Smoodock's Blog

After discussing the principle of prayer at length (Matthew 6:5-15), Jesus came to the principle of fasting (Matthew 6:16). When we think of a fast, we think of abstaining from food and liquids, although some fasts allow one to drink water. Nevertheless, the idea behind a fast is one is in mourning, and one’s grief doesn’t permit him to eat or drink. In other words, when one is in mourning, he has no appetite. Therefore, he doesn’t eat or drink liquids, other than water.

Daniel fasted for 21 days, while he prayed that the Lord would reveal more to him about the Seventy Weeks Prophecy of Daniel 9. Daniel said that he didn’t eat any “pleasant bread” and either adds to this or defines pleasant food as flesh and wine (Daniel 10:1). In other words, Daniel may have eaten food that wasn’t considered pleasant, or described as flesh and wine. He tells us that his fast extended from the 3^rd day of the first month and didn’t end until the 24^th day of the month, which means he fasted through the Passover. Jews are commanded in the Law to eat unleavened bread during the Passover season (Exodus 12:15, 18; from the 14^th to the 21^st of the first month). Unleavened bread is called “the bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3), and, therefore, couldn’t be the pleasant food, which Daniel claimed he abstained from (Daniel 10:1).

Daniel was in mourning, because he had been told that the Messiah would come, but he would be cut off (Daniel 9:26) and that Jerusalem would be destroyed again in a war. Therefore, Daniel fasted and prayed that the Lord would explain this in further detail. It wasn’t a matter of choice. Instead, it was something that resulted from his mourning over the culmination of the Seventy Weeks Prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27).

The Prophet Isaiah tells us that the people complained to the Lord, saying they had fasted, but the Lord didn’t notice, but the Lord replied that, when they fasted, they acted selfishly and oppressed their workers (Isaiah 58:3). Their fasting was over quarrels, debates and over humiliating others, but why would they expect the Lord to hear their cries for the satisfaction of their flesh (Isaiah 58:4)? Then, God asked them, if ritual posturing and afflicting oneself was a proper fast that he would choose to notice (Isaiah 58:5). Instead of rituals, the Lord told the people through Isaiah, the prophet, that the fast he chose is the one, where one ceased his wickedness and stopped oppressing their brethren with burdensome contracts and “cancel every unjust account.” Instead of doing wickedly, behave yourselves with kindness and mercy by sharing what you have in abundance with those who have not, by giving shelter to the homeless and clothing the naked, and by making yourself available especially to the needs of your own family (Isaiah 58:6-7).

Fasting is more than a religious ritual; it was more than not eating or drinking, and more than putting on sackcloth and covering oneself in ashes (symbols of mourning). Fasting was the fruit of one’s mourning. Refusing to eat or drink isn’t a choice in a fast. Rather, it’s the outgrowth of one’s grief over a certain matter. One simply doesn’t eat or drink, when one is in mourning. Nevertheless, those whose religion is nothing but rituals, have their reward (Matthew 6:16).

According to Jesus, fasting should be entered into with joy and shouldn’t be announced to the world with rituals. Instead, it should be the disciples’ joy to be kind and merciful to others. It should be counted a joyful matter to repent, to stop oppressing others and instead feed and clothe those in need, giving them shelter and simply making oneself and one’s resources available to the needy. This is the fast, which the Lord has chosen, and he will see what we do in secret that isn’t ritualistically displayed before the world, and he will reward his obedient disciples openly (Matthew 6:17-18).