Death & Fasting

Why was death the ultimate result of the fall? I have my idea. Perhaps it was the greatest gift from God at the time. In fact, in the story of Genesis, God casts Adam and Eve out of Eden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life and live forever. (Gen 3:22) Was He just jealous OR was He actually protecting us from something worse than the fall itself? Death strips everything from us in this world; money, things, the people we love, and even our very bodies! So why could this be a great gift? Because it leaves us only one choice - the choice to hope in God alone. He is all we have left when faced with death. Through death God gives us the ultimate opportunity to choose Him. How gracious and humble He is to allow us to choose Him versus the choice for nothing. How easy he makes it through this gift of stripping everything away except for Him.

Fasting then is simply our minor choice to die to self and choose God alone. Our conversion is based on detaching from this world to cling to Him in the next. Although we need food, our 24 hour fast reminds us of our ultimate dependence on God alone. It is interesting that the sign of the fall was food - the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. The story of the fall shows us how we idolized creation, in this case food, over Our Creator. Our e5 fast, in union with the New Adam, Christ, is our new Yes to God. Our fast is then an act of great hope.