Why we should fast
When you think of fasting, if you think of fasting at all that is, it is often seen as a personal spiritual discipline. It is something that if you are serious, or perhaps extreme, in your faith, you do to somehow strengthen and grow your faith. This is a fine starting place, as far as it goes, but we can better understand the purpose of fasting when we give it a little bit of biblical context.
Throughout the Old Testament fasting is associated with mourning over disaster, repentance from sin, and prayer. It first shows up in Judges chapter 20 after the army of Israel had suffered a major defeat at the hands of one of their own tribes, Benjamin. The passage says, “Then all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the Lord. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the Lord”(Jdg 20:26). They fasted to humble themselves before God, expressing sorrow after their devastating military loss. In western society, we are often cut off from extreme emotions and are kind of embarrassed by them. We see it as better to control our emotions and keep our composure, but ancient Israelites expressed sorrow with their whole bodies. They wept, they wore sack-cloth, and they put ashes on their heads. Fasting was one more way to communicate that you were upset, that things weren’t all right.
If fasting was a way of saying that things weren’t all right, then we can see how fasting and prayer gain a link. You fast to humble yourself before God, to show that you are dependent on him. The very act of fasting communicates that we are in need. If things aren’t all right, we need God to step in and fix them. Without his intervention, we’re lost, and good Israelites knew that. A particularly heartbreaking fast was undertaken by King David when the prophet Nathan told him that his son would die. 2 Samuel 12:16–17 says, “David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.” Eventually the child dies and his servants are afraid to tell him because if he was already doing the normal mourning rituals while the child was alive, they were afraid of what he might do when he found out that the child was dead. But to their surprise, after he finds out, he cleans himself up, eats, and returns to normal. When they ask him about it he says, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam 12:22–23). David knew that God could change things if he wanted, so he fasted and prayed, hoping that God would intervene.
This is why Jesus’ response to people who accused his disciples of not fasting is so fitting. If fasting is about showing that you were upset, that things weren’t ok, then Jesus is essentially saying, “Actually, while I’m here, everything is ok.” The world around him got a break from turmoil, sickness, and death. So, in that instance, fasting wasn’t appropriate, feasting was. Once Jesus leaves, fasting resumes because things aren’t all right. We need God to make them right again and fasting expresses our need.
One significant wrinkle that Jesus gives to fasting, though, is that his followers are not to fast as a public display to other people that things aren’t ok. They simply fast and display their need to God. They count on God’s goodness, his mercy, his justice, and his power to change things.
Instead of letting your neighbors know that you’re upset by putting on sackcloth, covering yourself with ashes, and making your fast known, you wash, look presentable and just fast trusting that God sees and that he responds.
So, if we practice fasting as a discipline, as a regular habit, we have to recognize that its primary purpose is to say that we are in need, that we are dependent on God. As in all spiritual disciplines, our faith grows as a byproduct of the act. It isn’ t really the goal of the act itself. In other words, if we try to grow our faith by fasting, we’ll be frustrated, but if we fast to express our dependence on God and our need for him, our faith will grow as a side effect. Fasting has some other great side effects as well, which I hope to spell out in another post, but the real reason to fast is to express with your whole body that you need God, you need him to show up and to make things right.