But Yours Eat and Drink - a podcast by Rev. W. Reid Hankins

Sermon preached on Luke 5:33-39 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 09/12/2021 in Novato, CA.















Sermon Manuscript







As you know, the OPC recently held the special day of prayer and fasting. Based on a number of questions I received in preparation for that day, I realized that as pastor, I should have given some better instruction to the congregation about how to go about fasting and about the nature of fasting. While today’s sermon won’t address every aspect about fasting, it will help make up for some of that recently missed opportunity.







So then, we find them asking Jesus about fasting here. They ask him how the practices he is having his disciples do compares with what both the disciples of the Pharisees and of John the Baptist are doing. Don’t miss the context for this question. In our pew Bibles, it is separated out as its own distinct subsection, and that is okay, but remember the passage right before this. That’s when Jesus and his disciples were being questioned for eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus then admonished them for their critique, saying that it was sinners who needed a doctor, and that he came to call such sinners unto repentance. In other words, Jesus’ eating and drinking with sinful people was for ministry and evangelism purposes.







But then, do you see how the question and concern raised to Jesus today is only subtly different from last passage? Last time it was about why Jesus was eating and drinking with sinners. Now, it is why is Jesus eating and drinking, period. While the most popular forms of the Jewish religion of the time were regularly fasting, Jesus and his disciples were regularly feasting, in comparison. So then, Jesus is asked about this, why his ministry does not feature such fasting, and you can’t help but think this question is asked of Jesus not just for information purposes, but as a critique of Jesus. In fact, in Luke 7 we will see how Jesus mentions there that people were calling him a glutton and a drunkard because he has come eating and drinking. So, clearly there were people who were critical of Jesus and his disciples, thinking they were living it up in sinful partying and prodigality.







It would be helpful here to note what the law of God required in this regard. There was only one time of the year where such fasting was regularly called for in the Old Covenant. That was during Yom Kippur, i.e. the Day of Atonement. That’s described in Leviticus 16, and was the annual day for God’s people to humble themselves before God and confess of their sin and have a special sacrifice offered for their atonement in the Holy of Holies by the high priest. In that context, we see the Biblical concept that fasting is something to join with one’s prayer in the context of humility and lament over sin. It certainly was a quite fitting practice on the annual Day of Atonement observance. But that was the only regular day for fasting under the law. Otherwise, what we see biblically is that fasting would be an occasional practice, when it seemed fitting based on special circumstances. In times of great mourning, or great peril, or grave sin that had been committed, then fasting would be done on such extraordinary occasions to make urgent, special appeal to God. It would be a way to greatly humble yourself before God in lamentation, to cry out to God for help, or healing, or forgiveness, depending on the special circumstances. So then, fasting is typically described in the Bible as an occasional, not a regular, act of worship.







Now for the current circumstances of that day, apparently the Pharisees had turned this notion of occasional fasting upon special circumstances, into a part of their regular religious devotions.

Further episodes of Reformed Sermons and Sunday Schools at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Petaluma, CA

Further podcasts by Rev. W. Reid Hankins

Website of Rev. W. Reid Hankins