Celebrate Christ and the Gospel
Truth Taught- Jesus has brought in a new day for God’s people. He has fulfilled the Old Covenant and brought the New.
This passage begins with a question about fasting. Withholding food from yourself for a certain appointed time serves as a form of mourning. It is a time when many folks examine their spirituality and leave food for a time to feast on God’s Word or to commune with God in a special way. When a Christian fasts, the attitude is that I would rather have God, the real Life-giver than my daily portion of physical food.
The practice of fasting is stated way back in the Book of Leviticus.
Leviticus 16:29-34 (ESV)
“And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. [30] For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. [31] It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever. [32] And the priest who is anointed and consecrated as priest in his father’s place shall make atonement, wearing the holy linen garments. [33] He shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. [34] And this shall be a statute forever for you, that atonement may be made for the people of Israel once in the year because of all their sins.” And Moses did as the Lord commanded him.
Here, on the Day of Atonement the Israelites were to honor God and mourn over their sins by fasting. The phrase translated in the ESV by afflict yourself is better understood to humble one’s self by fasting. This was the only God ordained fast of the year.
The problem with the Pharisees was that they had taken this God ordained special day with its special requirements and thought, well if God wants us to fast once a year, how much more would He be pleased if we fasted twice a week? So, their practice was to fast on Mondays and on Thursdays every week. This was their idea, not God’s. This was their way of looking pious and very religious.
So, the proper purpose of fasting in Jesus’ day was to help people mourn over their sin and then after eating again, celebrating that all sin had been forgiven on the Day of Atonement. Fasting was to feel the weight of sin in preparation for sin being atoned for. Fasting to just fast had no benefit and actually, if one simply tried to look extra religious by fasting, then it had the opposite effect. It was another way the Pharisees tried to work to earn God’s favor. They would have been far better off to fast once a year the proper way than twice a week their way. This is what Jesus is teaching here.
In sinful man’s fallen condition, he would rather substitute tradition and his own inventions rather than simply following what God commands. We too must be cautious not to rely on our traditions but follow God and His commands. Fallen man would rather substitute tradition for repentance; rather work for salvation than trust in God’s grace. We must guard against these evil substitutes.
Please Stand…
Mark 2:18–22 (ESV)
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?” 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. 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.”
1. Question…Why Don’t Your Disciples Fast? (2:18)
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?”
Here, Mark highlights two groups who were practicing tradition rather than commandment…John’s disciples and the Pharisees.
John’s disciples were the holdouts. They were still clinging to John the Baptist even though His desire was only to be the one to introduce the true Savior Jesus Christ. Rather than turning to follow Jesus, there remained some who still followed the teaching of John. If he were still around, he would have immediately corrected their thinking and pointed them to Jesus. They were fasting much like the Pharisees who fasted twice a week.
When they asked the question why do we fast and why do the Pharisees fast and why don’t you fast? It seems that they were beginning to perhaps see the difference between Christianity and Judaism. It’s like they were saying, Hey, wait a minute…why are we fasting when everyone else is feasting?
Pharisees were a gloomy religious bunch. Their whole day was spent in paranoia concerned if they were working hard enough to be accepted by God. Their only claim to assurance was that they were Abraham’s descendants but then John the Baptist shot that down by saying that God could raise up from a bunch of rocks offspring for Abraham.
Then there is Jesus and His disciples enjoying each other’s company and enjoying the food God had provided through Levi’s generosity.
Jesus’ disciples were at peace and enjoyed the freedom of sins forgiven while the gloomy sad-faced Pharisees worked night and day and still fell infinitely short in the righteousness area.
Something is beginning to take shape as Jesus forgives sin and heals and goes against Jewish tradition…something new is taking shape. Jesus is the New Day of Atonement. He is our eternal Day of Atonement. While Jesus is present and sins forgiven, it is a time for feasting not for fasting. Why would someone fast when Jesus is present and celebrating?
Our Lord gives two short parables explaining why His disciples are not fasting like the others…
2. Jesus’ Answer…No One Fasts at a Wedding Celebration (2:19-20)
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.
Here we see the way Jesus teaches…He often poses a counter question. If you can discover the answer to His question then you have the answer to your own question.
They were probably still at Levi’s feast. This feast perhaps was held on a day others had set aside to fast, so the stark difference could be clearly seen. John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees were fasting while Jesus’ disciples were celebrating the Gospel.
This should be a picture of every believer. We should be celebrating sins forgiven. Celebrating our freedom from the Law. Celebrating our status as a child of God. When we do, others will stand up and take notice.
What Jesus is teaching those who had asked this question and really teaching us as well is that the New Covenant Gospel is better than the Old Covenant Law mixed with tradition. The first looks forward to sins forgiven, the second actually forgives sin.
In these verses, Jesus refers to Himself as the Bridegroom. This is an important metaphor. He is the Bridegroom and the church is the bride. Here He calls His disciples the wedding guests. So, the picture is a wedding reception where all the guests are present and the atmosphere is that of celebrating and fellowship. Everyone is having a good time, that is except those who are there but weren’t really invited.
You don’t fast at a feast. You don’t look gloomy when you’re at a party. You’re not mourning over sin when the Bridegroom is present and forgiving sin…that is unless your sins are not being forgiven.
Jesus and those around Him were celebrating and rejoicing over God’s mercy and grace not fasting. Levi and other sinners were now saved sinners and the presence of Jesus was call for celebration not a time for fasting and mourning.
There is a time for fasting and a time for feasting. When Jesus was with His disciples feasting was appropriate.
This picture is all about Jesus. If Jesus is with us, feasting is appropriate. If Jesus is not with us, fasting is appropriate.
When Jesus says taken away, He’s referring to His death and His ascension then fasting will be appropriate.
Beloved there will come a day when no one will ever fast again…
Revelation 19:7–9 (ESV)
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
3. No One Should Add or Take Away from the Gospel (2:21-22)
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.”
Here, the idea is that if you sew a patch made of new unshrunk material on an old garment as soon as you wash it the new patch shrinks pulls away and makes the hole even bigger.
What we must conclude by Jesus’ example is that He is not trying to patch up Judaism. He’s not sewing the New Covenant onto the Old Covenant.
The second picture involves new wine that still has some fermenting to do. When wine ferments it stretches wineskins. So they never put new wine in old already stretched wineskin but used new unstretched so when it fermented it would stretch the new skin and both would be preserved. Old wineskin with new wine would burst and both would be lost.
Jesus is not trying to pour the New Covenant into the Old Covenant of Judaism. He’s not trying to make it fit into an old wineskin.
So, both examples teach us that Jesus is not revising or even updating Judaism. What Jesus is bringing into the world cannot be made to fit into or be sewn to the old it is new. Examples are…His teaching cannot be made to mesh with everything found in the OT. It is true, the OT points to the New but the new cannot fit within the Old. His disciples cannot be made to adhere to all that Judaism taught and practiced. The Gospel and the New Covenant cannot fit into the old Jewish system.
This is further illustrated when Jesus at the Wedding in Cana turns water (OT Jewish purification system) into wine showing the Messianic day has dawned and illustrating that the land is flowing with sweet wine…you saved the best for last the guests told the host.
The point of the parable is that we should never mix anything with the Gospel. Grace and works cannot go together. Grace is the free gift of God to undeserving sinners while works is earning a wage for those who deserve it. Two totally opposite concepts that are mutually exclusive. If you have one, you cannot have the other. To mix one ounce of work to a million tons of grace totally destroys grace. You can’t lift a finger to save yourself and shame on you if you ever try. It’s Christ alone that saves. It’s His work alone that justifies sinners.
You also cannot mix the traditions of the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. It’s like sewing a patch of one color of material to a garment of another color.
There are simply things not meant to be mixed together…
Old Covenant and the New Covenant
Law and Grace
Christ and the World
These are some examples of things that should never be mixed. When we try, the results are disastrous.
Many Christians today try to mix a little bit of Jesus and Christianity with their lifestyle of worldliness and sin. You cannot have both.
Like last week we saw how quickly Levi left everything to follow Christ. He knew the truth that you cannot have both. He could not keep his former lifestyle and be a follower of Jesus at the same time.
Jesus’ point then, with these two twin parables, new patch on an old garment and new wine poured into old wine skins is the answer to the question, why don’t Your disciples fast like the others? If Jesus’ disciples pursued the Pharisaic practice or the practice of those devoted to John would be like people trying to sew a new patch to old material or new wine placed into old skins. The mixing of the New Covenant or the Gospel with the Old Covenant destroys both.
Jesus and His disciples are celebrating forgiveness of sin on the day when the Pharisees and John’s disciples were fasting. They had not experienced forgiveness of sin like Levi and his friends had.
Jeremiah 31:31–34 (ESV)
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:15).
What Jesus is teaching us today is that you cannot place His glorious death and resurrection as a patch on an old garment. The work of Christ for us in keeping the covenant and dying for our sin is the glorious new garment that will never need any patching by humans it is sparkling and glorious and given to us by our Savior.
Beloved delight in the work of Christ, celebrate the New Covenant Jesus brought into existence through His shed blood and never try to add to it in any way.
Resources Used:
Mark by J A Alexander
Mark by William Lane
Words of Grace…
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