day, but we are not living beings.

It reminds me of Christ’s admonition in the Gospel of John. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6.53) Christ was, and is, reminding us that we are only truly alive with His life-source flowing through us.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said that fasting without prayer is a diet. I’m suggesting that anything physical we do without God is nothing more than wild creatures. A hungry lion will not walk past a gazelle without eating. We are different. For the sake of our souls, we pass by certain foods during Great Lent to spend more time with God.

During Great Lent, the Church offers extra liturgies for our strength. At least once per week, most Orthodox Christians parishes offer the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. This is a somber liturgy, based on vespers that includes Holy Communion that had been prepared the Sunday before. It is for our strength during Great Lent, and like Christ said in the Gospel of John, it gives us life.

Tomorrow we find out what happens when we act more like a lion than a living being.