It’s pancake day, yes it’s pancake day, it’s pppppppppancake day. So sang Barrington on Maid Marian and her merry men. And in so doing, he offered a fine rejoinder to those who would have the joy of pancakes muted by the misery of Lent and is presumably why they were, indeed, merry men.
I have spoken a number of times on this blog about why I don’t do Lent. I haven’t always given a strong case for why I think the Bible, along with those in whose tradition we stand, suggest we oughtn’t to do Lent either. I am, as yet, to hear a solid biblical argument or theologically cogent one for it. But I wanted to offer four reasons – three biblical, one historical – as to why we probably shouldn’t do Lent.
Jesus tells us it isn’t appropriate
I have mentioned this argument before here. As I have outlined elsewhere:
In Matthew 9, Jesus is asked by the disciples of John why his followers do not fast like they do. Jesus’ answers by saying “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” This answer tells us that fasting has to do with mourning. Usually, it was linked to mourning over sin and was an act signifying repentance, and this is consistent with the OT. Jesus goes on to talk about new wine in old wineskins and the context of this comment comes in Matthew 9:13 where Jesus quotes Hosea saying “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Taken together, Jesus is saying the old outward forms of religion no longer hold now he is here. The new covenant simply cannot be lived out under the old stipulations of the Jewish laws and customs. In other words, fasting is of no inherent value. It is only the response to Jesus Christ himself that is of any great spiritual importance.
As I comment in the original post:
A plain reading of the text does not suggest that the new covenant necessitates new fasting, rather it suggests the old order of the Judaic system – it’s traditions and customs in which fasting is included – cannot be grafted onto the new. Whether fasting per se is in view or the whole Judaic system, what is clear is that it is not compatible with the new wine brought in by Christ. It’s not that new wine requires new fasting, it’s that fasting is not compatible with the new wine.
Taken altogether, it seems to me that Jesus has dealt with our need to mourn over sin in the way fasting existed to facilitate. He was also clear that as long as he is with us, there is no need to fast. As he is now with us always, fasting has become defunct. Moreover, the new wine brought in by Jesus means that the old Judaic religious forms no longer hold.
Lent misappropriates Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness
Again, I previously commented here:
why did Jesus spend 40 days fasting in the desert? Was it as an example for us to follow or was he doing something else? Two Old Testament characters fasted for 40 days – Moses and Elijah. It is no coincidence that these were the same two who appeared with Jesus at the transfiguration. Moses was the one who established covenant with Israel at Sinai in law and Elijah was the one who accused Israel of covenant-breaking, leading to the Israelite exile. Jesus was the one who established a new and better covenant than Moses and was the one who, though executing justice against his people like Elijah, bears their sin on their behalf. None of that is stuff that we are called to emulate or do.
The other bit of background is the 40 years Israel spent wandering in the wilderness. Alongside associating himself with epoch-changing covenant shifts linked with Moses and Elijah, Jesus was re-enacting, as the true Israel, what the people of Israel did when they left Egypt. They had grumbled against God, they sinned and were unable to enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief. Jesus, by contrast, goes into the desert to achieve what Israel did not. He went specifically to be tempted by Satan and to trust in the Father in the way that Israel didn’t. He was going to accomplish what the people of Israel could not: full obedience. This is not something we are going to emulate, like some sort of deutero-Christs. We rest in the full obedience of Jesus on our behalf, something we are not going to emulate this side of the parousia.
Paul tells us it isn’t appropriate
In conversations about Lent, and fasting more broadly, I am surprised by how quickly people simply ignore the expressed statement of Paul. Here is what he says in Colossians 2:16-23:
don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.[d] 17 These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is[e] Christ. 18 Let no one condemn[f] you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such a person is inflated by empty notions of his unspiritual[g] mind. 19 They don’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God.
20 If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: 21 ‘Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch’? 22 All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines. 23 Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.
Three things seem worth pointing out explicitly (though they are pretty obvious in the text). First, Paul says nobody should be judged in matters of food and drink. This is not an issue of any import for believers. Given the sheer amount of times Paul highlights food and drink issues in his letters suggests this was a repeated issue in the early church. Paul’s answer is always the same – the kingdom of God really is not a matter of eating and drinking (or not doing so, as the case may be).
Second, Paul is even more explicit and disavows ‘ascetic practices’. Asceticism is most closely associated with not eating and drinking i.e. fasting. Paul is emphatic here, ascetism is sub-Christian. Fasting is not something that disqualifies us and is not something Christians should be focused on.
Third, for those who would agree that fasting is not a matter of qualification but it is still spiritually valuable, Paul cuts that argument off at the knees too. He calls ‘regulations’ that tell us ‘don’t taste’ i.e. Don’t eat i.e. Fasting to be matters of ‘human commands and doctrines’. Putting the final boot in, he insists they might seem to wise and humble, but they are actually of no value. Fasting, according to Paul, is not only unimportant and unnecessary for the Christian, it is explicitly lacking value.
Further to all that, it is worth setting this alongside Paul’s wider view of the Old Covenant law from which we have been freed. In line with Jesus’ apparent view that fasting belonged to the Old Covenant law, Paul is clear that we are no longer under the law. Its rules and regulations – including its fasts – are no longer binding nor appropriate for the believer. It is telling that we don’t read any example of Gentile churches fasting and, where these things do come up, Paul is explicit that they don’t need to do it because it has no spiritual value.
Jesus & the Apostles don’t tell us to do it
An argument from silence is never the strongest. On its own, it doesn’t swing anything. However, as we have seen, there are biblical grounds to see Jesus and Paul both affirming that fasting belongs to the Old Covenant and is not for the church. Set against this, we would need some explicit command or clear statement that the New Covenant demands fasting or that it has real spiritual value, with some evidence of what that spiritual value actually is. But when we look for it, we find only silence. There is no such command, no statement of its value and no expectation.
Zwingli thought it was inappropriate
Whilst we don’t want to land on the reformers as though they are scripture itself, those of us who stand in reformed theological traditions do place some weight on their views. With that in mind, it is worth reminding ourselves of the awesomely named event kicked off by Zwingli. As I commented here:
In the event with possibly the greatest name in all Reformation history, he wilfully and purposefully subverted Lent and sparked the Swiss Reformation in The Affair of the Sausages. Other than sounding like a work of Agatha Christie fan fiction, the Affair of the Sausages – prompted by Luther’s teaching on sola scriptura – led Zwingli to the belief that fasting was not required of the Christian. In a bid to demonstrate his departure from Catholic teaching on fasting and Lenten practices, and in a bid to reassert Christian liberty on the matter, Zwingli joined in a sausage supper during Lent at the home of a printer who would later publish his translation of the Bible. His printer friend was arrested after a public outcry and Zwingli publicly defended his Christian liberty in his writings.
In the face of those who were insisting that fasting is necessary, Zwingli determined the only acceptable response was to very publicly exercise Christian liberty on this matter and refuse to fast. Given those views have not gone away, it strikes me as still broadly inappropriate to join in.
Where does that put fasting?
Taken in the round, the bible does not expect New Covenant believers to fast, offers explicit statements on its complete lack of spiritual benefit, and seems to push us away from it. Which, when all is said and done, means we can enjoy our pancakes and don’t have to suffer the misery of Lent.
The big question is, why are so many so keen to ensure that we fast and keep Lent? I can only surmise that despite the repeated statements of the New Testament, that we are no under law and we have complete freedom in Christ, that many are desperate to put themselves under unnecessary and potentially damaging regulations.