“Feasting through Fasting”

As we have now begun our Lenten journey—our journey to Easter, with the goal being a renewal in our conversion to Christ, a renewal in the new life we have through the mysteries of His death, resurrection and ascension, a renewal in our baptism—our focus here in the beginning of Lent is on the works of penitence and self-denial, as we identify with Christ’s work of self-denial in the wilderness. We’re called to travel lights, as it were, “to lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and to run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).

Three weeks ago, on Septuagesima Sunday, as we began to prepare our hearts and minds to enter into the discipline of Lent, we heard St. Paul use this very image of running a race as a metaphor for the whole of the Christian life. And you’ll remember he said, “Run in such a way that you may win.” So today, as we have now entered into the season of Lent, we need to begin to ask and answer the question, “What is the way in which we are to run the race of the Christian life? What is the way in which we should strive to win the crown?

Our collect for today suggests that the way we are to run the race of the Christian life is simply, yet profoundly, the way of Jesus. It indicates that what we set out to do just four days ago on Ash Wednesday was to commit ourselves, once again, to run the race Jesus ran. So we prayed, “O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights; Give us grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness.”

In the Gospel lesson, we see Jesus begin to run His race, but it’s obvious from the very outset that it will not be a sprint. A sprint is exactly what the devil would try to tempt Jesus to run. “Obtain the crown immediately! Avoid all the pain and discipline it takes to go the long haul. Get instant gratification! Be fulfilled! Achieve your glory now by taking the short way, rather than long, arduous way of perseverance and obedience.” But Jesus rejects the sprint, and commits himself rather to run the marathon—the marathon with its finish line the cross, and the crown of glory won through suffering.

You know the story of the first man ever to run the marathon. He died as a result. He was a soldier who was given the task of returning to Athens to report to the king the great victory of the Greeks over the Persians at the battle of Marathon. So excited and overjoyed was this young soldier to tell the good news that he ran the entire twenty-five mile distance (yes, the original marathon was twenty-five miles; it was the British who in 1908 extended it to its current 26 miles 385 yards – the distance from Windsor castle to the Olympic stadium in London). But of course, as the story goes, as soon as the soldier reported the news to the king in Athens, he immediately dropped dead right there on the spot.

Now I don’t know what kind of shape this poor guy was in before started to run his race, but wouldn’t it be the most bazaar thing you’d ever heard if it was suggested to you that the best way to prepare to run a marathon would be to fast for the forty days prior to the race? That would be a ridiculous suggestion, wouldn’t it? It goes completely against reason. I don’t think there’d be a one of us who wouldn’t die if we tried to run a marathon after a forty day fast. I’d probably die without the fast. But that’s just what Jesus did. Jesus began his marathon race to the cross with a fast of forty days. And through that fast He was strengthened not only against the temptation not to run at all, but He was also strengthened to go the whole distance, to complete His course, and to receive His crown of glory. That’s the way Jesus was strengthened to run His race, and that’s the way we may be strengthened to run our race—through the discipline of fasting.

But how can fasting strengthen us? How can the deprivation of the body—the weakening of the body—be to the strengthening of the person? Isn’t it foolishness to think that by depriving our bodies of food we can actually be energized in running our race? In the wisdom of the world it may be foolishness, but in the wisdom of God fasting is one of the chief spiritual exercises to strengthen our souls, because fasting is not simply about not eating. Fasting is not simply about going without. Fasting, at its core, is about feasting. Fasting is about feasting on God. It’s is about desiring God and finding your fulfillment and strength in Him above all other things. It’s is about seeking to love the Giver above His good gifts. And we find in the example of Jesus Christ Himself the need for all of us from time to time to turn away from our trust in Bread, and to rely on God alone to be the strength of our lives.

After forty days of fasting Jesus became hungry. Of course he did; He was a true man. And the devil came to Him in his hunger, in his physically weakened state, and tried to take advantage of it. “If you [really] are the Son of God,” he said, “command that these stones become bread.” But now did Jesus’ physical hunger deplete His spiritual strength? Not at all. For he answered, “It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus’ forty-day fast did not weaken Him against temptation; it strengthened him against temptation. For what Jesus was feeding on was the word of God. The word of God was His sustenance. The word of God was His strength.

But why was this even a temptation? Why would Jesus’ messianic ministry be threatened just because the devil suggested that He satisfy His hunger by using His miraculous power to turn stone into bread? Didn’t he use His miraculous powers to feed the five-thousand, and then again the four-thousand? So why in this instance would it have destroyed Jesus’ ministry to give in to the temptation to provide bread for Himself from the rocks? The answer is that in the wilderness Jesus voluntarily identified Himself with our situation and allowed Himself to hunger, and to be put to the test, to prove where His true allegiance would fall—whether with God or with the world. What’s going on the wilderness is that Jesus, the Son of God, is allowing His loyalty to put to the test. Imagine it.

Remember that God put the Israelites to the test in the wilderness to see whether they would obey Him or not; whether they would trust God to sustain them, or whether they would put their trust in the world; whether they would put their trust in bread, as if bread were somehow mechanistically infused with the power to give life, or whether they would trust in the Word of the Lord. Of course, Israel failed miserably, and as soon as they began to hunger just a tiny bit they began to complain to Moses, “Oh that we had died back in Egypt. Oh what a wonderful place it was where we used sit around by the pots of meat and where we always had our fill of bread. Why have you brought us out into this wilderness to die by hunger, you terrible person, you!” See, they desired the world more than God, even if the world bought them into the bondage of death. They trusted more in the power of bread to give them life than they did in the Giver of bread Himself. And so in a tremendous exercise of grace and mercy to as untrusting a bunch of rebellious children as there ever was, God gave them the miraculous bread from heaven—the Manna—to show to them that life is not in bread, but rather life comes down from God, who calls everything into being, and sustains all things by the word of His mouth. “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

But even after God gave them the manna they still complained; they still trusted in the world more than in God; they still desired the gifts more than the Giver. “Oh that we could go back to the cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions of Egypt! But now all we have to eat this manna! Why couldn’t God have just left us alone?”

I mean, they’re so stupid, we almost have to laugh. But aren’t we sometimes the same? Don’t we complain in our hearts when God puts our loyalty to the test? I mean, when we’re faced with the Scriptural call to give up our lives to follow Christ, to take up our cross and follow him, when you hear me call you to the spiritual exercises of self-denial and fasting, honestly, don’t you say in your hearts, why does God demand so much? Or more probably, “Why does Fr. Jerry demand so much?” It’s always easiest to complain against the messenger, just like they did against Moses. But I’ll tell you why God demands so much. Because He wants you to love Him more than this world. Because He wants you to rely on Him more than you rely on bread.

And here’s the thing: when you fast, you will realize just how much you long for Egypt. You’ll realize how much you long for the world to sustain you. As John Calvin says, “your body will rage against you,” and the true nature of you love for God will be put to the test. That’s the negative side of fasting. But the positive side is that it will train you deny those longings, and to seek your life and your strength and your fulfillment in God above all things…. when you fast.

That sort assumes that you will fast. And I say it that way because that’s what Jesus said. He said, “When you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting… But… when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting… and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Look at that: there’s that promise of reward attached to fasting. It’s counter-intuitive, but the truth is—if we believe the Scripture—that there is so much greater reward received through the self-denial than there is through self-indulgence. And fasting is one exercise to teach us self-denial. And what is the reward? The reward is delight in the Lord. The reward is training ourselves to hunger for God, and to have that hunger satisfied. Exercise always promises reward. And the exercise of fasting promises delight and strength in the Lord.

Fasting is saying to God, “I desire you above all things.” Fasting is seeking the Giver more than the gift. That’s the way Jesus ran His race. So on our journey to Easter, and in our race win the crown of glory, let us take up our crosses and follow Him by taking up the discipline of fasting. +