Fasting
Introduction
Fasting means to abstain from eating and/or drinking as an act of personal and corporate piety. It is common in religions around the world, but in the Christian faith, it holds special significance and can be seen throughout Scripture. During His earthly life, Jesus corrected and clarified the purpose and role of fasting (Matt. 5:16–18; 9:14–16).
Explanation
One of the least understood and least practiced of the spiritual disciplines is fasting. This is not surprising for several reasons. First, under the old covenant it was only commanded on one day of the year of the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), making it highly occasional before Jesus’ day. Second, it involves afflicting the body and humbling the soul (Lev. 23:26-32; Ps. 35.13), which many people tend to avoid doing. Third, fasting is associated with seeking God in the face of grave threats, such as war (Deut. 20:1–3; Judg. 20:26; 1 Sam. 7:6), the death of a leader (1 Sam. 31:13; 1 Chron. 10:12; 2 Sam. 1:12, 2 Kings 25:23-–5), and the destruction of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:1-4; Jer. 52:12-13).
In Jesus’ day, the spiritual life of the people of God had become corrupted by tradition and syncretism and weakened by infighting. Traditions, not guided by the Scriptures but by a desire to return to the days before the Roman Empire had invaded, made reform in Jesus’ day difficult. Syncretism, or the combination of pagan practices with biblical religion, had infiltrated particularly the prayer lives of the priests (Matt. 6:7). And the various divisions of the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and Zealots, each with different relationships to each other and to Rome and the Scriptures, kept the ordinary Jew confused as to whom they should look to for religious leadership. In the midst of this confusion, Jesus called the Pharisees, perhaps the most orthodox group of the day, to reform their practice of fasting, prayer, and giving.
In Matthew 6, the New Testament’s primary chapter on fasting, Jesus’ own warnings concerning the heart motives of the Pharisees of His day are connected to positive affirmations that show how He envisioned His disciples’ continuing this tradition, both then and now. Paradoxically, Jesus instructs His disciples not to call attention to their practice of fasting through their appearance. Matthew 6:17 shows that rather than simply hiding one’s practice of piety, the disciple is to be festive in appearance, reflecting joy over having heeded the good news of the coming kingdom (Matt. 4:23) and having received its countless privileges (Matt. 1:21; 5:3–10). Under the old covenant, which was based on justification by faith alone (Gen. 15:6), the Jewish believers gained fresh confidence that God had made atonement for their sins in their fasting during Yom Kippur*.* But in the messianic age, festal joy and praise overflowed all previous levels as God’s people experienced their first taste of the life of the age to come in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Thus, Jesus taught His disciples, and us today, to make joy and celebration our countenance as we fast (Matt. 6:17).
The continued practice of fasting after the ascension of Christ demonstrates that this is a practice that should continue today and not a tradition merely of the old covenant or cultural Judaism. As Luke writes in Acts, the elders in Antioch fasted before sending Paul and Barnabas off into ministry (Acts 13:1–5). Paul fasted for three days after his Damascus road experience (Acts 9:9). And he fasted fourteen days while on the Adriatic Sea in his storm-tossed prison ship (Acts 27:33–34). The practice reminds us of our total dependence upon God even for our daily bread and prompts us to exercise self-discipline in seeking after the kingdom of God.
Quotes
Fasting expresses in a God-ordained way our belief that we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8)—so good that there are times we’re satisfied to feast on Him instead of the food that the Lord made for us to live on. Fasting is a temporary physical demonstration that we believe the truth declared by the gospel, namely that, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
We look to Nehemiah for clues to guide our own pilgrimage in difficult times. Nehemiah was grief-stricken by the news of the condition of Jerusalem. The walls were broken down and its gates burned with fire. His first emotion over the sad loss of his heritage was grief. It was not bitterness or anger. Nehemiah wept and mourned as Jesus would later weep over the same city. In his grief, Nehemiah moved to the next step, prayer and fasting.
Fasting is an act of longing and desire, specifically a longing and desire for a fuller sense of God’s power and presence. The incarnate God embodies the divine presence and power (John 1:14; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:3). In answering the question of John’s disciples with a question of His own, Jesus says in effect that because He is the end to which all longing/fasting should point, His disciples have no reason to mourn or long for His divine presence.