But Don't Party

"And who would patch an old garment with unshrunk cloth? For the new patch shrinks and pulls away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger hole than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine needs new wineskins." (Mark 2:21-22)

Jesus must have seen the need to remind us of something we'd rather keep in the background. That’s why he provided a couple of illustrations showing that his Kingdom doesn’t fit the thought patterns we’ve grown up with. It's not a tame Kingdom, and its priorities are nothing like our own.
No one, he said, takes a new piece of cloth, never shrunken in the wash, and makes it into a patch for an old garment. If you want to take the new and tack it onto the old, you'll have a struggle on your hands. The new cloth will shrink and suddenly be too small for the hole it's trying to fill. A few torn stitches later, and your patch will be off
Nor, he went on, do you pour new wine into an old leather wineskin. The very character of new wine is to put great stress on the container that holds it. That old wineskin will burst like a child's balloon, and both skin and wine will be lost. New wine belongs in a new wineskin.
The faith Jesus brought with him isn’t an add-on, isn’t something to be funneled into the container of life we already have. Why not? Simply because the Kingdom contradicts all our notions, all our beliefs, all our personal idols. The Kingdom is bold and new and aggressive and determined to turn our world on its head.
Cravings for money and power and the fulfillment of every desire are the instincts we live by, but the Kingdom sees them all as the rubbish of pitiful rebels living in failure. Our world tells us that nothing is more important than our selves, but the Kingdom reminds us that focusing on our selves is what got us into this trouble in the first place. Society tells us that all human beings have to be free, but Jesus announces that if we want to be his friends we must do what he says. In following his orders lies our true freedom.
So rejoice. Dance and sing, because the Master who was taken from them has come back to us.
But don't party.

Dance and Sing

Why don't you...

All of us know people who love to challenge our lifestyle with questions like, "Why don't you..." or advice like "Most people do it this way..."

There were those who did the same with Jesus:

John's disciples and the Pharisees sometimes fasted. One day some people came to Jesus and asked, "Why do John's disciples and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don't fast?"

Jesus replied, "Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can't fast while they are with the groom. But someday he will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. And who would patch an old garment with unshrunk cloth? For the new patch shrinks and pulls away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger hole than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine needs new wineskins." (Mark 2:18-22)

For Jesus, the question, “Why don’t you fast?” wasn’t some innocent thing born out of curiosity. He saw the naked motives shining through it. Sure, these were ordinary citizens who raised the question, but no doubt they‘d been set up by the religious leaders of the day. These leaders, if you could call them that, were intent on keeping up their popularity with the people, jealous of Jesus' ability to draw a crowd, eager to destroy his reputation.

But Jesus took it patiently, because they‘d failed to understand that he hadn't come to be clone of every other Jewish rabbi.

"Why," some people asked, “don’t your disciples fast?" Fasting was a Jewish ritual reserved for special circumstances, but it had become a big deal in Jesus' time. In some of the other Gospels it’s clear that certain religious figures used it as a way to get sympathy, support, power. It‘s easy to announce that you’re fasting and then make yourself up to look like you’re really suffering. "Look how much this great holy man suffers for his faith!" the people would murmur, their faces filled with awe.

For Jesus, such games flew in the face of everything his Kingdom stood for. He and his followers needed no holier-than-thou demonstrations to win fans and influence people. In his Kingdom, the whole idea of drawing attention to get perks was out.

True, John's followers did fast because they had not yet seen the Messiah’s salvation and because John had been stolen from them. But Jesus insisted that his own followers had their Master with them, so there was no need for long faces. He was a bridegroom calling the world to celebrate his joy. Why would anyone want to fast at a wedding?

With Jesus on earth there was a cause for festivities to begin. Maybe not the kind of silly drunken episode that might come to some peoples’ minds, but true joy kept in check by the grim reality that in Jesus' kingdom challenge and suffering were never far away. So what if his brand of pleasure was would always be mixed with pain? Better to have him with them and face tribulation than go to a thousand parties and dance until dawn. That’s why this was no time for fasting.

Yet - warning here - there would come a time when Jesus would be snatched from them violently, and the sense of absolute loss would drive them to fast. How typical of Jesus to point this out, because he was always realistic.

In this world, the Kingdom is at war with darkness. In the darkness is murder and hatred and oppression of children and war and rape and abuse of every kind. The world is full of it, and the Kingdom hates the darkness along with Satan who orchestrates it. We can’t be doing the work of the Kingdom, fighting the evil prince of this age, with a wine glass in one hand and an appetizer in the other. Rejoice, yes. But we can never for a moment forget the battle.