To address failure in the spiritual life of Israel, and by extension into ours, Isaiah used a lengthy illustration related to fasting, and a summary instance related to Sabbath-breaking – in this chapter of the prophecy that bears his name. His particular point in the fasting narrative is that Israel felt righteous in that the laws of formal fasting had been kept, but the obedience was for show not for genuine faith prayer. Isaiah’s homily to them was that even though the gestures of fasting had been carried through as outlined in the Law of Moses, the intentional meaning of fasting was overlooked. This oversight made the formal practice useless. It were better that no fasting was followed if the meaning of the ritual is not lived out. The meaning of fasting is partly to prove to ourselves that what we are praying for is valued in our self-denial so to choose to identify with the needy. Poverty leads to hunger. Hunger felt by one fasting for a day is nothing compared to that of the poor who may be habitually in hunger. So out of the gesture the fasting person puts forth greater effort in identifying with the needs of others. The failure to make meaning of the gesture of fasting had been omitted by these spiritually proud people, so the gesture becomes like an icon that is unneeded before God, and perhaps odd to society related to purpose. Until the people of God turn their deeds into practical applications, fasting means nothing to God, and is ineffective for prayer. Fasting in the right sense is prayer. For the secular person it may be for health.
In two verses at the end of the chapter, Isaiah made a damning observation on the misinterpretation of the Sabbath. The people were even more deviant in this matter than in fasting. Not only did the people observe the Sabbath by their own interpretation of its uses, but they became deliberate in violation of the day by doing things on the Sabbath that were forbidden. In the event of fasting, they may have left something out, something vital, but regarding the Sabbath they actually substituted their own preferences for God’s. That irreverence is astonishing. To substitute humanism for spiritual life is cause for God to withdraw. The people invite God’s judgment.
It is well known that there are symbols in worship, but those symbols are rubbish to God if they are not related to practical application. The situation is worsened when the persons, in their presumption, begin to blame God for withholding his blessing. But, he would be giving approval to superstition, especially repugnant when it is practiced in his Name. We need to know the meaning of baptism, communion, or any other gestures of worship. Each time the communion is taken the communicant should feel in his being what the offering of Christ means to the individual and to the world. The baptism must be a sign of the death of the sinner to the old life and the rising from burial, in water for this instance, to resurrection. Even though the age of grace does not visit tightness of law upon believers, as it did in the days of Moses and the history of Israel, it is well to remember that the law informs us about God’s preferences for culture by persons of faith. On this basis we honor, by our own volition, the meanings of the symbols and directives that remind us of our privileges, and duties. Enriched biblical symbols indicate improvement in us. We commonly miss vital meanings in the casualness of our lives. The general public does not know or sense the importance of the liturgy of the Christian, except as the gestures reveal meaning in the lives of those who engage them. They seem like hocus-pocus to the humanist. They are that unless they are engaged as they are meant to be understood and applied. God does not engage in superstition. He is committed to meaning. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020