Archive: Fasting Unto God

By Barbara V. Meyers

Christians everywhere are entering the 40 days before Easter called Lent. What do these weeks in the church year mean to us today? If we think of it at all, the answer would probably involve abstaining from certain foods. But to many, giving up desserts and sweet snacks is little more than a convenient stimulus to help them lose weight. I can remember giving up desserts and coffee one Lent, and then the utter ecstasy of biting into cherry pie a la mode for Easter dinner. But what has that got to do with our faith? Very little, unless the withholding of food is done as a small but conscious act of participation in Christ’s own sacrifice.

Historically, fasting has been a part of the celebration of Lent since 340 A.D., when Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, suggested that it be used to commemorate Jesus’ experience in the wilderness. It was not a new idea, for fasts occurred frequently in biblical days. As early as the time of the Judges, the people of Israel came to “fast and weep before the Lord” after they had been beaten in battle. This probably was an act of mourning and repentance that might shield the people against greater disaster. Sometimes a fast was called for the purpose of intercession. Esther, for example, asked all the Jews in Susa to fast on her behalf before she went in to the king with her plan to save her people. In the late Old Testament period, the fast seems to have emerged as a means of personal spiritual cleansing and illumination as we see in the book of Daniel.

This latter reason for fasting seems to have been the purpose for Jesus’ encounter with solitude. His experience seems to show us that true fasting means not only a respite from too much food, but also a separation of ourselves from anything that severs our contact with God. Jesus fasted from people, from work, and from sleep, as well as from food. Let’s think about each of his ways of fasting as they apply to life today.

By abstaining from food in the wilderness Jesus became more sensitive to things of the spirit. Whoever goes on a diet experiences this in a small way. It has been said that “no one ever became aware of his need for God on a full stomach.”

Psychologist Fritz Kunkel wrote that we need to fast to become aware of our shortcomings. If a person is quick-tempered, overly sensitive or irritable, lack of food will make it more apparent. Just as a whining dog can be silenced by plentiful food, so can the awareness of our defects be lulled by a full plate.

“All evil,” wrote Kunkel, “must become manifest before we can alter it into something positive.” This applies, not only to character faults, but to the tragedies of life that come to everyone. Whenever they come, they are our wilderness periods. When I was in great grief, a wise man said to me, “Don’t resist the pain. Say, ‘go ahead and hurt.’ But don’t stop there. Also ask, ‘Lord, what do you want me to learn from this?'” This kind of supplication never fails to reveal a lesson that needs to be learned.

Alone on the mountain without food, Jesus learned what it was like to be tempted with ideas of wealth and power. He also experienced the strength of the powers of darkness.

Lent is a time when we choose to look at ourselves as we really are; to acknowledge the sin God already knows about, and to seek and accept his forgiveness; then to press on toward more perfect lives.

A first Lenten discipline might be, therefore, a simplification of the diet, a purposeful leanness that we might worship God more intensely so that he may speak to ears that hear and hearts that are willing to learn.

Jesus’ fast on the mountain was also from people. Francis Line, in Sheep, Stars and Solitude, says that “no one with Jesus’ powers and relation to God could spend 40 days alone with the solitude and stars of the desert without receiving such a glow of new life that would change the world.”

We are essentially a gregarious people. We are told “to talk out a problem.” But again Kunkel warns, “our mouths create a leakage through which we relieve our inner pressure and prevent the spiritual explosion and beginnings of a new life.” Picture Judas on the mountaintop with Jesus. He might have tried to talk him out of his work of love. Instead, the Son talked to his Father and came to a victorious conclusion, just as later he came to an even greater victory in Gethsemane alone in prayer.

Everyone has had experiences in which they have wasted the very power that would have caused growth. A friend and I were interested in prayer and hungrily read everything anyone recommended on the subject, telephoning one another to share each new idea. Yet neither life was changed. One day, a third person, overhearing bits of the conversation, asked, “Why don’t you stop talking and start praying?” The “leakage” was stopped; a prayer group was formed; and a quiet time was set aside each day. The Spirit was able to do his work and lives were changed.

A conscious quietness, a turning to Christ within quiet meditation, could be a second Lenten discipline.

Jesus also fasted from busyness. If he had stayed in his normal routine after the Jordan experience there would have been work to do in the carpenter shop, yokes to be fitted, and tables to plane. But, by withdrawing into the silence he could give his Father his full attention. Later, when pressed on every side by the multitude, Jesus said to his disciples, “Come with me, by yourselves, to some lonely place where you can rest quietly” (Mark 6:31). Modern disciples, too, need to withdraw frequently from the busyness of the world and go to their Mount Solitary.

An honest reexamination of one’s daily schedule may well bring about a plan for pleasant periods of rest, and a deliberate slashing of the social calendar is sure to afford welcome oases of quiet for meditation. This is a possible third discipline for the Lenten season.

Perhaps part of our allotted sleeping time needs to be set apart to seek God. Jesus fasted in this way. The accounts of his wilderness experience mention both days and nights. Later on in his ministry, the Gospels record that “Jesus went out into the hills to pray, and spent the night praying to God” (Luke 6:12). Sleep, if overindulged in, can be an escape from reality equal to alcohol addiction. Who has not experienced feeling utterly weary on the day there is something unpleasant to be faced, in contrast to bouncing out of bed completely refreshed when there are happy plans to be carried out?

People in all walks of life are discovering the strength that comes from early morning prayer. A mother of six growing boys excused herself early from a party one Friday evening by saying, “I must rise early tomorrow to pray. The children will be home all day and I will need all the patience and help I can get.”

The late Dr. Frank Laubach prayed from three until five o’clock each morning to have the inspiration and strength with which to carry on his work of world-wide literacy. He said, “An hour of prayer is better than an hour of sleep.” This fourth Lenten discipline is the most important.

The story is told of a scientist who determined to find out for himself whether it was true that Pyrenees caterpillars always follow each other around. To do this he placed several of them on a revolving disc with their favorite food of pine needles in the center. For seven days and seven nights they walked, one behind the other around the circle—finally dying of starvation rather than breaking ranks to get at the food so near them.

Many of us can see ourselves in this little parable. The hunger of the spirit may be as intense as the desire for food, but the functioning of the soul does not continue on “automatic” as the process of breathing or the beating of the heart. The spirit depends upon contact with God for its impetus. Dare we break rank from the patterns that bind us, fast unto God, and reach him who is the Bread of Life?

Lent is a good time to try.

Barbara V. Myers was a free-lance writer, United Methodist pastor’s wife, and missionary in Singapore. She passed away in 1989.