Pastor Tom Johnson, February 17, 2021
Jesus does not say to His disciples, “If you fast.” He says, “When you fast.” When the disciples of John the Baptist ask Jesus why His disciples do not fast, Jesus replies, “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” (Matthew 9:15). There is no command to fast in the New Testament. “Thou shalt fast” is not the eleventh commandment. And yet, Christians have practiced the discipline of fasting ever since the end of Christ’s earthly ministry. Fasting isn’t unique to Christians. Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews all fast. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset for the whole month of Ramadan. As Christians, our understanding of fasting is unique since it comes from the words of Jesus.
When we fast, we hunger for Jesus. We fast as wedding guests bereaved of the Bridegroom and longing for our reunion to come. We bring our stomachs into conformity with our spiritual longing for Jesus. Just as our stomachs pang for food so we have spiritual hunger and thirst for Christ. We feel the emptiness in our stomachs and loss of strength in our members. Weakness and hunger urge us to take and eat. As the Psalmist in Psalm 42 says, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:1-2).
Fasting cultivates spiritual discipline. For in denying our bodies of food or whatever else that we crave, we are doing something the devil, the world, and our flesh despise—we say “No.” We say—“You cannot have what you want.” We say “No” on a very fundamental level. For what more basic desire do we have than to eat? When we deny our stomachs, the body has no choice but to start going into reserves and consuming stored energy. That’s why fasting weakens the body. The body is no longer taking in the fuel and resources it needs. And so it now must consume its own resources—beginning with fat cells and then even consuming muscle cells. All the while, the body says, “I am not happy…feed me!”
But isn’t that Jesus’ point? The human body, until we receive our resurrected bodies, is not where our treasure is. In our denying the body, we are saying “Amen” to the Word of God. “Yes, Lord. My treasure is not in this earthen vessel but in heaven.” “I know that any pleasures in this life do not compare with the Treasure that awaits me in heaven—and that Treasure is You, Lord Jesus.” By fasting, we admit something few of us dare to admit: that our flesh—our sinful nature—the Old Self within me—my sinful alter ego—whatever we want to call it—that part of me is the very place where “moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” We admit that we are sick. We are poor. We are starving and thirsting to death. On Ash Wednesday we sum it up with the words after the fall in Genesis: “We are dust, and to dust we shall return.”
The awareness of our starving souls is a blessing. In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that their hunger in the wilderness was all part of God’s plan. He uses hunger to mold and shape them into the people of God he wanted them to be. He says, “[God] humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that one does not live by bread alone, but one lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” If we follow where this spiritual hunger leads us, the Spirit will tell us where to go for food—to the Word of God—to the Word made flesh—to the Living Water—to the Bread of Heaven—the true Manna—Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ prayer in John 17, we hear how much Jesus longs for us—how he hungers and thirsts for our company—how he treasures you and. He prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
And so we fast. We hunger. We thirst. We long to take, eat, and drink of our Lord Jesus Christ. Luther’s Small Catechism even affirms that fasting is “fine, outward training” when preparing to receive the Lord’s Supper—his true Body and Blood. What better occasion do we have to satisfy our longing for Jesus? For in the Lord’s Supper we receive true heavenly Food into our mouths. And so our spiritual hunger and thirst for him is satisfied. We taste and see that the Lord is good. We feast upon him who died and rose for us. We have a foretaste of what is to come. We look forward to that day when Jesus ushers us into the marriage feast of the Lamb in his Kingdom which will have no end. He spreads a table before us. Our cups overflows. We will take from the twelve fruits of the Tree of Life which is for all the nations. We will be filled and satisfied. And we will celebrate the Feast forever. We will hunger and thirst no more.
No comments:
Post a Comment