Mark 2:18-22
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18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
The question was about fasting. In the law, the fast of the Day of Atonement was the only required fast. After the exile, four more were added. By the New testament times, Pharisees who were strict fasted twice a week on Monday and Thursday (I fast twice a week).
The question was asked by the disciples of the Pharisees- but Pharisees did not have a teaching role and did not have disciples.... a small number of them did double time as scribes as well, and they did have disciples.
JOhn’s disciples were John the Baptist disciples.
Why these people were fasting, Mark does not tell us.
In any event, their fasting was a sign of their true piety, religiosity. And Jesus’ disciples were not fasting. And that was a commentary on their religious fervor or piety.
So this group wanted to know why.
Why aren’t you like us? Be wary when the status quo expects you to be like them. Jesus was not status quo, neither should his followers be.
Jesus answers in a parable.
19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
The point of this parable is the unbelievable joy that is found in the presence of Jesus.
When the Pharisees fasted, they made themselves look like they were fasting. They made themselves look like they were not joyous. We don’t know about John’s disciples, but certainly the Pharisees did all they could to communicate to those around them that they were fasting, they didn’t like it, and you shouldn’t like it either.
Do their piety,their religion, their fasting made them miserable. And they wanted you to see their misery. And they wanted you to be miserable with them.
Have you ever met anyone who was so religious they didn’t know how to have fun? I mean someone that didn’t seem to know that Jesus came to set them free? They are miserable people, but man can they tell you about the depth of their religiosity. Right?
Listen, when someone’s witness starts off this way, “I’m a presbyterian. I’m a Methodist. I’m a Lutheran. Listen, they are telling you about their religion, not their relationship.
When someone starts off with the line, “Yes, I’m a Christian. I sing in the church choir, or I help with the church food pantry” they are telling you about their religion, not about their relationship.
Sometimes we do things because of our relationship with Christ- but we can also make our doing our religion and leave Jesus out of the picture. And that picture is usually a very clear self portrait hung high on the wall for all to see.
So Jesus is not talking about the status of the religion- he’s talking about the status of the relationship. And when the status of the relationship is in place, there will be joy unspeakable.
Look at what he says.
19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
He begins with a Jewish wedding feast. This would have been an incredibly joyous occasion. One need only think about Jesus’ first miracle, turning the water into wine, to understand the party it could be.
This feast could last as long as a week. Food and wine would flow, and no one would think of fasting. No one.
Jesus is the bridegroom. His disciples are his guests. And while he is in the house, they will rejoice. They will not fast, it would not be appropriate behavior. Joy, happiness, are what should happen when the bridegroom is present.
But one day, he will be gone, and then the fasting will be the appropriate reaction.
21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.
22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
These two parables obviously bear on the question of fasting, but generally they form a statement about Judaism and the religious behavior that is practiced in it.
Wine was kept in goatskins. The skins were soft and pliable and would stretch when wine was initially put into them. However, they were not reusable. Their pliability would cease to exist in time. They would get hard, and to attempt to put fresh wine into them, which had to ferment, would explode the brittle skins. They were no longer pliable, they would break under the swelling gases of the fermentation process involved in the making of the wine.
The new cloth on and old garment was essentially the same commentary. The new cloth would eventually shrink and pull apart from the old cloth.
Now note , the wedding, the wine, and the new garment are all symbols. They represent the new age that Jesus is introducing.
And Jesus, and his new age and the new life he offers, cannot be kept in old forms of doing business. He’ll explode the confining factors, and He will rip away from the cloth of the old garments.
There are a few points that can be made in this regard:
Jesus came to save sinners, not to call for a meeting of the religious. Jesus didn’tcome to do over and over and over again what people had been doing for several millennia.
Jesus came to bring gladness, not sadness. The dried up old wineskins have to go. The faded, shrunk, cloth of days gone by has to go. There’s something new in the house.
Jesus came to introduce something new, not to patch up the old. This will be completely different.
Listen,the Christian life is not a recipe of the old and the new mixing together. Jesus is a fulfilment of the old in the new. The old gets destroyed when we smash it ourselves or it fulfills it’s purpose. Jesus said I didn’t come to destroy the law and the prophets, I came to fulfill them. right?
Look at the Sermon on The Mount in Matthew 5.
You can smash a seed and pulverize it. Or you can place it in the ground and let it do what it’s supposed to do, and it will no longer be a seed- it will be a fulfilled seed.. a plant… a fruit… purposeful....meaningful… joyful...
So many people want to force the new into the old. And we settle for the worst of both.
The Illusion of Religion is a Cheap Substitute for Real Relationship
The Illusion of Religion is a Cheap Substitute for Real Relationship
If there’s something this pandemic has taught me it is this: You can have all the stained glass windows, organs, choir robes, pulpits, candles, padded pews, carpeted floors and hymnals in the world- it does not mean that you have Jesus.
When Jesus is in the house, the externals are not important any longer. They are in fact superficial.
The evidence of real Christianity and a true relationship with Jesus is marked by genuine joy not expensive dollar store religious junk.
Some of us need to clean out our religious storehouses and see what we have left… is there any joy? Is there any Jesus in our being?
A church that has Jesus will look relational not religious.
A person that has Jesus will live relationally not religiously.
Watch the actions in the institution.
Watch the institution in the actions.
Corporate identity will be far less important than the individual.