Go fast and live

Christian Century, Feb 28, 2001 by Mark Buchanan

RECENTLY SOME huge billboards along British Columbia's major roadways showed black-and-white photos of car wrecks--gashed and mangled metal, clouds of steam and smoke--all illumined under the luridness of fire, flares, searchlights and siren lights. The caption beneath the ads was as stark and grim as the photos: "Speed is killing us. Slow down and live."

If this were a multimedia presentation, I would now flash up a picture of our lives--our mindless and fruitless preoccupations, our depressions and ragings over not getting our way, our ceaseless and insatiable need for more and more and more, our boredom and blaming. And beneath I would put the caption: "Consumption is killing us. Go fast and live."

You can't read very far in any direction in the Bible without realizing that fasting was part of the natural rhythm of life for the people of God. They expected and planned to fast as naturally as they expected and planned to eat. To them, fasting was woven into the rhythm of life like day and night, summer and winter, sowing and reaping, waking and sleeping. There were times you ate and times you fasted. Doesn't everybody live like that? Richard Foster writes:

   The list of biblical personages who fasted reads like a "Who's Who" of
   scriptures: Moses the lawgiver, David the king, Elijah the prophet, Esther
   the queen, Daniel the seer, Anna the prophetess, Paul the apostle, Jesus
   Christ the incarnate Son.

He goes on to name some of the great men and women throughout Christian history who made fasting a discipline. John Wesley refused to ordain anyone to the Methodist ministry who did not fast twice a week. Jesus himself, though he stood against the Pharisees' rigid, self-promoting and judgmental practice of fasting, expects us to fast. "When you fast ..." he says in Matthew 6:16. When you fast--not if.

Jesus began his ministry by spending 40 days alone, fasting. Mark says that the Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and at the end of those 40 days the devil came to tempt him. I have always thought that the devil was coming to Jesus at his weakest moment: Jesus gaunt, raw-boned, wild-eyed, ready to scavenge any moldy crust of bread or scrape any meat shreds off a lamb's bone. Even pork looks good. The devil's first temptation is to offer Jesus food: turn these stones into bread. I always saw that as attacking Jesus at his lowest, most vulnerable point, tempting him with the very thing he craves most.

But I'm not so sure anymore. The more I learn from fasting the more I see that Jesus actually stood at his strongest when his belly was empty. Jesus is in peak condition, a fighter who has been training hard. When he steps into the ring, his opponent doesn't stand a chance. Jesus' swift and unflinching rebuttal to the devil is to quote from Deuteronomy 8:3: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God."

How does anyone get to know that this indeed is so? One thing is almost certain: it's hard, maybe impossible, to learn between fistfuls and mouthfuls of food.

The serpent came to Adam in a garden--Adam surrounded by an abundance of delicious food freely given to him, Adam with his belly full--and tempted him and Eve with food: "Here's something you haven't tried. Want some?" And they lick their lips, reach out a grasping hand, take, eat. But the devil comes to Jesus in a desert, Jesus surrounded by stones and scorpions and snakes, Jesus with his belly scoured empty, and the devil tempts him with food: "Wouldn't you like just a slice of bread?" And Jesus flicks him off like a fly.

So who is it who understands--really understands--that we don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God? Who is it who not only understands, but withstands because of it, overcomes on the basis of it?

If you never fast, then the whole concept of being wholly nourished and sustained by God's word will be only a nice, sweet and totally irrelevant idea. You may pay the idea lip service, but you'll be too busy licking sauce off your lips to do any more. And worse: if you never fast, you may not stand when the day of testing and temptation comes.

Consumption is killing us. Go fast and live.

Jesus' retort to the devil is a good place to begin:

   He [God] humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with
   manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man
   does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of
   God.... Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the
   Lord your God disciplines you. (Deut. 8:3, 5 NIV)

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert ... Fasting is not your own idea. It is not a legalistic requirement. It is not a work we perform. It is not a weight-loss technique. It is not a hunger strike. No, it is a God-and-Spirit work--a response to the leading and the driving of the Godhead. Fasting begins in a hunger for more of God's direction in life. Fasting is born of an appetite for more of God's presence, wanting God to lead, wanting the Spirit to drive. And what he often leads us and drives us into is a fast.