Today’s guest blog comes to us from Peter Leithart, author, minister, theologian, and 
President of the Theopolis Institute in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Mosaic liturgical calendar prescribes only one fast, the day of atonement, when Israel was commanded to “humble your souls” (Leviticus 16:29; 23:27, 29, 32; the verb is sometimes translated as “afflict”). By way of contrast, Israel celebrated two week-long festivals, a handful one-day festivals, and a weekly Sabbath, when they were to eat, drink, and rejoice in Yahweh’s good gifts.
Fast days become fixed on the calendar. In Zechariah 8:19, the Lord promises to turn “the fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth months” into joyful feasts. At least for the duration of the exile, Israel commemorated the moments of Babylon’s invasion and conquest of Judah with fasts.
By the time we reach the New Testament, fasting is one of the main acts of Jewish piety. John’s disciples fast, and the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable boasts of fasting twice a week (Luke 18:12). Jesus’ disciples, controversially, do not fast during His earthly ministry (Matthew 9:14-15), but Jesus predicts that they will when the Bridegroom departs (Matthew 9:15). In Acts, the disciples fast in connection with ordination to mission (Acts 13:2-3; 14:23), prayer (Acts 14:23), and as a part of “ministering to the Lord” (Acts 13:2).
Jesus’ instructions about fasting are the climax of this progress. He tells His disciples to fast with anointed heads and clean faces (Matthew 6:16-18). Washing and anointing are normally preparation for feasting (Ruth 3:3); they mark the end, not the beginning, of a fast (2 Samuel 12:20). Jesus turns fasting inside out. He wants us to dress for a feast when we’re fasting, dress for a feast when we are feasting, dress for a feast for every occasion in between.
We can allegorize: Jesus Himself is our festal clothing, His Spirit the oil that anoints our head, baptism the water that cleans our faces. Whether fasting or feasting, we have this anointing and this washing. Fasting or feasting, we wear Jesus and His Spirit, our festal robe and light-giving oil.
But there’s something else going on. Jesus came to inaugurate the feast of the kingdom. That feast is still ahead of us, but He began the feast of the kingdom already here and now. The feast is future, and the feast is present. We have to wait for a joy already granted.
Our practice fasting should reflect the reality of the new covenant, the maturity we have reached in the risen Son. When we’re children, there’s a chasm between hunger and satisfaction, between suffering and glory, between losing and winning. As – if – we mature we learn to see a glimmer of success embedded in our failures, the glory of our sufferings, the joy in sorrow. Jesus tells us to discover the feast in the midst of the fast, the fullness at the center of our hunger.
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Your partner in ministry,
Nelson
P.S. – As pastors we wage spiritual warfare on a daily basis and the enemy doesn’t sleep. You have the tools to combat those forces and fulfill your mission – faith, prayer and fasting – but you must sharpen them daily.
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