The Promise of New Wine

by    20th September 2009    2 responses

marathon

Image: Martineric @ Flickr

Mark 2:18-22   Expand passage

18Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"

19Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them.20But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

21"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."

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It would be very easy to just look at this passage and say that as fasting is not common practice today, this passage does not have any relevance to us and move swiftly on. After all this passage only contains a few verses.

Perhaps we need to look further at what fasting meant to the Pharisees at the time and why it was practised.  Fasting is often mentioned in the Old Testament around festivals and periods of mourning and sorrow. Nehemiah 5:1, Esther 4:3, Psalm 35:13 are just a few examples none of which sound like particularly joyous occasions. Psalm 109:24 “My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt”.  This makes fasting seem like something we should be glad to not have as common Christian practice today.

There are many examples later on in the New Testament of Christians fasting.  Acts 14:23 gives us an example of Paul and Barnabus fasting. It shows that as with most examples of fasting (post Jesus ascension) the fasting was to seek guidance from God over a very important matter.

Fasting and prayer normally go hand in hand and Jesus dealt with them together in his teaching (Matthew 6). Fasting should be used as a means of denying ourselves something that is of the flesh to seek to glorify God, enhance the spirit or seek a deeper understanding.

The Pharisees fasted as an action of social status and to show off their “religiousness”. To follow the law and traditions that had been built up in many cases by the people over time. Matthew 6:16 gives us an indication of the ways in which people had taken to fasting. They seem removed from the deep and personal way in which Paul and Barnabus fasted later and how Jesus instructs us to fast (Matthew 6:17-18).

(Just a word of warning if you do decide to fast make sure you research fully as this can be dangerous especially with certain medical conditions and if you are not used to fasting. Also make sure that you avoid dehydration).

So fasting was an important but misused “tradition” for the Pharisees. Jesus in typical fashion turned their challenge of questioning why he and his disciples were not fasting on its head. He questioned what their motivation was for fasting.

Jesus used three illustrations as to why they were not fasting at that time:

  • Guests at a wedding do not fast whilst the groom is present. The wedding is a time of joy and not of mourning. The time of fasting will be later not at the party.  The illustration shows that whilst Jesus is present it is not time for mourning. It is a time for rejoicing and giving God his glory. We can do this through service and offering up our daily activities to God and of course we need all of our energies for this.
  • Sewing new patches on an old garment. An old piece should be put on an old garment. Like for like. The message and actions of Jesus could be said to be a new patch. If his ways are put onto the Pharisees traditions they will not match. What Jesus has come to do changes the Old Testament limiting access to God to his chosen people!  If you try and match the doctrines of fasting with this new message you would end up with shreds and be constantly patching things up. Jesus hasn’t come to patch things up but to create something new.
  • The wine skins are possibly the hardest illustration to understand. Wine was transported from place to place in skins on the backs of animals such as camels (Joshua 9:4). Pottery or glass would have been difficult to carry and smashed easily so skins were used. Over time these skins would have weakened. When the wine was transported it would still have been fermenting and so producing gas and swelling. New skins would be more flexible and allow this to happen but old skins would burst. Old wine would have finished fermenting so would not further stretch the wine skins.

This final illustration greatly echoes the second then. If you were to take what Jesus had to say and try and put it together with the Pharisees doctrines it wouldn’t hold together.

So what are the key differences between the Pharisees’ and Jesus’ ways? When you consider how wine would have been used in at the time you can see how Jesus message could represent the new wine. Jesus introduced with his life a way that was pure, truthful, pleasant to taste, revives, soothes and comforts the weary.

The Pharisees were quite content to keep putting old wine in their wine skins. Both are wine and the old wine fits into the old skins fine. It can be bound by rules and laws but it is dead, it has finished fermenting and the taste might not be as fresh. Jesus’ message though is new. It hasn’t finished fermenting. There is still a reaction going on. If put within these old containers of laws it breaks them down.

The rich blessing that flow from God to us through the life of Jesus can not be stored within the old ways. If you try then it all falls apart and the blessings flow away like wine and are lost.

There is one final very special point in the wine skins illustration and that is how this new wine needs to be stored in new wine skins. In the Old Testament God dwelt in the temple (2 Samuel 22:7). The new bottles are actually maybe not the most attractive as they are sinners. You and me. God has chosen to fill us with his new wine and way of life!

This contains quite a challenge. Are we ready to change and let the wine of God continue to ferment in our lives? Are we flexible according to the blessings that God pours into our lives? Or maybe there are some old ways that we still have that make us like the old wine skins. What ways are we leaking so we are not being fully filled with this new wine?

2 Responses

  1. Le Juan Shrives
    March 17, 2010 at 8:05 am

    Hi there

    In your conclusion on the pharisees and Jesus message..is this your interpretation of this scripture? As my interpretation of it was that when you fast God can pour new wine, meaning greater/fresh new capacity to receive Gods spirit. Or increased annointing.
    Please let me know if this is incorrect? if other scripture in the word contradict this above maybe?!

    Thank you
    Lé Juan Shrives

    Reply
  2. Martin
    March 21, 2010 at 7:34 am

    I don’t think this is the only way in which we can increase our capacity to receive Gods spirit but is one of the ways. There is plenty that we can “trim” from our earthly lives that has no true Godly gain which can increase and freshen our spiritual lives.

    This is not to say though that when fasting is done correctly it can have great benefits including God opening up a renewed outpouring of the Spirit into our lives.

    So I think your comment is true as long as you are not restricting it to this beign the only way.

    Martin

    Reply

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Martin lives in a village in deepest, darkest Sussex. He is an avid cyclist and a keen geocacher. Martin is responsible for managing discussion on the site, both within the content and in the forum.

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