Saturday evening as the sun drifted beneath the horizon, the Muslim call to prayer sounded signifying the end of yet another Ramadan – month of fasting (food and water) during daylight hours – which seemed to spark a collective sigh of relief throughout the city.
Supermarkets were invaded and sweets, in particular, were bought in abundance to prepare for the next 3 to 4 days of holiday celebrations, which in Turkey is called, the “Sugar Holiday”.
The average abiding Muslim will actually gain weight during this month of fasting, where each evening meal is crafted to serve a king and a heavy breakfast before dawn is expected. One could even say that if you are not gulping down the ‘iftar’ meal, that you’d be suspect of not having kept the fast during the day.
Rather than teaching self-control and penance, I feel the fasting then gorging during the night hours bespeak of something quite unnatural, if not downright unhealthy.
Proper fasting, I believe, ought to include water as a primary cleansing agent; without it, excessive strain on the entire system, especially in areas of world with as extreme heat as the Middle East can easily lead to pre-mature aging of the body. Talk about a heavy yoke.
But, hey, they didn’t ask me.
While traveling between Mardin, Turkey and the border of Iraq this past summer, my taxi driver and I struck up a conversation. We went on to talk about our families, our children, and finally stumbled upon that age old, ‘how old are you?” question.
[After living in the Middle East for 7 years or so, I’ve come to expect folks to underestimate how old I am, but this time it seemed to mean something more.]
When it finally dawned on the ‘old’ leathery skinned man, looking all of 50 years that he was in fact 3 years younger than me, his jaw just dropped. He instantly asked about my wife, seated in the back seat, and stood awestruck that she was just one year younger than him.
His mind began to work over everything we’d talked about; then whether spoken or unspoken it became clear to me he was asking me why?
I was able to share a bit of the Gospel with him, and how we followed Jesus. How He carries our burdens, that we literally cast our burdens upon Him because He cares for us.
I don’t know what else to say, but following Jesus Christ is just plain smart. It’s the most healthy thing you could ever do for your mind, body, soul, and spirit. Of course, He does demand a lot, like everything, but what is that to trying to “own” a soul we can’t keep anyway?
He takes the brunt of life and breaks it in two. Not that we won’t face difficulties, but the difficulties somehow don't seem to show on our faces. He is our Prince of Peace, after all, and all His subjects are marked with His sign upon their foreheads. It would almost appear to some that His followers hardly age at all.
Thank you, Jesus, for taking all my burdens, giving me your light and easy yoke, making me care-free like a child and able to walk into Your Kingdom with no merits of my own, but simply because you said for all time: “For God so loved the world…”
You have become and remain today the collective sigh of relief for all the universe, for all time.
“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives … You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of sea.” Micah 7:18,19
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