?~Why have we fasted,' they say, ?~and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'
Few if any have read God's next words in Isaiah, because He speaks in a language every culture can understand, making sure the modern Christian doesn't escape their duty to free the oppressed, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and even more important, to FIRST DO NO HARM, by adding to their misery with our anger or our jealousy or our desire to be sure they're not getting something we didn't and that it's especially not being paid for with our hard-earned cash. Eager to make people live by rules and be held accountable, we Christians cease becoming the Singer of the Great Song?the Song whose words tell us and others that Jesus saved us from rules we couldn't obey and didn't live by; and that rather than holding us accountable for our sins and making sure we "got what was coming to us?, that Great Song's lyrics tell of the One who ran into the fires of Hell to rescue our soul?the very soul that now can't get off the couch even to feed the hungry or to weep for the poor. Here are God's Words to us then:
"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
On a roll, God continues speaking through Isaiah:
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter ?"when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then, knowing us as He does, He softens the rhetoric to give us hope again; a hope He doesn't owe us because He's already saved us?and yet He promises us more on top of it. This:
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.?
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.