Fasting as Body Turning: Part One

According to Scot McKnight, “Fasting is a person’s whole-body, natural response to life’s sacred moments.” In Chapter three he unpacks what he means by “fasting as body turning.” In chapters one and two, Scot described a biblical view of self that unifies the body and soul. There is an undeniable link in the Bible between the material and immaterial. The Bible does not divide body and spirit, as we are often tempted. Instead, the Bible exhorts us to participate in practices that highlight and strengthen the unity between body and spirit. Hence, the sacred practice of fasting. 

The most frequent form of fasting in the Bible is intimately related to an organic unity between body and spirit. The Bible often describes fasting as turning of the body toward the spirit during sacred moments when God’s people are called to a corporate confession of sin. In the contemporary church “very serious moments” like confession of sin rarely lead to fasting. Scot asks us: “Is there a need for a place in our church calendar – not just universal but also local – for repentance as a group by fasting?” We seem very accustomed to calling people together in order to feast (potlucks, barbecues and banquets), but how anxious are we to come together in order to fast. The Bible seems to assume the importance of a corporate bringing together of the body and the spirit by calling God’s people to fast together. Once again the Bible confronts our American sense of self. We are familiar with individual repentance and keeping the idea of sin as something between God and me. God’s Word, on the other hand, calls the people of God to confess our sins together. For many of us, fasting is a private matter. Not so much – in the Bible.

The most common corporate confession of sin in the Bible that led to fasting was Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement.

Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the Lord (Leviticus 23.27, ESV).

The Hebrews were not allowed to do any work during Yom Kippur (23.28). This was such a serious requirement that anyone who did not comply with the requirement by working or not fasting was to be cut off from God’s people and would be destroyed (23.29-30). The people were not only instructed to refrain from food and work. The self-denial extended to such an extreme that they were not allowed to wash or anoint themselves. They slept on the floor. They refused friendship. They also abstained from sexual intercourse. The reason for such severe requirements for an entire day was “to bring their entire person into harmony with the gravity of sin and the need to turn from sin toward God.”

What relevance does this have for us living as Christians in 2012? I do believe we should awaken the discipline of corporate confession of sin that leads to fasting. Scot recommends something like communities of faith entering into a Good Friday fast because that is the day we remember the ultimate Day of Atonement. What are your thoughts?