“Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and they they will fast in those days?” Luke 5:34-35
The Lent season is a time for fasting – reflecting on my spiritual journey and God’s love transforming my life. A friend asked me what I was fasting from this year and I said that I was actually feasting instead. Literally feasting as my husband and I just returned from an all-inclusive resort vacation for our anniversary and also feasting on the words of Jesus.
Am I called to fast? Most definitely. There are seasons for fasting just as there are seasons for feasting. To help understand fasting (for those that this is a new concept) I thought I would expand on the parable of Jesus where He explains the purpose. “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good'” (Luke 5:36-39).
New Clothes
As curious as the parable may seem it’s practical implications go deeper into understanding the transformation that needs to take place in my heart. I have tried to patch many of my kiddo’s jeans with new fabric patches to no avail. Once the garment has had it’s full use it is time to get a new one. The old functioned for a season, but now there is a new season. Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees, “I know the old law because I created it and now I have come to fulfill the law with my sacrificial life. Sacrifice and fasting for the Messiah is ‘old clothes’. I have come to die for all people and give them new robes of righteousness. This is a free gift from the bridegroom.”
New Skins
In Biblical times, wineskins made from goats were the best method to preserve wine during fermentation. As the new skins had expanded, they would reach their full potential and could not be reused. The Pharisees felt they were already holy with their laws, customs and rituals of fasting. They had no room in their hearts for Jesus and His new law of love. Some today have no room or appetite for God’s love and truth. Jesus came to bring a new life and new wine that does not fit in old wine skins. God’s transforming work is complex. Like the fermentation process it takes time to bring a fullness to the body of the wine and spirit. His love works to transform the old ‘sinful’ life to the new life in Christ.
New You
Fasting works to transform me from the inside out – fermenting my heart and soul to God’s truth and identity that is counter cultural and would not fit in my ‘old skin’. God is working within me as I fast (or feast with Him) to renew my heart and mind to His truth. Henri Nouwen says it best, “How can I search for beauty and truth unless that beauty and truth are already known to me in the depth of my heart?” God created my heart to be set free and embrace the love of Jesus. His wine giving my new skin and new clothes for a new me.
To Fast and Feast
Transformation. Newness. Righteousness.
How is your fasting or feasting? Have you allowed God’s transformation in your heart?