Advent: Why Fast?
“The tongue that first has tasted bitter food
Finds honey that the bees have won more sweet”
– The Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius)
I would hazard a guess that the majority of modern American churches observe Advent – the season of the Christian year leading up to Christmas – with candles and seasonally-themed music and Scripture readings. The practice of fasting for Advent, on the other hand, is somewhat less common. Given the number of Christmas parties that fill the calendar in December, fasting during Advent is both counterintuitive and countercultural.
One could argue for the practice of fasting during Advent by appealing to Scripture, history, and tradition, but I would like to offer a few down-to-earth, common-sense reasons why fasting is an appropriate Advent discipline.
The primary purpose of fasting is to loosen our grip on things that have a strong hold on us. This does not mean the things we are fasting from are bad. Quite the opposite, in fact – if there are bad things in our lives, we don’t fast from them, we confess and renounce them. If a thing is good, though, why abstain from it?
(1) Saying “no” to good things creates new and different spaces in our lives for us to say “yes” to God. I often fast from watching movies and television during Advent. The time I would have spent watching movies and television can now be used to pray, though this does not imply that movies and television are bad in themselves. In our era, human beings are able to make themselves busier than ever before. During Advent, it is worth fighting to carve out still, silent spaces in our lives – spaces in which we can listen for Christ’s quiet voice, which is too often drowned out by the noise of our busyness.
(2) Saying “no” to good things cultivates the virtue of self-control. If I’ve practiced saying “no” to good things that I want, I am better able to say “no” to bad things when I am tempted. Chocolate bars are good; there is nothing wrong with enjoying a chocolate bar; but if a man has a chocolate bar every single time the urge takes him, he comes to be governed by his appetite for pleasure, and if a man is governed by his appetite for pleasure, he will not easily be able to limit himself to licit pleasures.
(3) At the same time, you could make a pretty good argument for fasting just from the logic of simple hedonism. Saying “no” to good things for a time enables us to enjoy them more when it is time to say “yes” to them. As the proverb says, “Hunger is the best sauce.” When I don’t eat sweets during Advent, I enjoy sweets more during Christmas. There are theological reasons behind the fact that the church’s seasons of feasting (Christmas and Easter) are preceded by seasons of fasting (Advent and Lent), but it is also true that the rhythm of the Christian year simply speaks to a sane and healthy understanding of human nature. Abstinence invests pleasure with sweetness and value; uninterrupted indulgence ruins and cheapens it.