Fasting as Sustenance on our Pilgrimage

The author of Hebrews says, “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). Revelation envisions this Zion truly as the City of God since there will be:

“[N]o temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” - Revelation 21:22–27

Here in the vision of Revelation, the pilgrim who finds this city can say with the Psalmist concerning Zion, “This [city] is God, our God forever and ever” (Psalm 48:14). In Christ we have a foretaste of this heavenly city. Tasting the fruit of this Garden-city is much like one in exile tasting the fruit of her homeland. The taste reminds her of home, but it also reminds her that she is not there. It reminds her of the joy of home and the agony of exile, but it also provides the hope of return and the strength to continue the journey.

In Christ we taste the fruit of our destination, but we are reminded that this is a shipment from another land; we are not resting in the orchards from which this fruit came. The fruit reminds us that the land does exist. We are not crazy to eat joyfully of it, to let its hope well up within us, to be strengthened by it, and to continue our journey. We join with the saints of old on their journey, they join with us in our celebration, and we stand together looking to the future, trusting that He who promised will be faithful.

Mark Catlin