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New Wineskins: Mark 2:18-22
You now how disrespectful it can be when a person’s behavior flies in the face of what is considered apprpriate by everyone else, and in the process seems to mock their standards and values. It’s like crying at a birthday party. It’s like a guy telling jokes at a funeral. Or two girls talking loudly at a movie.
Sometimes Jesus’ actions and words must have seemed out of place, must of just made you shake your head.
(18) Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.
First of all, this passage is not about ordinary fasting and praying, as unordinary as ordinary fasting is today.
The fasting here is associated with sorrow or mourning over God’s judgment, or over a great disastor fallen upon the people. This kind of fasting was assocated with that sorrowful longing for redemption.
During the exile various monthly fasts were begun that had continued into Jesus day. Why? Because the exile was not over.
But God through his prophets spoken of a day when the sorrow would turn to joy.
Jeremiah 31:10-13 "Hear the word of the LORD, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.' For the LORD will ransom Jacob and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they. They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD-- the grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.
Isaiah 51:11 The ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Zechariah, one of the later prophets, also looks ahead to a day when sorrow will turn to joy, but he speaks of it in terms of the cessation of fasting.
Ine Zechariah 8 he begins a prophecy about the restoration of Jerusalem:
Zechariah 8:3 This is what the LORD says: "I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain."
he goes on to say:
Zechariah 8:18-19 Again the word of the LORD Almighty came to me. This is what the LORD Almighty says: "The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace."
The fast of the fourth month commemorated the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
The fast of the fifth month lamented the bunring of the temple.
The fast of the seventh month mourned the assasination of Gedaliah.
The fast of the tenth month marked the beginning of Nebuchadrezzar’s seige of Jerusalem.
What Zechariah is saying is that a time is coming when the Lord will return to Zion, when He will dwell again in Jerusalem, when Israel will be restored. The exile is going to end, and when it does, there will no more fasts mournign the fall of Jerusalem. Indeed, the fast days will turn to joyful and festive occasions!
Now there were other fasts. The second and fifth days of the week were appointed for public fasting, again in sorrow and longing over the present state of Roman rule, and as a way to forestall greater disastor. The Pharisees feasted these two days year round.
Yes, these fasts had degenerated form fastsa of genuine mourning and contrition and sorrow for sin to publidc displays or ways to manipulate God.
Luke 18:9-12 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
John’s disciples also fasted. John’s ministry was full of self denial. It was characterized by repentance and longing for God to act. Now that he was in prison some of his disciples fasted again from sorrow and mourning.
So everybody’s fasting and mourning and here’s Jesus and his disciples, not only not fasting, but going to a party at a tax collectors house! What’s the deal with that?
Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"
Good question. “Jesus, you’re acting out of order. You’re not respecting our ways of life. Jesus, you’re laughing at our funeral.”
(19) Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them.
Jesus is playing off an earlier conversation with John’s disciples, back when Jesus and John were both laboring along the Jordan river, after Jesus’ baptism and before Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.
An argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan--the one you testified about--well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him." To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less (John 3:25-30).
By universal consent, and according to rabbinic law, the marriage week was to be a time of unmixed festivity. All mourning was suspended. All fasts were off. This was a time to celebrate, and it was a duty to gladden the hearts of the bride and bridegroom.
The guests of the bridegroom can’t be sorrowful while he is with them. They can’t fast. They can’t mourn. That would be out of place. That would be unfitting.
Jesus is saying somethign quite extraordinary here.
In the prophets the bridegroom metaphor was often used of YHWH, who would once again be a faithful husband to his people, even though they had deserted him. The Jews of Jesus’ day often thought of Messiah’s coming in terms of a bridegroom coming for his bride. We see this in several places in the Anew Testament where the churhc is referred to as the bride of Christ.
Jesus is identifyign himself with the bridegroom, and the people he is gathering around himself as the bride of the bridegroom. This is the long awaiuted time. YHWH is now redeemign his people. The bridegroom has come, and this is a time of joy and festivity, not sorrow ans fasting.
Granted, a time will come, Jesus suggests in verse 20, when the bridegroom will be taken away, for a short time only. This going away must happen. This bridegrrom will not cast away the enemies of israel in the way predicted, but will suffer and die for his people. Then there will be mourning. After that will be a time of unspeakable joy again, when the Spirit is poured out upon the people.
But now is a time of Joy. The new day has dawned. This was a time to celebrate.
Jesus then uses two illustrations from everyday life to make his point.
(21) "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. (22) And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."
The first illustration is easy enough for us to get. If you take an old garment, say an old pair if jeans that has been washed and dried many times, and then sew on a patch of new material that has never been shrunk, the new cloth will tear away from the old cloth when it shrinks.
The second illustration is a slice of ancient life less familiar. Animal skin containers for carrying various liquids were made by killing an animal, cutting off its head and feet, skinning it, sewing up the skin fur side out to seal up all the holes but the neck.
This became a wine bottle so to speak. because you couldn’t tan this skin as thouroughly, in time it would become hard and brittle. If new wine, still fermenting, were put into this skin, the expanding gasses would pslit the brittle leather and ruin both the bottle and wine. new wine would only be out into new wineskins --elastic and pliable to take the pressure.
So what is Jesus saying in these illustrations?
You can’t take the truth of the kingdom of God and pour it into the old wineskins of Judaism. You can’t take the true Messiah and fit Him into the Messiah of jewish expectation. The New Covenant comes out of the Old Covenant, but cannot fit into the Old Covenant.
The exile is over. God is acting now. This is a time of great joy. A new thing is happening. It is better than ever expected.
The new wine of welcome to the sick and unclean, liberation to the demon possesed, cleansing to unclean lepers, festive meals with tax collectors and sinners who follow messiah, loving welcome and open invitation to sinners, inclusion of the gentiles -- even Roman gentiles who would believe in messiah, victory over the enemy by loving and praying for him, -- none of this fits into th old wineskin. A new wineskin is needed.
Since it’s Christmas, and I would like to take a few moments to notice how the events surrounding the birth of Jesus shows us about the new wineskin:
First of all, there’s the census. The very wicked Roamn rule the Pharisees and other jewish sects wanted to cast off, the Lord employs to carry out his plan. Out of obedience to Gentile law, Jesus is born in Bethlehem. The prohphecies are fulfilled, because Caesar needed to census in order to better tax his subjects. In kingdom age, in the Spirit age, God’s people will obey even the unbelieving civil authorities, knowing that God in His way and His kingdom plan through the rule of even wicked rulers. This is the new wine, not desiring to cast off, but to pray for, to love, and even to serve the enemy.
Second, there are the shepherds. We think of shepherding so quaintly. These were not gentlemen ranchers, but poor and ceremonially unclean rough peasants, sort of like gypsy migrant workers. To these kind of men God choses to reveal the unspeakable glory of what was happenign in the stable in Bethlehem. In the kingdom age:
God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chooses the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
Christian, you may have a humble status in this life, but God can do great things through you that will move the world. Maybe you live at the bottom of the food chain it seems, at the bottom of the socio economic barrel. You also can be his witnesses!
Third, there is the attending party at the birth of Jesus -- not nobles, socially important people, but poor and ordinary people --and animals. Not a royal basinet, but a animal’s trough. You know it was not such a good place for ababy, but it was a good plave for alamb, and that is what Jesus was, a sacrifical lamb, one who would be born to die for us that we would have life.
Not clean linens and professional midwives and important witnesses, but blood and straw and the possibility of infection. The new wine, the new kingdom, is not antiseptic, but very real and very human. It reveals in the most ordinary human setting. It does not despise the dirtyness of humanity.
Fourth, there is Jesus as a baby, lying in an animal’s trough. The way of messiah, self emptying, self denying. he who was in the form of God not counting his status with God, and its rights and privileges, as something to be clung to and insisted upon, but giving up all for the sake of others. A baby -- meeness and gentleness personified. This is the way of the new kingdom. This is the Lord’s strong arm! This is the power of the new wine!
Small beginnings... The kingdom as mustard seed, the smallest of seeds which grows and grows. Do not despise the day of small things…. Glory lies in concealment for a time. We are not to be into our glory, but to let it be conceealed, and he will glorify us. We can be nothing as he was nothing.
Christian, are you willing to be nothing as he was nothing.
Fifth, there is the announcment of a great joy:
Luke 2:8-10 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
The bridegroom has come, in this case, to call out, rescue, and marry his bride. The new wine is a wine of gladness. the new season is a season of joy, or hope, of expectation. Even if Rome is in power. Even if the bridegroom is taken away for a while.
We look around at out western culture and cry out over what we think has lost. I think the past was not as rosy as we make it out to be. But yea or nay on that, this is the time of salvation. the good news of Jesus goes forth, The spirit is at work. What a great time to be alive! There is a time for sorrow and humbling or ourselves in sorrow. But we live in the gospel age. As long as the world turns we have space to celebrate, to bear witness to, to live out, and to incarnate God’s rule in our lives.Don’t think of what is lost but of what God can do! You think the kingdom is over because Christians are not in power in the west?
Sixth, the news is good for all the people -- for people who would not have been expected to be included. This joy offered to all people! Not just the Jews. The middle wall of partition has been thrown down between jew and Gentile. Finally people form every tribe and nation can becoem children of Abraham! This is new wine indeed! Let this mood of joy carry us and let it prevail. |
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