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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Fasting |
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Mathew
4:1-4 First
Sunday in Lent February
21, 2010
Today is the first Sunday of Lent, a time when many people are
fasting, or feeling guilty about not fasting.
Fasting has become so closely identified with Lent that many people
cannot think about Lent without also thinking about fasting.
Yet, I find widespread misunderstanding about both.
I have been writing about Lent in our Morning Readings, and, God
willing, will continue to do so throughout Lent.
So I will not talk about it very much today.
But I do I want to talk with you about fasting. The
very first thing I want to say about it is, fasting is voluntary.
There is no biblical commandment to fast at certain times of the
year, or at any time. Lent
may be a convenient time to fast, and there is a long tradition of Lenten
fasting, and most of us like tradition, but fasting is still voluntary.
So, if you're feeling guilty about not fasting, give it up for
Lent. Second, I must say
fasting is not to be done in any way that is injurious to your health.
Many people must take medications with food.
Do so. Many people
must eat due to physical or wellness issues.
Do so. To fast under
such circumstances is no glory to God; it is sin. But
I must move on to more important aspects of fasting, and I want to start
by emphasising what fasting is not. Fasting
is not a means of earning God's favour.
Fasting, and Lent, have become perverted in our time into means of
manipulating God in order to get something from Him. Thus, people will observe a time of fasting in order to get
God to answer their prayer for a new house, or healing. This is not the meaning of fasting. Now, I need to be very careful in what I am saying here, and
you need to be very careful about hearing.
It is good to pray and fast in a time of crisis.
It is good, for example, to fast when you are praying for someone
to be healed. But we must
understand that giving up food does not incline God to heal the one we
pray for. Fasting only
devotes us to praying. It
puts other things aside to spend time in prayer. Likewise,
fasting in no way will ever do anything to absolve our guilt before God.
One of the most devastating popular ideas about fasting is the idea
that we can somehow atone for our sins by fasting.
Fasting is not able to take away our sins or justify us before God,
or in any way make us less deserving of His wrath.
Nothing can atone for our sins, except Christ, the Lamb of God, who
taketh away the sins of the world. To
think we could ever do anything on our own to save ourselves is to show a
complete misunderstanding of Scripture, and to make the sacrifice of the
only begotten Son of God meaningless and useless. Next,
fasting is in no way sharing the sufferings of Christ.
Persecution is sharing the sufferings of Christ.
Rejection for the sake of the Gospel is sharing the sufferings of
Christ. Suffering loss to
follow Him is sharing the sufferings of Christ.
But notice these are all things that are done to us because we
follow Christ. Fasting is
voluntary, and cannot be considered in the same way.
But when people talk about fasting, and Lent, as sharing the
sufferings of Christ, they often have a sacramental view of them.
By this I mean, they think that we can somehow enter into Christ's
sufferings through fasting and self-deprivation, and that doing so has
some magical effect on our souls and earns merit for us in God's eyes.
In other words, it atones for our sins and gives us status in God's
Kingdom. This, as I said
earlier, cannot be, and to think it possible is to seek salvation by our
own works rather than the grace of God in Christ. So
what is fasting? Fasting is
first a spiritual discipline. In
1 Corinthians 9:27 Paul wrote of bringing his body under subjection.
This is the primary emphasis of fasting.
We are born with natural appetites, which often lead us into sin.
Fasting is an exercise in controlling these appetites.
It is the opposite of self-indulgence. Second,
fasting is letting other things go in order to seek God more
intentionally. In fasting we
spend time in prayer and worship rather than cooking, eating, and
cleaning. So,
there is no great mystery about fasting.
It is not, by itself, going to make a more spiritual person or
better Christian. It is not a
gateway to mystical experiences or ecstatic feelings.
It is simply self discipline and seeking God. I
think I have never seen a better description of fasting than our Prayer
Book's collect for the First Sunday of Lent.
Let us close by praying it together again. 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 they godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness,
to thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the
Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
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