Lent | Ancient Tradition & Apostolic Freedom

A “Moveable” Fast

The Lenten season is one of the oldest elements of the Christian calendar. Though its development is complicated, Lent is undoubtedly ancient. As early as the 2nd century, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote of a fast leading up to Easter, though it apparently lasted only one to three days.(i) Early in the 4th century, Athanasius of Alexandria bears witness to a week-long “paschal” (Easter) fast in his first so-called “festal letter.” By his second festal letter the following year, the fast appears to have lengthened from one to six weeks, or 40 days. Ten years later, in his 12th festal letter, Athanasius writes that those Egyptian Christians who failed to observe with “all the world” these forty days of fasting would “become a laughingstock.”(ii) In the 5th century, Augustine of Hippo solemnly declares, “Our fast at any other time is voluntary; but during Lent, we sin if we do not fast.”(iii) By the 7th century, Pope Gregory the Great formally establishes the Wednesday 40 days prior to Easter (not including Sundays, which are considered feast days) as the start of Lent. This came to be known as “Ash Wednesday.”

Lent is an early and venerable observance of the historic Christian Church. But it is not apostolic. With all due respect to the great St. Augustine, we do not “sin if we do not fast.” If the history of Lent is worthy of our consideration – and it is – so is the history of our liberation from the overreach of ecclesial rulings known as “canon law.”

The Sausage Affair

Fast forward to the 16th century. It is the first Sunday of Lent in 1522. A Swiss priest named Zwingli of Ulrich is at a dinner party, “a dinner that revolved around a plateful of Zurich sausages.”(iv) He’d been provocatively teaching that Rome’s ponderous liturgical regulations should not bind the Christian conscience. Though Zwingli did not partake of the sausages himself, his presence encouraged others to eat the “forbidden meat.”(v) The juicy meal created a public outcry. The dinner host, Christoph Froschauer, was immediately arrested for “heresy.” However, Zwingli remained free under the protection of the city’s magistrates. Following the ordeal, Zwingli wrote a tract entitled, Concerning the Choice and Freedom of Food, echoing not only the writings of Martin Luther in Germany,(vi) but more importantly the apostle Paul in Galatia (Galatians 3-5), in Rome (Romans 14-15), and in Colossae (Colossians 2).(vii) The Sausage Affair marked the start of the Reformation in Zurich.

Are You Observing Lent?

Ash Wednesday this year falls on March 5th, 2025. Whether you decide to join others in a Lenten fast, or you decide to eat sausage to your heart’s content, we encourage you to do so with a clear conscience before God. As you weigh these things, here are a few items to consider …

Why You Might Fast for Lent:

• Fasting can be an act of solidarity with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, which entails the entire people of God who’ve fasted through the ages, not only throughout their long and storied history, but also around the globe. This includes many places where our fellow brothers and sisters suffer continually from a lack of sufficient, daily sustenance.
• Fasting can be an act of solidarity with the sufferings of Christ, who fasted for us in the wilderness for 40 days and nights.
• Fasting can be an act of anticipation and preparation for the bridegroom to return, which the resurrection we celebrate on Easter ensures (Lk.5:34). In general, fasting is a wonderful preparation for feasting – focusing our attention on the worthiness of Christ in an all-distracting world, the riches of His Spirit in our spiritual poverty, and the unfathomable goodness of our Heavenly Father.
• Fasting can be an act of disciplining our bodies, as Jesus and the apostles exemplified (e.g., 1Cor.9:24-27), for the cultivation of holiness – including most especially the spiritual fruit of self-control (Gal.5:22-23). On that note, it is wise to reflect on what we might most beneficially fast from:

What is currently having more power over me than it should?

What am I consuming that is threatening to consume me – my time, my health, my capacity to connect with God and others?

What is routinely distracting me from knowing God, knowing others or knowing myself?

Why You Should Not Fast for Lent:

• Fasting during Lent will improve my status before God or win greater favor with Him. Correction: our righteousness is by faith alone in Christ alone – who is unchanging (Romans 3:10-4:12; Galatians 3). Whether we eat or drink, or refrain, our righteousness and favor as sons and daughters before God remain unchanged.
• Fasting during Lent will improve my status before others. After all, it seems everyone else is doing it! Correction: Any motive or act to justify myself before others (or myself) is a practical denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which removes all such boasting in our own, perceived “righteousness” before others (Romans 3:27-28; see also Luke 18:9-14).
• Fasting is the magic bullet that’ll finally secure an elusive “self-control.” Correction: self-control is cultivated over a lifetime of following Jesus in both seasonally ordered and everyday deliberate acts of obedience.

What If I’ve Never Fasted Before?

If you’re new to fasting, we welcome you to dip your toes in the water with us! We recommend you first read David Mathis’ helpful article, Fasting for Beginners, from Desiring God. Of course, any of our elders and staff team members would be more than happy to talk further with you and address any questions you have.

Whether you’re fasting or not this Lenten season, may your heart feast on the living Christ!

[i] “For the controversy is not only concerning the day but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night. And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of these lived nonetheless in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith” (Letter from Irenaeus to Victor of Rome, as cited in Eusebius, Church History, Book 5, 24). See also Tertullian, On Fasting, 2.

^ii] “But I have further deemed it highly necessary and very urgent to make known to you that you should proclaim the fast of forty days to the brethren, and persuade them to fast; to the end that, while all the world is fasting, we who are in Egypt should not become a laughingstock, as the only people who do not fast, but take our pleasure in those days… But, O, our beloved, whether in this way or any other, exhort and teach them to fast forty days. For it is even a disgrace that when all the world does this, those alone who are in Egypt, instead of fasting, should find their pleasure,” (Festal Letter, XII).

[iii] Similarly, Athanasius would write in AD 347, “he who neglects to observe the fast of forty days, as one who rashly and impurely treads on holy things, cannot celebrate the Easter festival,” (Festal Letter, XIX).

[iv] Matthew Barrett, The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church (Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2023), p.556.

[v] Canon law not only declared fast days but included what could be eaten and what was forbidden, meat being one of them during Lent. Interestingly, “carnival,” as in the “Mardi Gras Carnival,” comes from a Latin phrase meaning roughly, “goodbye to meat.”

[vi] See especially Marin Luther’s, Freedom of the Christian, written two years prior (1520).

^[vii] Here’s an excerpt from his tract: “If you would be a Christian at heart, act in this way. If the spirit of your belief teaches you thus, then fast, but grant also your neighbor the privilege of Christian liberty, and fear God greatly, if you have transgressed his laws, nor make what man has invented greater before God than what God himself has commanded. … You should neither scorn nor approve anyone for any reason connected with food or with feast days whether observed or not (an exception is always to be made about Sunday until after hearing the Word of God and partaking of the Lord’s Supper). Take no notice of feasting on the Sabbath or at new moon, for these are now only symbols of Christian celebrations, freeing men from their sins and keeping them so.”