Hope you had a good week. Mine was kind of all over the place – – as you can tell by my sporadic posts. I’ve either been too tired or uninspired, such is life.
Anyway, it’s Friday. TGIF. During Lent, TGIF might mean Thank God It’s Fish. The Lenten abstinence from meat has never been a challenge for me. (Fasting on the other hand is a whole other story.) But I grew up with Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks, creamed tuna fish on toast, McDonald’s fish fillet and an occasional fish fry. I’m convinced that the real origins of the push for FISH on Friday is that there must have been a Medieval Pope who had a brother with a failing fish stand! But I digress.
The purpose of this simple abstinence is awareness. Awareness of what you could have but choose against, for something better. There is nothing wrong with Meat. Fish is not the king of the food chain. Our awareness then moves us to the choice of Christ. He could have walked away from the garden. He could have said yes to his needs. There is nothing wrong with walking away. There is nothing wrong with attending to your needs. But Christ chose against that immediate, for something better. He chose that Cross. He did not walk away, he walked toward…and by doing so, not only bound himself to the Father on that crossbeam – he lifted us up…to be forgiven, cleansed, and redeemed. All this on a Friday that was Good.
So besides meat, from what will we abstain today?
