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᛭ INI ᛭

“Return to me with fasting,” the LORD says in Joel. The Lord says again in Matthew 6, “When you fast…” The Lord says elsewhere that “the friends of the bridegroom do not fast while He’s with them…But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast.” (Mk 2) The Small Catechism calls fasting “fine, outward training” in getting ready for the Lord’s Supper.

Our Lenten Midweek theme is vices and virtues. A vice is an ancient term for sins that drive others sinful behavior. The Small Catechism teaches that praying “Lead us not into temptation,” asks “God [to] guard and keep us” from “great shame and VICE.” (6th Petition)

Vices will be pictured in the weekly readings from our Lord’s Passion. Sin (like anger, greed, and envy) shows up in the disciples. Slothful disciples will slumber instead of watching just one hour with Christ. Peter has pride, declaring “I’ll never fall away” but later denying his Lord three times. We’ll also see the kinds of virtues (“good fruit”) that the Spirit cultivates rather than the bad fruit of the flesh, when He enlivens us to love God and our neighbor.

Vices are a tricky subject. Society often parades them around like virtues. In America, “greed’s good,” pride’s called “self-esteem” or something worse… Not many see the danger. After all, what’s wrong with a little more money in the bank, or a healthy dose of self confidence? The vices are like a worm on a hook! They’re just idols. They glitter like gold, but they’re fool’s gold. We’re fools to ever think otherwise!

Tonight, we’re ripping the vices’ bandaid off, talking about gluttony and the virtue of self-control. Christ, in our Gospel, calls our attention to the ancient disciplines of Lent: “when you give alms,” “when you pray,” “when you fast.” “Scripture alone” applies to the places where the Bible mentions fasting, so we take it to heart, rather than tossing it out because it’s a silly ancient thing or it’s “too catholic.” But Christ says, “When you fast,” He seems to assume we’d do it…

Let me define it for you. To “fast” means not to eat. It’s not just abstaining from certain foods, like most Christians do for Lent, giving up sweets or something else. What’s the point of fasting?

FASTING SHOWS OUR FLESH WHO’S GOD AND CONFESSES THAT WE REALLY DO LIVE BY EVERY WORD THAT COMES FROM GOD’S MOUTH, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE SAYS, “TAKE EAT; THIS IS MY BODY. DRINK OF IT ALL OF YOU, THIS IS MY BLOOD.”

(I. Gluttony turns food and drink into the god who saves and gives joy, peace, and life.)

Gluttony spiritualizes food and drink. It isn’t just over eating—a common American past-time—like eating a steak, brat, and hamburger at one meal… (Fourth of July?!) The world sees gluttony and fasting only physically. Fasting in Scripture isn’t a diet plan. This topic isn’t to make people who struggle with their weight feel guilty. We all come in various shapes and sizes, with various physical limitations or struggles that are unique to each of us because of sin.

Gluttony in the spiritual sense turns what you eat or drink into a god. Who’d do that? Well, there’s comfort food, which only offers worldly comfort. Alcohol is used to soften struggle or fill you with joy. And some only eat the finest food, are overly picky with foods, or even think food saves. Diets can also fit under gluttony, when food is a point of pride—eating organic or clean or keto or whatever. Living like your diet will keep you from dying!

Thus, we turn food or drink into a false god. Fasting treats your flesh like it’s not god! Fasting confesses that you “don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Fasting won’t save you, even though it’s good outward discipline as the Small Catechism says.

(II. True God gives true joy, peace, and life in His Word and especially His own body and blood.)

Fasting won’t give you true righteousness (Col 2). Only the true God does that. The Spirit gives true and lasting comfort. Christ fills you with the true joy of the forgiveness of sins. The Father gives eternal life.

Your flesh thinks it does all these things because it doesn’t believe there’s a resurrection of the flesh—not the flesh you have now, but one pure and holy, sanctified by the true and living God. So fasting forces your flesh to live like the true and living God’s in charge, because you really do live by His Word, especially, “Take, eat; this is My body given for you; drink of it all of you; this is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

Christ isn’t only the God who assumes fasting, “When you fast,” or commands “return to Me with fasting.” Christ is the God who fasts for you! He fasted 40 days and 40 nights, tempted by the devil. So also with the woman at the well, Christ rejected the food His disciples brought, saying, “My food is doing the will of Him who sent Me and finishing His work.” (Jn 4) He also fasted when He “finished” His work at Calvary, paying for all your sins, each and every vice. Christ fasted from the Last Supper until He broke His fast at Emmaus, “Breaking Bread,” communing with His two disciples.


The flesh makes us think of fasting in worldly terms, scoff at it, or even reject it! “Enslaved to the fear of death,” (Heb 4) the flesh resists fasting and God’s Word. Christ, who fasted and was crucified for you, says, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” Following Christ isn’t just ideas but living His Word, and the way of the cross leads through fasting and death. Besides, feasting without a fast makes a feast meaningless, and fasting without a feast is death and despair.

Christ calls us to believe in Him, calls us to believe His Holy Word. It alone gives us life and strength and holiness and comfort and joy and peace. He calls us to consume His Word, “to inwardly digest it.” We do that in our hearts and minds with the Bible. The prophets experienced it in visions, when they ate scrolls of His Word.

The Lord also says to eat the true bread that gives life to the world—not natural or organic. His flesh gives eternal life. His blood is the true wine that gladdens the heart of man in the forgiveness of sins. The medicine of eternal life “is the true body and blood of our Lord IHS Christ under the bread and wine.”

(Conclusion.)

FASTING SHOWS OUR FLESH WHO’S GOD AND CONFESSES THAT WE REALLY DO LIVE BY EVERY WORD THAT COMES FROM GOD’S MOUTH, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE SAYS, “TAKE EAT; THIS IS MY BODY. DRINK OF IT ALL OF YOU, THIS IS MY BLOOD.”

Fasting keeps the flesh in check. Even St. Paul said a few Sundays back: “I discipline my body.” The time saved not eating a meal or two can be used to pray and read your Bible. The money saved can be given to the poor. That’s how almsgiving, fasting, and praying all fit together! Fasting gives you time to pray and have something to give someone in need.

Yet, even that won’t save you. Only the Lord saves you. Nothing you do in your flesh can save you, because it ruins everything. He feasts like there’s no tomorrow or diets or maybe even fasts his way to a better life. But he won’t gain eternal life. The Lord brings you to faith in Him, a faith that follows after Him, enduring the crosses of daily service and feasting on His Word. God’s Word is actually more deadly to the flesh than fasting! Yet, Christ assumes we’d fast—traditionally it was Wednesdays and Fridays.

Christ gives faith to believe your belly isn’t god, but rather the Lord IHS Christ Himself who with His Father and the Spirit created your belly. The true God gives daily bread, often more than enough to help your neighbor. This evening our joy is that Christ saves us from our sins, even the idolatry of gluttony, making food or drink or the creature comforts of life our god. But you don’t need comfort food or a few beers to have comfort, joy, or meaning in your life. Earthly food won’t make you live forever. It goes stale and rotten. So it’s easy and safe to fast from them!

The vices glitter, but they’re fool’s gold. The true gold, what’s “more precious than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps 19) is the Lord’s Word. And the Lord Christ says, “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it,” (Ps 81) “This [bread] is My body, given for you; This [wine] is My blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” “Take, eat; take, drink;” and truly live forever.

᛭ INI ᛭