33 They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”
34 Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”
36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’ ”
The critics were not quite finished with Jesus. “Okay,” they said, “doctors have to go where there are sick people. But do they have to banquet with them? Aren’t you supposed to be a paragon of virtue, and shouldn’t your disciples too mirror the self-denial and virtue of the disciples of John the Baptizer, and even of the students of the Pharisees?”
Now, Jesus had several ways he could have answered them. He might have said, “One has to fit into the society of the people he is seeking to reach.” That would’ve been very true, and an acceptable answer. But he didn’t choose this explanation. What he chose was rather remarkable. Referring to his own disciples, which now included Levi as well, he said: “You surely can’t make the ‘attendants of the bridegroom’ abstain from the wedding food while they are attending the bridegroom! But don’t worry, after the wedding is over, and the bridegroom has left, and they are no longer serving as his attendants, they will return home to their normal lives, and then they will fast just like other God-fearing people.”
Jesus has changed the ruling metaphor from that of a physician attending the sick, to himself as the bridegroom, his disciples as his attendants at the wedding, and the wedding period being his time on earth for the next few years, ending with his resurrection and ascension. During this period, they are attending the bridegroom and will join him in all aspects of the “wedding” activities, which will take precedence over normal religious activity. While the Bridegroom (Son of God) is here, it is an insult to him not to share his joy, symbolized by the joyous eating and drinking with those celebrating their own union with God in faith. Fasting and long faces don’t belong at a wedding.
If the analogy Jesus gives is followed strictly, there is less immediate relevance of the disciples’ behavior to us today. For Jesus has risen and ascended: he is no longer physically among us. And, as he said, “But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” In fact, that time did come after the ascension, for we read in the Book of Acts that sometimes Christians of Jewish extraction—including Paul— did fast for limited periods of time. Today, fasting for religious purposes is not common among Western Christians. Usually dietary control is related to weight control for cosmetic and health purposes, not in order to worship God. But Lauren Winner—who had both a Jewish childhood and adolescence which continued to have a healthy influence on her spiritual life long after her conversion to Christ— in her marvelous little book Mudhouse Sabbath has a perceptive chapter on fasting (Hebrew tsohm) as a Christian believer. Not all of us will be led by the Spirit to begin fasting, but we should all understand the possible benefits of intelligent and biblically-based fasting. And Jesus’ point was not to reinforce fasting but to explain to his critics that his true disciples would not be forever disinterested in such practices as expressions of their faith in the Messiah.
In vv. 36-39 Jesus concluded with an important illustration from ancient wine consumption. Wineskins adapted themselves to what they contained. When new wine was poured into new wineskins, that was fine, and the skins served to contain the wine and pour it out for consumption. But once the skins aged, they could only be used for older wine. So it was, Jesus said, that he had brought the new wine of God’s promised kingdom. This wine needed new wineskins—different ways of expressing faith from the traditional ones of older Jewish worship. If the new wine were poured into the old skins—the older forms and rituals—there would be unavoidable conflicts that could lead to misunderstandings and loss. The matter of fasting was only one of those. Eventually, Luke knew from his association with Paul in his missionary journeys, there would arise the thorny issue of whether Gentile converts to the faith would be required to observe Jewish kosher laws laid down in the law of Moses and elaborated by the rabbis of Jesus’ day, and whether the male Gentiles converts would be required to be circumcised. These were the older wineskins that had served God’s people Israel so well over the years. But they could not hold the new wine of the gospel of the crucified and resurrected Savior of both Jew and Gentile. New wineskins would be necessary, newer ways of expressing the same basic faith, now come to glorious fulfillment in the crucified and risen Jesus. Those ways would be elaborated not only in the earthly teachings of Jesus found in the gospel accounts, but in the teachings of the apostles found in the rest of the New Testament. These are the new wineskins for you and me.
Jesus’ final words (v. 39) acknowledge the time-honored appeal of the older forms, especially for Jewish believers—they will say, “The old wine tastes better, just as the old forms are more satisfying and beautiful.” Jesus understood the tug of the older traditions, as did Peter and Paul, who both continued to cherish them for as long as they lived. But they both subordinated this sentimental attachment when it came to deciding what should be binding and what non-binding for the newer Gentile believers.
We have to make that distinction at times even today. Some differences in Christian lifestyle are purely generational. I admit I am an old man now. I must respect the right of young believers not to share all my associations with the forms and styles that have served me for sixty years since my conversion to Christ in college in 1952. But I also expect younger believers to at least attempt to learn from books, poems, prayers and songs of my era, as well as from those of their own. This is the inter-generational side of differing forms. But there are also forms that differ, which have ramifications for biblical teaching, theology and ethics. These cannot be simply justified as generational and necessary changes. This is why in the church today it is vital that every aspect of our corporate instruction and worship be closely examined and evaluated for how accurately and beautifully it expresses the gospel and other biblical truths and conforms to ethic norms which did not change from the Old Testament to the New. Honesty, respect for parents, sexual purity, and respect for human life and for the property of others remained as core standards of the Christian community after the resurrection of Jesus, and they have rightly persisted through the centuries of Church history that have followed. They should not be abandoned or relaxed today. We should not compromise in these areas to some recent fad or trend.
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