Matthew 6:17-18: But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you may not be seen fasting by men, but by your heavenly Father, who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
Fasting was a duty of Jewish piety, and it’s one that the New Testament also endorses for Christians. Fasting is a physical manifestation of our humility before God, as we seek His mercy. We fast as a way of symbolically reinforcing our prayers. We fast when our needs are so great that we have no time for meals – we fast in order to leave time for prayer. We fast as we wait for the Lord to answer our prayers. We fast in preparation for feasting.
Scripture also commands a different sort of fast. Isaiah says that the fast we are to keep is to break the bonds of injustice, to liberate the oppressed, to do good to the poor, to open our hands generously to the orphan and widow. That is the fast the Lord chooses, Isaiah says. And Paul talks about fasting from the leaven of malice and wickedness as we keep the Christian Passover.
So, Christians are to fast in various ways. But what Jesus says in this passage is dealing with the specific act of refraining from food and drink, and the way we go about that. And he says, paradoxically, strikingly, that we are to engage in fasting with all the accouterments of feasting. David fasted and prayed for his son to be saved, but when the boy died he stopped fasting rose from the dust, washing, anointed himself, changed his clothes, worshiped and ate. Jesus us to fast with washed faces, heads anointed, and bright clothes.
Jesus wants us to act out a continual feast. Jesus wants us to dress for a feast when we are fasting, and dress for a feast when we are feasting, and dress for a feast for every occasion in between. Not surprising for a savior who came eating and drinking, a savior who ate with sinners and still eats with sinners each week.
Jesus is our festal clothing. His Spirit is the oil that anoints our head, and He gives the baptismal water that washes our faces. Whether fasting or feasting, we have this anointing and this washing. Fasting or feasting, we wear Jesus, our festal robe.
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