A dear pastor friend of mine fasts very aggressively during the penitential seasons of the church at Advent and Lent. He has never spoken about it, except to decline food or drink at the appropriate times. On Good Friday he was "dry fasting;" which means that he took neither food nor drink. This certainly pushed him beyond his endurance and showed quite clearly his humanity and the weakness of the flesh. It was the bodily equivalent of the words intoned on Ash Wednesday: "Dust you are and to dust you shall return." I gently chided him that his fasting discipline made it difficult for him to carry out his duty at church on Good Friday. The preaching office supersedes our traditions. Our Lord fasted for forty days before being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. This does not obligate us to fast, however. He does not command that we do so. We are not bound by His example, but are bound by His commands. This is what is so remarkable about the penitents in the Philippines, who allow themselves to be nailed to crosses on Good Friday as an act of contrition. Of course, they are removed after a few hours and receive medical attention. We would all be bound to do this, if Christ expected us to repeat in our lives all the things that He did in His life.

 

This becomes a significant issue when people argue that we do not need to be baptized until adulthood or at the time of some mythological "age of accountability," because Jesus Himself was not baptized until the beginning of his ministry, probably in his early 30s. Of course, there is no command to that effect from Jesus. Jesus walked on the water, and even when He invited Peter to come to Him on the water it didn't work out so well. He had to rescue the impetuous apostle from the waves. Christ's ministry is not so much exemplary as it is substitutionary. What He does, He does in our place. Not primarily to give us an example. He substitutes for us because of our weakness and sinfulness. His command to us is fundamentally, "Believe in me as your substitute," not "Hey, watch this, y'all! Now do it." The church's life then is focused on what Christ has done for us poor sinners and wants to give to us by His grace.

 

There are certainly religious similarities with what the Lord Jesus did. For example, He fasted. So do we. However, we fast in different ways, at different times, with different goals. How is that following His example? Indeed, fasting is itself a matter of indifference for the reason that He hasn't commanded it, despite its being a fine bodily preparation. He has commanded that we celebrate His Supper often ( 1Co 11:24). That must come before fasting in importance because there is a divine mandate for the Lord's Supper. Early in my ministry I fasted before communing. As I grew older, I was no longer able to sustain this salutary discipline. I was finding it harder and harder to finish the second service, because I was becoming faint. I had to change my habits to accommodate what the Lord had commanded for the sake of God's people.

 

In baptism, God has commanded that we baptize all nations ( Mt 28:19). That express command must supersede all human reason and opinion about the example of Christ. For that same Christ, whose example we adore, has commanded us to baptize all. This command means that the message of the gospel is for all, universally.