Fasting
1) God appointed fasting for us while we were still in paradise: “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16–17). The Lord commanded us the same several times afterward: by the mouth of the prophet Joel God says, “Turn ye even to Me with all your heart, with fasting and with weeping” (2:12); and in the book of Tobit, “Prayer from the heart is good, with fasting and almsgiving the more” (2:8); the prophet David writes, “I clothed myself with sackcloth, and humbled my soul with fasting” (Ps. 34:13), “My knees are weakened through fasting, and my flesh is changed for oil” (Ps. 18:23).
The righteous of the Old Testament themselves kept this commandment of God firmly: Moses spent forty nights on Mount Sinai in fasting — he “did neither eat bread, nor drink water” (Ex. 34:28); the prophet Elijah fasted (Kings 19:8), Ezra (2 Esd. 8:49–50), Nehemiah (1:14), the prophet Daniel (10:2–3). The Israelites fasted several times (Judg. 20:26; 1 Kings 7:6, 31:13; Judith 4:9–13; Esth. 4:16; Jer. 3:4–9), and the heathen Ninevites themselves (Jonah 3:5). Behold, how many examples of fasting there are in the Old Testament itself. Are we Christians to fall behind the people of the Old Testament in this good work?! No — and all the more so, because in the Old Testament all this was written and came to pass “for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11).
It is true that Christ the Lord freed us from bearing the ordinances of the Old Testament, yet fasting He left with us, and He showed this first by His own example, when He fasted forty days, and then in His preaching Jesus gave us instruction concerning fasting: “Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:16–18); and He showed the power of fasting when He declared that devils are cast out by fasting and prayer (Mark 9:29). The apostles of Jesus Christ also expounded their Teacher's doctrine concerning fasting: “Approve yourselves”, says the apostle Paul, “as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions and distresses, in necessities and stripes, in imprisonments and tumults, in watchings, in fastings and in pureness” (2 Cor. 6:4–6); and in another place: “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth” (Rom. 14:21), and: “If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend” (1 Cor. 8:13).
The disciples of Christ did not only teach us concerning fasting, but themselves also kept this commandment and fasted on those notable occasions when they had most need of the grace and help of God. For example, when Barnabas and Saul were chosen for the ministry of God: “And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away” (Acts 13:3); and likewise Barnabas and Paul, for the newly converted, “ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, and commended them to the Lord” (Acts 14:23). Thus the holy apostles themselves held fasting to be needful for them, and so much the more is fasting needful for us.
2) Fasting is a willing endurance. There is a bodily fast and there is a spiritual fast. The bodily fast is when we endure, and do not eat or drink this or that food and drink; the spiritual fast is when we keep ourselves from evil thoughts, words and deeds. He fasts well who does not speak idly and who shuns slander, evil-speaking, flattery and lying. He fasts well who does not give his hand leave to steal and to plunder, nor his heart to covet another's goods. He is a good faster who keeps himself from every evil. This is the spiritual fast.
The bodily fast is profitable also, for it weakens, wearies and subdues the evil mind to us; but the bodily fast, if it is not joined to the spiritual, is in vain. Many fast in body, but not in spirit. Many fast and keep themselves from food and drink, but follow after the evil thought, word and deed — and what profit is there in such a fast? Many eat no meat and drink no wine, but with their tongue they bite and sting their neighbour — and what profit is there in such a fast?! Many will not touch what is forbidden, yet stretch out that same hand to take a bribe, to steal, to seize what is another's — and what profit is there in such a fast?! If thou wouldest have thy fast profit thee, then, fasting in body, fast in soul also. As thou hast appointed a fast for thy body, appoint a fast for thy soul also: forbid thy mind its vain thoughts, thy memory its remembrance of evil, thy will its evil desire and doing; turn thine eye away from the evil sight, keep thy tongue from gossip and from every vain, evil and shameful word, restrain thy hand from taking what is another's, and thy foot from walking in the evil way. “Depart from evil, and do good” (Ps. 33:15). This is the Christian fast.
