Fasting For The Bridegroom

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’” – Matthew 9:15

Jesus says in Matthew 6:16, “And when you fast,” not “if you fast.” While fasting is not explicitly commanded in the Bible, it is assumed to be a normal part of the spiritual life. People in the Bible fasted to express mourning or repentance, to seek answers in prayer or at times of great need, to worship God. Richard Foster describes secondary purposes such as revealing things that control us, reminding us that we are sustained by God, or helping keep balance in our lives.

It’s interesting that the only other place Jesus talks about fasting, here in Matthew 9, he describes a different kind of purpose. While there is some dispute in interpreting the latter part of the verse, I tend to feel that Jesus is referring to the time between his ascension and second coming. While we have the Holy Spirit—who is so valuable it was worth Jesus going away to have him!— there is also a sense in which we are not with Jesus as we will be. There is tension between having the kingdom of God now, yet wanting more. Fasting is a way of expressing our sadness at Jesus’ absence and our longing for his return.

Have you thought much about this, the fasting of the lover who is waiting for the return of the bridegroom? The first time I did, I realized my fasting had been so self-centered—not that one can’t fast for petitionary reasons, of course—but at the heart of it, I wanted things, not Jesus. My eyes were turned towards myself, not him.

But fasting this way, it feels like I’m saying, Jesus, the reality of my soul and being is that I want you more than I want food or anything else on this earth. I feel your absence; I’m sad about that, sad about the ways this world is broken. I’m sad about how my sense of your presence so often comes and goes with my mood and circumstances. I hunger for you to come back, to be with me forever and make everything new. My hope is in that more than it is in my next meal.

This kind of fasting reminds us what we are really waiting for. N.T. Wright writes in his book Surprised By Hope: “The presence we know at the moment—the presence of Jesus with his people in word and sacrament, by the Spirit, through prayer, in the faces of the poor—is of course related to that future presence, but the distinction between them is important and striking. Jesus’ appearance will be, for those of us who have known and loved him here, like meeting face-to-face someone we have only known by letter, telephone, or email.” We are waiting for that, longing for that moment and all it will mean for us and the world and the feast that is to come. As John writes at the end of Revelation: "He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"