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Then They Will Fast 

"They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:33-39)

In the Old Testament, God likened himself to a husband to Israel. So when Jesus, who is God, shows up on the scene, he comes the first time as a bridegroom to a wedding feast. In other words, “I’m here - so its a party. And that’s too good to mingle with fasting. The fact that you’ve been waiting on your Messiah for a thousand years and I’m here ought to be exciting and exhilarating to you. Old Covenant fasting is for longing, and hoping and waiting.... and you don’t have to do that right now because I’m here!” 

But then Jesus says, “there is coming a day when the bridegroom will be taken away from them.... THEN they WILL fast.” 

When the Messiah (another word for “Deliverer”) showed up on the scene 2,000 years ago, he came to deliver Israel from the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was a promise God made with a specific group of people. Keep these rules to keep right. But when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, made a new covenant, a new marriage contract, a new proposal, only this time it was to the world. Accept this proposal. Accept this gift of salvation. And you don’t live to keep rules. The ruler keeps you. 

Every believer of Jesus Christ should have a longing, an aching, a burning desire, a homesickness for the groom. 

In ancient culture, when you accepted a proposal, the groom would go away to prepare the bridal chamber at his father’s house. Jesus says in John 14:3 that He has gone to do just that.  He is absent in physical body right now, but He is coming back.  In His physical absence, I do not fast out of brokenness for sin, I fast out of a deep longing for Him.  

Prayer: 

Lord, there are times my longing for you is faint. During this new season of fasting I am asking for my longing to roar within me. 

-Jon Groves