Why I Have Concerns About "Fasting In The New Year"

I read a story about the Czar of Russia noticing one of his palace guards posted in a random spot on the Kremlin grounds in 1903. He began to ask around as to why a soldier was positioned there year after year. It was soon discovered that Catherine the Great (who preceded him in leading the country some 120 years earlier) had once found the first flower of spring blooming in that exact spot. She placed a guard there all those years ago with orders to stop anyone from stepping on it. And so, for more than a century, there stood a guard, year after year, decade after decade, absent of purpose but fixed in tradition.

THE WORD

They said to Him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”

-Luke 5:33

First, allow me to clarify, that fasting has a very special place in my heart. It was on this subject that I was asked to preach my very first sermon in a small ministry on my college campus when I was 19. I also want to clarify that our church has kicked off the new year with a corporate fast as we have every year long before I got here. It's a tradition that has come to be practiced by many believers and churches all over the world and something I've personally done for longer than I can recall. But I'd be dishonest if I said I hadn't considered stopping it.

Not because I don't believe in fasting but rather because I fear tradition. Not all tradition. I believe the most sacred practices of the Church are often considered "traditions" such as: receiving communion, participating in water baptism, dedicating children, etc. And fasting at the beginning of the year, in many ways, has become another one of those special events on the church calendar that we anticipate each year, albeit, perhaps not so eagerly.

But what makes these experiences so special and sacred is not so much our practice of them, but rather our reverence toward them; the guarding of their meaning and their purpose. I've found that at times I have very easily slipped into seeing fasting as something that is done at the beginning of the year in the same way that many see worship as something that is done on a Sunday morning or that Russian leaders see a random spot in the yard as something that should be guarded. If we're not careful we relegate the sacred to a time and a place and it becomes more ritual than purposeful.

THE TIME JESUS DISCOURAGED FASTING

It is believed at the time of Jesus that the Pharisee's common practice was to fast twice weekly. So, when the pharisees approached Jesus in Luke 5 about why His disciples weren't fasting, it's important to keep that in mind. However, not only were they fasting weekly, they were fasting outwardly. It was a way to show others how "righteous" they were. This is why in Matthew 6 Jesus firmly encourages us to make fasting a normal part of our life but discourages us from doing it in a way that draws attention to ourselves.

So, when they come to Jesus asking about His personal fasting regimen, it's likely an attempt to flex their own self-righteous muscle and ask, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while He is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” Luke 5:34-35)

Simply put, Jesus is much more concerned about the purpose of fasting rather than the practice of fasting itself. This is really important for us to catch because the Christian life is FULL of practices and traditions; that's not a bad thing. We are to be a disciplined people in how we live out our faith. Jesus simply points out that the discipline of fasting should come with a purpose. Discipline without purpose is religion. Purpose without discipline is fleeting. But discipline with purpose is devotion.

FASTING IS MOURNING

I'm currently reading a Christian classic entitled "God's Chosen Fast" by Arthur Wallis, written back in 1968. It's a beautiful commentary on everything that fasting is. In the book, Wallis points out that the Hebrew word for mourn literally means "to cover one's mouth" inferring that to mourn is to fast. In fact, mourning and fasting seem to, at times, be interchangeable in the scriptures.

Knowing this brings light to Jesus' response to the pharisees. The bridegroom is present, which means it's time to feast and when He is gone it will be time to fast. What we do should always be in alignment with what God is doing. That is the foundation of a surrendered life. Jesus was pointing out to the Pharisees that their noble disciplines were out of sync with God's sovereign doings (and no pharisee likes to hear that).

Jesus then goes into a seemingly obscure story about shirts and wineskins, saying “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:36-39) Growing up pentecostal I don't think I was ever taught the meaning of this one, perhaps because it involved wine (*wink).

Admittedly, this parable can be difficult to decipher unless the full context of the story is taken into consideration. Jesus is warning the pharisees that holding onto traditions (like fasting every week or year) can be like holding onto old cloths and old wineskins, prohibiting new garments and wine. Your allegiance to passionless practices may very well keep you from receiving the new things from the very one who called you to the practice in the first place. It's likely that what God is doing will at times challenge your religious structure. In other words, if you continue the practice apart from recognizing the purpose you will miss out on the promise.

FASTING UNTO GOD

So, it's probably clear that I've done a pretty good job of talking myself out of fasting annually at the beginning of the year. I'm being transparent when I tell you, at times in my life, I've come to view it as more of a tradition than a devotion. Some of the most powerful fasts I have taken part in were spontaneous and without much warning, when the Lord just called me to abstain from eating. Likewise, some of the most miserable fasts have been when I've participated simply because it was on the calendar and therefore I felt compelled (of my own self, not by anyone else) to take part. Though let me warn you, whether it's on the calendar or not, it is in the Bible, which is the most important reason to participate.

So, why I am still "fasting in the New Year?" I'm fasting in the New Year because fasting is not solely about what I need God to do. I'm beginning to realize that fasting should not always come with a list of needs and areas that I need to see breakthrough in. When great need arises, fasting should be common practice so as to align ourselves with God. But waiting until the beginning of the year to be free from bondage doesn't indicate to me that one truly desires freedom. Nor is it good practice to fast at the beginning of the year in hopes that God will make the rest go the way we want it to.

No, I'm beginning to see that fasting is also a form of consecration unto God. It is a way of giving ourselves to Him in worship. Any seasoned believer knows that true worship is not about what God will do for you but rather who God is to you. When Jesus teaches on fasting in His sermon on the mount He places it in the same category as giving and praying. It would be disdainful to say we only give to get and we only pray to receive, yet we've somehow come to believe that we should only fast to breakthrough.

Fasting is an offering to the Lord. On this point Arthur Wallis so beautifully states, "God's chosen fast, then, is that which He has appointed; that which is set apart for Him, to minister to Him, to honor and glorify Him; that which is designed to accomplish His sovereign will. Then we shall find, as though it were heaven's afterthought, that the fast unto God rebounds in blessing on our heads, and the God who sees in secret is graciously pleased to reward us openly."

CONCLUSION

The annual fasting, the weekly fasting, and the corporate fasting are all opportunities to obey God and those whom He has positioned over us to lead us in such a practice. It's also an opportunity to simply separate ourselves to God. It's just as important that we not fast when we don't feel led to as it is to fast when we do. But be sure not to confuse the absent call of fasting in your life with the ignorance of its significance. If you do not fast it's most likely because you do not know about the power behind the practice.

If you'd like to know more about the practice fasting I recently preached a message at our church to kick off our New Year's fast. You can find that here.