Wineskins

Hello everyone.  I haven't written in about two weeks.  I've been out of town for part and very busy as the school year wraps up. So today, I am ready to write some more.  I will wrap up my exegesis of Luke 5 today, with Luke 5:33-39. 

In verse 32 Jesus has told  the Pharisees that he has come to those in need of repentance. because the healthy do not need, the sick do. Now their approach is changed.  Now, they are not questioning Jesus on who he is eating and drinking with, like they did in the previous passage. Now they are asking whether he and his disciples should be eating and drinking at all.  In verse 33 they make this statement: “John’s disciples prayed and fasted often. So do the disciples of the Pharisees, but your disciples eat and drink.” In other words, "Why aren't you guys fasting?"

They point out that John’s disciples fasted and prayed often, as do the disciples of the Pharisees. It appears that Jesus and his disciples do not fast. (Of course, they are likely unaware of Jesus' 40 day fast, and he doesn’t bring it up. You have to admire his self-restraint.)

Jesus instead responds by talking about a wedding feast.  The wedding guests do not fast while the groom is with them.  Jesus makes it clear that his disciples had no need of fasting while He was there with them.  Later, after he had left, they would fast. 

In the Old Testament, particularly in Hosea, the relationship between God and His people is often seen as a marriage. That analogy is shown here, with Jesus as the groom.  The bride is not specifically mentioned, but the wedding is.  The wedding party doesn’t fast while the groom is among them. It would make no sense. 

Jesus is not rejecting fasting here.  He has fasted.  There is clearly a time and a place for it, and right now is not the time or the place. In his commentary on Luke, Darrell Bock makes a great point about this.  Jesus does not downplay fasting, nor does he regulate or make it a test of spirituality. (Bock, 518) Fasting is a great thing to do, but the key here is the groom, Jesus, not the fasting.   Jesus says they will fast when the groom is ‘taken away.’ (This implies that the groom doesn’t leave on his own accord, but is taken.  An early foreshadowing of what is coming perhaps.)  

Then Jesus told them a parable, about new cloth on an old garment and new wine in an old wineskin.  Neither work very well.  The new garment doesn’t match and will tear the old garment.  The new wine will burst the old wineskin. Jesus was bringing a new way of worship to God that was very different from the old.  These two paradigms would not work together.  

Matthew and Mark highlight that adding the new cloth to the old ultimately makes the tear worse.  Luke’s emphasis is different.  He points out the tear, but also that the cloth is mismatched. One cannot put something new on top of something old.  It doesn’t look right and the old and the new both end up damaged.  In Jesus' example of the wineskins, we see the same thing happen.  Both old and new are destroyed. The message is clear. The old traditions of the current religion and Jesus’s new ways are incompatible.

Here is an example: Fasting every Monday and Thursday.  Too much law.  Not enough grace.  Under Jesus’ new covenant, people will fast, but the time and place will be by their own choosing. 

Jesus declares that new wine must have new wineskins.  His new wine could not carry over remnants of the old.  He was creating something entirely different and separate from the legalistic Judaism of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. A new spirit, new form, a new approach are needed. (Bock, 521) The old (Pharisees, teachers of the law) will reject the new, as well, because these two ways of thinking are incompatible.  Let us make sure that we are filling our wineskins with the new wine. 

Tom