What Is The Fast That God Demands Of Us All?

The Prophetic Reading for the Fast of Yom Kippur

Isaiah 57:14-58:14
[Slightly midrashic translation, with commentary below, after the text]
Translated by Rabbi Arthur O. Waskow

And God said:
Open up, open up, Clear a path!
Clear away all obstacles
From the path of My People!
For so says the One
Who high aloft forever dwells,
Whose Name is Holy:

I dwell on high, in holiness,
And therefore with the lowly and humiliated,
To breathe new breath into the humble,
To give new heart to the broken-hearted.

For your sin of greed
I grew angry and smashed you,
I even hid My face.

Yet I will not do battle against you forever,
I will not be angry with you forever.
For from Me comes the breath that floats out to make all worlds.

Jesus in Creation

Rev. Daniel Forster

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”(John 1:1-4, ESV)

Jesus is life and in and through Him all things were made. We read John 1 and we are shown in this first chapter part of the mystery of the Old Testament. God allows us to see how He works in a very deep and intimate way. What had remained hidden and a mystery in the Old Testament is now revealed to us so our eyes may be opened to His glory.

Praise be to God, it is no longer a mystery! We know it is Jesus, the breath of life. This knowledge allows us to see and understand Jesus on a much deeper level. He gave us life from the beginning and through Him we are re-born to a new life by the blood shed by paying the price of death for our sins.