14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. 17 Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Following the Sermon on the Mount, the incidents we have seen so far showcase our Lord dealing with a variety of responses to His message. Now comes the questioning by the disciples of John the Baptist. To be sure it must have been difficult to see some of their own fellow-disciples abandon John to follow Jesus. Maybe they were jealous or possibly proud of their aesthetic accomplishments. Or maybe they were just overly-zealous for John. As late as Acts 19 we discover some of his disciples who had not heard of the Holy Spirit and had not been baptized as followers of Christ—this being 20-25 years later, long after John had died and Jesus had died, was resurrected and ascended. This is surprising in light of John’s focus of ministry to point out the One Who would baptize believers by the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:11).
Old ways die hard, and there will always be those who want to hold on, despite the new work of the Holy Spirit. Symptomatic of this is John’s disciples’ issue with the freedom of Jesus’ disciples to not fast, while they themselves did fast.
Jesus first addresses the immediate concern: in the same way that groomsmen don’t fast while the groom is present, neither should followers of Christ fast while He is still present. Then Jesus addresses the larger issue of letting go of the old ways of the Law and embracing the new life in Himself. He uses two analogies of putting a patch of new cloth on an old garment and putting new wine in an old wineskin. Not a good idea in either case. The writer of Hebrews expands on this, “There is a setting aside of the former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and … there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God. …Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant” (Heb 7:18-19 & 22).
Father, help me live in the light of Jesus’ way and not hold onto the ritualistic requirements of the law.
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