21st February: The Slow Repentance of Fasting
21.2.18Jonah 3: 1-10
The three-day Fast of Nineveh is a practice that originated in the Eastern Church. The Septuagint version of the Old Testament stated that the city of Nineveh will be overthrown in 3 days (instead of 40) and it is likely that it is from this translation that this tradition came about. Usually, Christians would abstain from dairy foods or meat.
In the Western Church, these three-day fasts are known as Ember Days and it is listed as such in our Provincial lectionary from today till Friday.
A good question to ask is: Why do Christians fast? Today we see fasting as a Christian discipline to help us grow in holiness through abstinence. Some may practise it for health reasons.
Here in Jonah chapter 3, the inhabitants of Nineveh were threatened with divine punishment (Jonah 3:4). The king asked them to fast from food and drinks, call out on the Lord and turned away from their evil deeds (Jonah 3:7,8). As a result, God did not judge them.
Christians today tend to read a passage like this and translate it into a doctrinal framework such as “we no longer need to work for forgiveness”. Or that fasting as an act of repentance belongs to the old covenant and should no longer be practised in the new. While the doctrine of salvation by grace is certainly true and we should no longer mandate human acts as conditions for divine forgiveness, it will be to our loss if we stop the practise of fasting as an act of repentance.
The practise of penance can sometimes help a person to find forgiveness experientially. It is a process which can help a person find healing. Undoubtedly, God is ready to always forgive, but such disciplines can be an unhurried way for a person to enter into true contrition of heart and through that, experience a deep forgiveness and healing.
Perhaps one of the best illustrations of this joy of forgiveness is found in the 1986 movie, The Mission.
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