One year when I was in high school, I decided that I was going to give up drinking coffee for Lent. I was at that age and stage where drinking coffee made me feel mature and sophisticated, but coffee had not yet become a necessary part of my day. That fast lasted about a week before one of my friends told me that everyone preferred me caffeinated rather than snippy and tired all the time. During Jesus’ day, the Jewish people were expected to fast annually on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, while the Pharisees had adopted the practice of more regular fasts as a way to show that they were willing to further remove themselves from the world around them, thus showing that they were holy.
Yet Jesus did not encourage his disciples to fast like the Pharisees, which apparently caused a point of confrontation between him and John’s disciples, who we can assume followed their rabbi’s example. (John’s “food was locusts and wild honey” – Matthew 3:4). Jesus’ response to them addressed not whether people should fast, but rather when they should fast. In that moment, the disciples had Jesus with them. He was there; he was preaching; he was performing miracles; he was present. Yet the day would come when he would not be with them any longer, and in that time it would be appropriate for them to fast.
We are currently in the season of Lent, when many Christians feel that it is appropriate to fast (and certain denominations encourage this act more than others), yet I always read Jesus’ words as a reminder that while the bridegroom, Jesus, has ascended to heaven, we find ourselves in a moment of “almost but not quite,” where we look for his return and wait in humble expectation, as we look for the moment that John wrote of in Revelation:
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure” (Revelation 19:6-8).