Fasting

Matthew 9:15-17(Cf. Mk 2:18–22; Lk 5:33–39)

Matthew 9:15–17 ESV

15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

The Setting

In Jesus' time, weekly fasting was common.

Apart from the fast required by the law on the Day of Atonement, many devout Jews also fasted twice a week. In an early Christian book dating back to the first century titled the Didache, there is a discourse instructing Christians to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays to avoid fasting at the same time as the Jews, who fasted on Monday and Thursday.[1]

So, you can imagine the shock of the Pharisees, John’s disciples, and the entire religious community when Mondays and Thursdays would come around, and Jesus and his disciples were feasting with tax collectors and sinners while everyone else was fasting away from the sinful riffraff.

The Pharisees, of course, were not surprised by his lack of reverence. They had already condemned him for eating with sinners, so they were not shocked to see him breaking the fasts to feast with sinners. But John’s disciples were more curious than the Pharisees because they could see the irony in the Pharisees' criticism.

Matthew 11:18-19 says,

Matthew 11:18–19 ESV

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

The people calling Jesus a glutton and a drunkard for feasting were the same people calling John a demon for fasting.

Thus, John’s disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

And Jesus said to them: Because it is not appropriate.

Inappropriate Fasting

In the time of Jesus, fasting was often associated with grief, repentance, longing, and earnest prayer. It was a fitting response in times of sorrow or spiritual need. That is why fasting at a wedding would have been deeply inappropriate. A wedding was a time for joy, not mourning. To fast at a wedding would be an insult because it would send the message that the occasion was something to grieve rather than celebrate.[2]

Jesus essentially tells John's disciples to look around.

From the context of Matthew, Jesus was still at the table with the tax collectors and sinners when they approached him. Matthew had just repented and followed Jesus, and now a group of infamous sinners sat with Jesus, eager to repent and turn to God.

Surely, they could agree this was amazing and worth celebrating! If a person would not fast on the Sabbath, why would they fast when, according to Luke 15:7, there was “more rejoicing in heaven” over the return of one sinner?

Timing of Fasting: New Cloth and Wine

He further illustrates “appropriateness” through the metaphors of proper patching and winemaking.

A new patch sewn onto an old garment will shrink the first time it's washed — and tear away, leaving a worse hole than before.

New wine poured into an old wineskin will expand as it ferments — and burst the brittle skin, destroying both. New wine belongs in fresh wineskins. Ones that can stretch.[3]

Old cloth and old wine were good.

New cloth and wine were also good,

But mix them wrongly, and you ruin what you had.

Fasting was not the appropriate response to what God was doing through Jesus.

The Difficulty of Establishing Fasting as a Spiritual Discipline

SLIDE And here lies the difficulty of establishing fasting as a spiritual discipline that Jesus practiced. Outside of Jesus’ 40-day trip into the wilderness, there is no other example of him or his disciples fasting.

We see Jesus pray often. We see him teach often. We see him withdraw often. But fasting appears much less often than many of us might expect.[4] Furthermore, in the New Testament, fasting is mentioned only in the narratives and not at all in the epistles to the church as instruction.[5]

That silence has inadvertently led to three results among Christians:

1. It’s legalization and weaponization as a tool of self-flagellation.

2. A means of selfish ambition to lose weight or twist God’s arm 

3. A total disregard for fasting

But Jesus does none. Instead, he tells us when it belongs. Notice the last part of verse 15,

Jesus Assumed People would Fast

SLIDE “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Jesus did not say fasting was wrong, but the time was wrong. He says there would come a time when fasting would be appropriate.

John’s disciples probably assumed that Jesus was not fasting because he was doing away with it, but Jesus clarified that he was not doing away with fasting but was expectinghis disciples to fast at a future time, after he was gone.

In Mathew 6:16, when Jesus is teaching about prayer and fasting, he says, “when you fast….”

Notice how Jesus does not say “If you fast,” as if it were optional, or  “You must fast,” as if it were a command.

SLIDE In his words, there is an expectation that fasting will occur. He assumed that people do and would fast; therefore, he gave instructions on how to do it humbly.  

Purpose of Fasting

The text clearly shows that Christ expects us to fast. But before we talk about its purpose, we need to understand what fasting is not, so that we do not practice it wrongly.

First, fasting does not earn God’s favor. It is not a performance by which we prove our righteousness.

Second, fasting is not about getting God to do what we want. It is often our temptation to use good things to our own ends to try to get God to do what we want in a pious way.[6]

Third, we should not fast to punish ourselves. Self-harm as a form of righteousness is gnostic and has nothing to do with Christianity. God does not teach us dependence through self-violence but through self-love. In the testimonies, Ellen white says, “We are not to make crosses for ourselves ... by denying ourselves wholesome, nourishing food."[7]

Fourth, we should not be so keen on rules. Rules about fasting are extremely limited in the Bible. So, the specifics do not help us.[8]

Fifth, fasting is not covenant. If a friend you have not seen in a long time unexpectedly invites you to lunch, you can break your fast without guilt. You do not win medals for going longer. Fasting is not a way to get God to do something. If God responds to our fasting, it is not because we were faithful to its length, but because fasting is prayer with our bodies, and God hears the prayers of his people (we will expand on this in a minute).

Like solitude, prayer, and resting, fasting is also a grace; it is a means that positions us to come near to God.

MAIN POINT: The purpose of fasting is to teach our souls to reach toward God first, rather than our comforts.

To train our souls to turn to God first before turning to our comforts. As Gretchen Ronnevik says,

SLIDES “Fasting is a means of discipline that removes our knee-jerk coping mechanisms so that when we start to feel the urge to reach for that thing, we reach to God instead.”[9]

SLIDES More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.[10]

In this life, God has given us many good things. He has blessed us with food, water, technology, nature, people, art, music, etc. And the danger we all face is to think that we can only become slaves to bad things. Or that we can only idolize bad things. But that is not true.  

We can unconsciously come to love the blessing more than the Blesser. Generally, the idols in our lives aren’t evil things; they are good things. And because they are good, they go unexamined.

Fasting reveals what controls us and what we automatically turn to in our time of need. In hunger, like withdrawals, we begin to see the things that enslave us.

SLIDE Fasting is not about abstaining from bad things because we should quit unhealthy things. We fast from good things because it is in the absence of the good things that sustain us that we can see that God is the one who is truly sustaining us. Jesus learned first-hand in the desert that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

The purpose of fasting is to teach our souls to reach toward God first, rather than our comforts.

Application

SLIDE Jesus never gave us an example of fasting, but he expected us to fast. He expected us to fast because our souls need constant recalibration to put Christ back in the center of our lives. But I also believe there is another reason: because fasting is inseparably tied to worship and prayer.

SLIDE Luke 2:37 tells us that the prophetess Anna was “worshiping with fasting.” SLIDE In Acts 13:2, we are told that the apostolic band was “worshiping the Lord and fasting.” When Jesus spoke about fasting in Matthew 6, it was immediately after he spoke about prayer.

SLIDE “Fasting” can never be said apart from prayer and worship. We can pray and worship without fasting, but we can never fast without prayer and worship (Acts 14:23).

The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality ably defines fasting as "praying with the body.”[11]

In every way, fasting teaches our soul to reach toward God first, rather than our comforts.It teaches us to worship and to pray.

Six Steps to Start Fasting

1. Fast from food. All examples of Scripture show that fasts did not exclude water. Using fruit juices is a great way to give yourself some calories and keep yourself hydrated during a fast.

2. Or fast from something good. Fast from something that is good but that you may be idolizing.

3. Do not fast during times dedicated to joy and celebration.For example, do not fast on Sabbath. As said earlier, Jews and Christians in the first century fasted on weekdays so that they could feast and enjoy Sabbath.

4. Choose a length of time. Time length is irrelevant. Choose a length that works for your health, work, family, and schedule. You can begin with a 12-hour fast, then try a 24-hour fast, and finally, a three-day fast. Anything longer than three days should be perused prayerfully.

5. Keep it personal. Do not tell anyone you are fasting. Tell only the people that need to know.

6. Pray, worship, and read Scripture.

Conclusion

Despite the little direction the NT gives us, we have enough to develop a practice. And we have evidence that the church in the book of Acts fasted regularly. They did it because they understood that now that Jesus was gone, it was the “appropriate” time to fast.

But they also did it because it was culturally appropriate. Nowadays, fasting is not culturally normal unless combined with shakes, a workout routine, or a weight loss initiative. But I want to bring to our attention what Christ expects of us:

He expects us to fast. 

Because The purpose of fasting is to teach our souls to reach toward God first, rather than our comforts.

[1] Jodi Magness, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI;Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011), 88–89.

[2] Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 60.

[3] Ibid 300–301.

[4] In my research, I found no trusted scholar, author, or religious thinker who believed that the 40-day fast should be considered an example for us to follow. Not even in the Spirit of Prophecy. The consensus is that the wilderness fast was a miracle resembling Moses' 40-day fast (Ex 34:28).

[5] Ronnevik, Gretchen. Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted (p. 150). 1517 Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[6] Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline, Special Anniversary Edition (p. 54). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

[7] Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 626.

[8] Ronnevik p. 150

[9]Ibid p. 151

[10] Foster p. 55

[11] The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), p. 148.