From the Word

Mark 2:18-22

18 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to him and objected, "Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"
19 Jesus answered 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 But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.
21 No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
22 Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."


When ever I read this passage, one single question always comes up in my mind: what under heaven does it mean? I understand the first part of the passage perfectly well, but the later half seems to be completely unrelated to what came before, yet the author clearly intends for the two parts to be considered complimentary and part of the same story, and, in fact, the same quote.

Let’s look at the beginning, as it is a wonderful place to start. Jesus is fairly clear as to why his disciples do not fast, as he is still with them. But then he begins to talk about mixing the new with the old, how neither will come out okay. What does this have to do with fasting and bridegrooms?

When we come before Christ, we are old creations, and he then makes us new, as I noted in my previous entry (cf. 2 Cor 5:17). The old is gone and the new has come, thus we must no longer partake in our old activities. They do not mesh with the ‘new creations’ that we are. Thus, we do not put into ourselves that which is old, or we will be ruined.

The verses themselves speak of putting a new on the old, however, not an old on the new. Christ is looking at this in a different way than anybody else. If we take the new things of God (here I am looking at new as meaning good, or quality) and place them in the old things of the
world, they do nothing good. If the pharisees fast without holiness, doing it only for their own good, they not only do nothing for themselves but in fact damage the very thing that fasting is. Those people who do ‘good’ while not being good themselves actively destroy the good they are doing, for it loses all meaning.

Thus when Paul says that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life, he is saying much the same thing (cf. 2 Cor 3:6). It is not the empty actions that saves man, but the Spirit working through him. Earlier in that letter Paul says he needs no letter of recommendation, for the Corinthians are his letter, written on their hearts (2 Cor 3:2). What those people did was enough witness for both Paul and Christ, that they were putting the new things to good use.

I hope this made a bit of sense to you. The passage is really not to clear and exactly why this two things go together, but God has a funny way of working out confusion for his better good.

posted by J.M.R. Burgard @ 8:50 PM