5: 33-39 Someone asked Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?” The Pharisees compared the behavior’s of Jesus’s disciples to that of their own disciples, and of John the Baptist. Jesus was not opposed to fasting; however, he allowed his disciples to attend banquets, to rest and to drink. This was in contrast to the Pharisee’s rigid schedule of fasting. They could not understand why Jesus’s disciples did not have more constraints and to them, it looked like they were just having fun and not taking seriously the religious law.
Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.” Jesus was trying to explain that they should be celebrating since they are in the presence of Jesus, because soon, Jesus would be killed and no longer in their presence. Following Jesus’s death would be a better time to fast as opposed to being physically in the presence of Jesus. The Pharisees could not understand this; however, not only because they did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting for, but because could not see what Jesus knew – that he would be killed and no longer with the disciples.
Jesus knew they could not understand, so gave them another example saying, “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.” Jesus’s message was radical (the new garment) and could not serve as a patch to replace the law of Moses the Jews had been following up to that point (the old garment).
Jesus gave another example, “No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine, and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine’ they say.” This saying made the same point as the first, but took it a little further. New wine (Jesus’s message) must be put into fresh wineskins (the church). The Pharisees and others who heard Jesus’s message continued to cling onto Judaism; however, because the old (fermented and aged) wine (the established traditions of Judaism) tasted better (more familiar and comfortable).
Change is hard. It is much easier for me to read the Bible and put together all that happened from the time of Moses until Jesus (the Old Testament), to learn about Jesus’s life and the beginnings of the Church (the New Testament) because I am learning about it AFTER it happened. I can see the whole picture. Can you imagine living back in Jesus’s time where all you knew about was the law of Moses – the Jewish law? Imagine being raised in a Jewish household and practicing all the Jewish rituals with your family growing up.
Then one day, this young man comes into your town and beings teaching about God in a way that is unfamiliar to you. You are taught that certain things need to be done – prayer on a certain day and time, fasting, and all the rituals that needed to be done. In the Old Testament, to forgive sins, animals had to be slaughtered, and things had to be done in just the right way. To you, this young man is just an ordinary man, born to two ordinary parents who were humble and poor. There is something about him. You can’t put your finger on it; however, you compare his actions to those that you know who are very religious and following all the rules that you were taught growing up.
He has people following him and he performs miracles, which is really awesome; however, he hangs around people that you have been warned about and the people who follow him are always eating, drinking and having fun. This is so not the lifestyle that you were brought up in. How could someone who claims to be so close to God hang around these people who you have been warned about, and eat, drink and have fun while you and your family continues to perform all the strict rituals that were sent down from God to Moses? Something just doesn’t add up in your mind. I’m sure this is what was going through the Pharisees minds along with the minds of several others.
Now, from the view of a tax collector, a prostitute, someone living on the streets and experiencing hardship, someone who just does not fit into the strict Jewish society at that time, and who are looked down upon. Life is hard. No one understands all that you go through. You know you are messed up and you have done questionable things. You don’t like it, but don’t know any other way. If there was a way out, you would take it, but you can’t even begin to comprehend what that would even look like. You feel stuck.
This young man comes into your town and begins to teach others about what’s in our hearts and that if we ask for forgiveness, we will be forgiven. He teaches that no matter what has happened in our past, that God loves us and wants to see us happy. He seems to have a heart for those who are hurting and does not put them down, but instead loves them and heals them. He actually seems them – he sees the goodness inside of them that no one else has ever seen. He gives them hope that things will get better, they just have to have faith. He teaches them that they have a father that is unlike anyone they know here on earth, who loves them and will walk with them through the ups and downs in life. Up until that point, they felt alone. Now they have someone to go through life with who genuinely loves and cares about them.
Change is hard; however, sometimes it just depends on where you are in life when faced with change. If you are living what you feel is a good life and are faced with change that could disrupt your current lifestyle, that change can be almost impossible to achieve on your own. If you are struggling and the change offers you something that has been missing and you have been searching for, it can be very easy to embrace the change.