Worship & law
How Jesus prayed and fasted
How did Jesus himself worship God? The Gospels show him praying alone before dawn, falling on his face in Gethsemane and fasting forty days in the wilderness. This topic looks at Jesus’s own worship and compares it with the prophets before him and with Muslim prayer and fasting today.
1The question
How did Jesus pray and fast, and whose worship does it most resemble today?
2What Christians believe
Christians believe Jesus prayed as the Son speaking with his Father, and taught his disciples to pray “Our Father which art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). Christians pray to God through Jesus, in many places and positions.
Christians fast in different ways: many in Lent, some on fixed days, others as they choose. Jesus taught that fasting should be done quietly, for God and not to be seen by others (Matthew 6:16–18).
3What the texts say
How Jesus prayed
And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
How Jesus fasted
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
His followers after him
Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.
4What scholars say
Joachim Jeremias (The Prayers of Jesus, 1967) studied how Jesus addressed God as “Abba”, Father, and argued that this was a special mark of his prayer.
The Didache, an early Christian manual from around the end of the first century, tells believers to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. Paul F. Bradshaw (Daily Prayer in the Early Church, 1981) traces how these set times grew from Jewish practice.
Scholars agree that Jesus and his first followers prayed and fasted as faithful Jews of their time, including at set hours.
5The Islamic perspective
In the Qur’an, Jesus says God has commanded him to pray and give alms as long as he lives. Fasting is prescribed for Muslims as it was for those before them, and believers are told to bow and prostrate before their Lord:
And hath made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and hath enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I remain alive,
O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, even as it was prescribed for those before you, that ye may ward off (evil);
O ye who believe! Bow down and prostrate yourselves, and worship your Lord, and do good, that haply ye may prosper.
Muslims see Jesus’s way of worship in their own: rising before dawn to pray, falling on the face before God, praying at set times and fasting for God’s sake. For Muslims, the worship of Jesus is the worship of all the prophets, kept today in Islam.
6Objections and responses
“Christians are free to pray in any position and at any time. What matters is the heart.”
Response: Islam agrees the heart matters most. The point is that Jesus’s own outward worship, falling on his face, praying at set times and fasting, looks closer to Muslim prayer than to most church worship today.
“Jesus prayed as the Son to his Father, not as a servant to his Lord.”
Response: In Gethsemane Jesus says “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39), the prayer of one who submits his will to God’s. Submitting to God is exactly what the word Islam means.
7Conclusion
Both sides agree that Jesus prayed often, fell on his face before God and fasted forty days, and that his first followers kept set times of prayer and fasting. Christians pray and fast in many ways. Muslims see in Jesus’s worship the same pattern they follow every day.
See the related topics on prostration, the forty-day fast and set times of prayer.
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Related topics
Sources
- Bible, King James Version:Mark 1:35Luke 5:16Matthew 26:39Matthew 4:2Matthew 6:16Acts 3:1
- Qur’an, translated by M. Pickthall:Qur’an 19:31Qur’an 2:183Qur’an 22:77
- Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (1967)
- Paul F. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (1981)
- The Didache, chapter 8