Rev Gav

Fasting

Luke 5:33-36

³³ One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”

³⁴ Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. ³⁵ But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

³⁶ Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.

Reflect

Fasting, or regularly abstaining from something, is a physical way of putting God before your own needs. Fasting usually means regularly abstaining from food — your own need to eat — but you can, in theory, fast from anything as a sign of saying, “Even though I really love this thing, I want you, God, to know that I put you first.” In first century Judaism, fasting also had a ritualistic element to it and there were even official days on which you fasted. People fasted as a way of mourning the fact that the Messiah had not yet shown up. It expressed, in a physical way, that longing for God to come, once and for all, to set the people free.

The followers of the Pharisees, wishing to follow the religious law, fasted. Even John the Baptist’s followers fasted too. But the followers of Jesus did not fast, and to many people this came across as disrespectful and so they questioned Jesus about it. Jesus explained that you do not mourn the absence of God when God is with you, and used the analogy of a wedding feast to make his point — an analogy that was often used to describe the relationship between God and God’s people. In other words, you do not hold out hope for a wedding on the wedding day itself, but Jesus pointed to a time in the future when he would be taken from his disciples, and he was talking about his death. Jesus said, “When I’m taken from you, then you can hold out hope and fast.”

Some Christians do not think we need to fast today because Jesus has risen from the dead and the Spirit of Jesus, — the Holy Spirit — is with us, yet other Christians find fasting a helpful spiritual tool to enable them to focus their minds on God.

Do

Today, think of a way you can show that you put God first. It might be to give time to God before doing something for yourself, or it might even be to give something up or take something on, as a sign that you want to honour God before honouring your own needs. Perhaps it will be simply to thank God before you tuck in to your next meal.

Pray

Holy God
Help me to put you first before everything;
before my own wants and needs,
and before my own desires and dreams.
May my life honour you,
in all I think, do and say.
This day and forever.
Amen.

Think

Do you think that Christians should fast today? What are the arguments for and against fasting?