Week 3: Jesus The Healer
Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22
This text can be super confusing if we are not familiar with the culture of fasting, and frankly, 2026 America is not. We live in a world of instant gratification, not one with habits of denying good things for the sake of mourning or hope.
Ancient Jewish tradition uses fasting as a way to mourn or grieve something. We see this throughout the Old Testament, often when someone is repenting. They give up eating food to mourn their sin.
In these texts, Jesus is drawing on those cultural understandings. He is drawing attention to the fact that it is not time to mourn but to celebrate that the groom is here. The long-awaited King has arrived! Why would they mourn in His presence?
Yet, Jesus continues to say that there will be a time when He leaves (dies on the cross, resurrects, and ascends into Heaven), that His disciples will have a reason to fast. However, this fasting will look much different.
It will be a double mourning, one of reflecting on the time of the past with Jesus walking this earth, and the promised time that is coming. We are currently waiting between the first coming of Christ and His promised return. We have the joy of receiving salvation, and yet we have the grief that the whole redemption of the world is not complete. The King has come, and His kingdom is coming. We mourn for the state of the world still wrecked by sin, and we have a hope in Jesus’ return that does not put us to shame.
In this season of purposeful fasting, that is what we grieve over. The lack of salvation among lost people, our own wrestling with sin, and a sin-wracked world.
When we fast, let us fast with hope. A hope that helps us remember the past faithfulness of God and the future promises that are yes and amen.
