Lent #22:  Discipline 4 of 7—Fasting.

David fasted, pleading for the child.

(Second Samuel 12:16)

As the child born of David’s adulterous affair with Bathsheba struggled for life; David fasted and prayed for the life of the child. It didn’t work. When the baby died; “David got up from the ground…washed, put on lotions, changed his clothes, and went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, ate …and comforted his wife Bathsheba” (2Sam 12:16-24).

Feast days are prescribed in the Law: Sabbath, and the annual festivals: Passover in the spring, Pentecost in the summer, and Tabernacles in the fall. Fasting is not prescribed. It’s spontaneous. We do it in the face of crises, calamity, or loss. Like when David at the deathly sickness of his child; or, when Israel fasted during the oncoming carnage of a locus infestation (Joel 1:4&14).

Apparently, the Pharisees felt fasting needed prescribed days: “twice a week” (Lk 18:12), in order to assure proper piety. They questioned Jesus’ and his disciples’ lack of fasting: “‘Why do the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?’ The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast’” (Mt 9:14-15). You don’t fast at a wedding celebration, do you? But, maybe later, an appropriate time will come. Today, for example, might be a good day to fast and pray for deliverance from this malevolent virus.