Matthew 9, 14 through 17.

Then the disciples of John came to him saying,

Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast. And Jesus said to them, the attendance

of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days

will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then

they will fast. But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment and a worse tear results.

Nor do men put new wine into old wine skins, otherwise the wine skins burst, and the wine

pours out and the wine skins are ruined, but they put new wine into fresh new wine

skins. And they are both preserved.

Last week I called you all to a special corporate way of fasting for January.

I suggested that we, from supper on Tuesday evening to supper on Wednesday evening each Wednesday of January

fast, skipping breakfast and lunch on Wednesday and thus devoting those times, if possible,

to focus times of meditation on the word and prayer.

Now, fasting is new for some of you,

but I want you to realize that it isn't new for the Christian Church. There's a little document called

the Didakee, which was written at the end of the first century, give or take a decade probably.

And in it there's a little section on fasting.

One verse in it goes like this.

Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites,

for they fast on Mondays or Thursdays, but do you fast on Wednesdays and Fridays?

Now that seems strange in a way, a big deal, huh? But I think the point of the early church was the Jewish

custom was to do it Sabbath on Saturday, we're going to do ours on Sunday when he rose in the dead.

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