James R. Payton Jr.

As an aid to Lenten meditation, many churches encourage their members to fast—to give up voluntarily certain foods for the season of Lent. In some churches the fast is dauntingly wide-ranging: members are expected to pass up meats, dairy products, and eggs. Some other churches urge a less rigorous fast: they invite their members to forgo for a time something they normally eat and enjoy.

In Reformed circles, the idea of fasting hasn’t really caught on. To be sure, at one time or another most of us have given up food we otherwise enjoy. Perhaps we cut down on our intake as a way to lose weight. Maybe we gave up certain taste delights as part of an athletic training regimen. Some of us give up foods because we’re allergic to them. Whatever the case, each of these self-denials focuses primarily on physical well-being. Fasting, in contrast, focuses on spiritual well-being.

Have you ever fasted as a spiritual exercise? I’ve practiced fasting for the past few Lenten seasons and found it spiritually enriching. If you’re not already fasting, I invite you to try it during the rest of this Lenten season.

Reaching for Forbidden Fruit
For my first fast I gave up cookies—a treat I normally enjoy two or three times a day. Initially, fasting from cookies didn’t seem all that different from passing up certain foods temporarily for health reasons. But it was only a few days before I recognized how used I was to enjoying a cookie now and then throughout the day—and that I missed their delightful taste. I felt good, in one sense, about giving up something I enjoyed as a way of drawing nearer to God, but I also realized how strong the pull was to reach out and take just one cookie. Doing so was a part of my regular routine, and I found myself several times almost unconsciously strolling over to the cupboard and reaching in for the box of cookies—only to stop short as I realized that I could not; I must not. How easy I found it to fall into my common patterns; how readily I reached out for the (now) "forbidden fruit."

This all made me sense how close sin is to us in our fallen world. A friend of mine, much more seasoned in Lenten fasting than I was, challenged me to consider that the commandment to our first parents in the garden required a fast—Adam and Eve were not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). That tree offered a fruit which, if viewed apart from God’s command, seemed "good for food" (Gen. 3:6). But for the sake of love for God, Adam and Eve were to fast from one kind of food. They didn’t keep that fast.

Remembering Our Sin
Lenten fasting is a way of remembering original sin—the root and source of all that plagues us, the sin that dogs our steps today. Lenten fasting serves as a way of acting out before God that we repudiate sin and want to distance ourselves from it. In fasting we do what Adam and Eve should have done but didn’t do: we turn from the sin that through our first parents cleaves to us, and we offer ourselves in submission to God.

Fasting also sharpened my awareness of Christ’s self-denial for my salvation. Passing up a mere snack for a few days can’t be compared with what our Lord gave up for us—yet fasting pushes that comparison upon us regularly, as our cravings call for attention. Fasting made me sense a bit better than I ever had before all that Christ gave up for me: if I found it hard to give up a treat out of love for him, how much he must have loved me to give up all he did for my sake.

I knew all that before, of course. By fasting, though, I came to know it more deeply, not only in my thoughts and my heart but in my senses, in my tastebuds, in my cravings for a cookie. I gave up cookies for my first Lenten fast—but what I got back was far better.

Let me challenge you to fast this Lent—to give up something you enjoy eating, something you eat regularly. (It must not be something that, if given up, would endanger your health. Fasting is not foolhardy heroism but humble self-denial.) It might be sugar in coffee or jam on toast; it might be chocolate or potato chips—or cookies. Whatever it is, make sure the thing you give up is something that’s part of your everyday routine, something you enjoy and regularly partake of. And don’t eat it again until Easter Sunday.

The Benefits of Fasting
Why, though, should you even consider fasting? This fasting business is relatively foreign to our practice and may well sound strange to us. Sometimes we speak negatively of fasting, as if it’s always trussed up with self-righteousness. But self-righteousness is a perversion of fasting, as Scripture indicates: "Whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward" (Matt. 6:16, NRSV). The Word of God repudiates fasting done in parade, to call attention to supposed godliness.

But the Incarnate Word himself goes on to urge us, "But when [not if ] you fast . . . " (Matt. 6:17)—indicating that he expects his disciples to fast. The Lord doesn’t argue for the spiritual benefit of fasting—he assumes it, and thus he expects us to recognize it and to practice it.

Abstaining from certain foods, which we might otherwise legitimately eat, helps us remember what Christ has done for us. Forgoing sugar in coffee, a bag of chips, or a cookie keeps reminding us of all that Christ gave up for us. Our minuscule self-denial, passing on the genuine but paltry pleasures of taste for a brief period, sets a striking contrast to the startling self-denial of God’s Son. Recognizing how hard it is for us to give up these delights will drive home how much he gave up out of love for us.

Something else beneficial happens too as we pass through the Lenten season. Denying ourselves our common eating pleasure, whatever it may be, we’ll soon enough be yearning for what we’ve given up. We sense the loss, and we long to enjoy those tastes again. But if we stick to the fast, we won’t partake of what we have given up until Lent is over, on Easter Sunday. On that glorious day, when we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection from the dead, we may again add sugar to our coffee, snack on the chips, or eat a cookie.

As the fast comes to an end and we savor the delicious tastes of what we’ve denied ourselves for a few days, as we enjoy what we so yearned for but could not partake of, that experience gives sensory depth to our joy and wonder at Christ’s victory over death, that deliverance from sin promised long ago in the garden by the God who commanded the first fast and who continues to provide us with our food.

All that from a Lenten fast? Indeed—and purchased at the price of a few spoonfuls of sugar, some potato chips, or a bag of cookies. What a bargain!

So I challenge you: fast this season. Give up something for Lent. Try it—spiritually speaking, you’ll like it.

John Calvin on Fasting
"Throughout its course, the life of the godly indeed ought to be tempered with frugality and sobriety, so that as far as possible it bears some resemblance to a fast. But, in addition, there is another sort of fasting, temporary in character, when we withdraw something from the normal regimen of living, either for one day or for a definite time, and pledge ourselves to a tighter and more severe restraint in diet than ordinarily. This consists in three things: in time, in quality of foods, and in smallness of quantity. By time, I mean that we should carry out those acts of fasting for the sake of which that fast is appointed. As, for example, if a man fasts for the sake of solemn prayer, he should come to it without breaking his fast. Quality consists in that all elegance should be absent, and that, content with common and baser foods, we should not whet our palate with delicacies. The rule of quantity in this is that we should eat more sparingly and lightly than is our custom; only for need, not also for pleasure."

—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.12.18

Giving Thanks for Our Food
Eating is not an inconsequential facet of human life; eating is fraught with spiritual significance.
One of the practices common among us is to give thanks to the Lord before we begin any meal. We praise God for providing us with the necessities of life—and well we should. The food we eat comes not merely from the fruitfulness of the ground or the skill of the laborers who work it: our food comes to us as a gift from God.

After Adam and Eve fell into sin and were consigned to death, God nevertheless promised a deliverer (Gen. 3:15)—but not only a deliverer. God also promised to grant Adam and Eve children (3:16) and food (3:17-19).

In the face of humanity’s primal rebellion against him, God continued to love us and promised in grace that he would provide for our needs, both body and soul, and give us the one who would redeem us, body and soul, to be God’s own. So every time we eat, we should consider the grace that blesses us with any food at all.

Eating, thus, should lead us to recognize both our own sin and God’s gracious provision for us. That is, after all, the pattern of the Christian life from beginning to end: "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).