I have given up chocolate for Lent. Some people at church are surprised, saying either that they don’t do things like that (i.e. give things up in Lent) or that they couldn’t do without their chocolate fix!
So let me explain why I’m doing it. It is a kind of fast, what some call a partial fast. Like when Daniel and his friends in the Bible lived on only vegetables and water for ten days (Daniel chapter 1). Jesus gave us instructions for fasting. He began by saying “
When you fast” (not
if; Matthew 6:16).
I think this kind of fasting helps us to keep control over our bodies, rather than letting them get the upper hand. St Paul wrote about “beating” his body to make it his slave (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). From the context I don’t think he meant that literally, but he was saying that for the Christian, it takes discipline to live out the Christian life.
In our consumer culture, where whatever we want we must have, and now, it can be helpful to say, “I may want that chocolate bar, but I don’t need it, and I can do without it, so I will do without it!”
And by the way, if you do give up chocolate for Lent, it tastes so much sweeter on Easter Day!
Do you remember a certain brand of chocolate used to advertise "a glass and a half of milk in every bar"? Well, this lunchtime I ate one such bar, and happened to notice in small print on the wrapper:
