Communion address

Dear Brothers!

We hear more and more often that our Reformed brothers fast. The family I come from is very staunch Calvinist and completely rejects fasting, since as Reformed we can speak of a time of grace and we cannot add anything to the grace we have received.

Furthermore, the world today treats the word fasting almost synonymously with dieting. If you’ve gained a few extra pounds, you could say: it’s good that the fast has begun, because I’m losing them. I can’t go into the details today, but when we were children, meat was on the table once a week. We didn’t fast or diet, but that’s how it was. In comparison, the traditional Catholic fast only prohibited the consumption of meat on Fridays. Anyone who comes from Transylvania, on the other hand, knows that some Orthodox brothers and sisters take fasting so seriously that at Easter, they end up in the hospital from too much eating or drinking.

I believe that fasting is a very useful spiritual and physical practice. Because God created us is this world and did not take us out from it. We have favorite foods, favorite entertainment, and sometimes these can enslave us. And so we are talking about sin. We hear parents say that this generation is using the phone too much… I would like to ask the embarrassing question, who do you think our children see this from? Or even more personally, do you know how many hours a day you are in front of screens? (We can talk about addiction or it is discomfortable for us.)—social media was created, to be addictive.

Fasting should be about giving up something we love in order to spend more time with God. He doesn’t need our fasting, we need to recognize what is holding us back. What is taking time away from God.

Let me ask all of you who profess the principle of Sola Scriptura, how much time do you have in a day for God. To speak to you, how much time do you set aside for reading the Bible, for silence, for prayer? Let’s keep the question open, just compare how many hours you spend in front of a screen a day, or what have you deprived yourself of for the glory of God in the past. Or what do you plan to deprive yourself of in the following 40 days?

After all, your Creator, our Jesus Christ, was born into this world, took on human form, and took on the form of a servant to correct our mistakes. He lived innocently and was condemned as a sinner. He helped others and was sent to death. He pays the sacrifice for you and you look at it like an old fairy tale or a historical event.

Dear Brothers and Sisters! In the bread and wine, in this Lord’s Supper, we remember that God has forgiven us of our sins and that he gives us eternal life through his Son.

Do we have to fast? No, it is not obligatory. But it would be better if we saw fasting as an opportunity to motivate ourselves and others. If we eat our future exactly as the world does, then we are no different from it.

Christ is going to the cross. He walks the path of obedience for you and for me. Today we experience the beginning of this earthly journey, we remember this. And for this we want to follow Jesus, in this Lord’s Supper we ask God for strength to walk this path with Christ. May we be able to rejoice, may we suffer, may we sometimes deprive ourselves of things. Because He, as God, became human for us, so that we could be saved.
Amen

Communion address of Róbert Lészai. Zwolle, 9 March 2025