All Things New
Aim: To show that the coming of Christ brought a new spiritual order, that Christianity is not Judaism “patched up”.
Text: Mark 2:18-22
Introduction: You don’t see many people with elbow patches these days, have you noticed that? When I was a lad it was quite common to see children with patches in the elbows of their jumpers, or having leather patches on the elbows of the school blazers. I think most High School students today would be mortified if their mother suggested sowing a patch on a wearing school blazer rather than replacing it with a new one. I must say, when I was growing up I used to feel a mixture of embarrassment and sympathy for the kids with patches. I was fortunate enough to be brought up in a home where we didn’t do quite so much making do and mending as other homes. Patches on the elbows seemed to say you came from a poorer home.
This evening, we come to our opening text in Mark and we read about patches. Putting “new cloth on an old garment.” You see there were those who thought that Jesus was seeking to build a patched up religion. That it was just an addendum to Judaism in one form or another, but the Lord wanted them to see that He makes all things new. That Christianity, whilst born out of Judaism, is something very different from it.
It all begins with that supper in Matthew’s house we spoke about the last time we were together, you remember, the one with “publicans and sinners”. You will recall it was an uncomfortable mix of guests, those considered to be the lowest caste of ancient Israelite life mingling with those who thought of themselves as a cut above. But it seems there is one more detail I forgot to mention, this feast of Matthew’s it would seem was held either on a Thursday or Monday. Not a good day for a party in Capernaum, not a good day for a party anywhere. Traditionally those were feast days, (I will explain why in a bit) and so it would seem the Pharisees were not only unhappy that Jesus was eating with publicans and sinners, they were unhappy He was eating that day at all!!
Let’s begin by considering:
I. Strange Companions – vs 18a
A. I don’t know about you, but that first line of verse 18 intrigues me, “And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees…”
1. Now I have heard it said that opposites attract, but even with that old adage in view we have to admit that these two make for very strange bedfellows… “the disciples of John and of the Pharisees…”
2. The Pharisees, as a group, it is fair to say had little time for the ministry of John the Baptist.
3. John was something of a wild man by their standards; in all likelihood he was an Essene, a sect of the Jews who lived ascetic, monastic type lifestyle. John lived in the wilderness ate locusts and wild honey dressed in camel hair, whereas they were at the hub of religious and political life in Israel, enjoyed fine clothes and good food.
4. They were virtually incompatible, indeed John when he saw them coming to his baptism roundly condemned them, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7)
5. These are hardly words of friendship and conciliation, and yet here we find the disciples of John and of the Pharisees, hand in hand in their approach to Jesus.
6. How can that be?
II. Shared Cause – vs 18b.
A. The concern that brought these two opposites together was the practice of fasting.
1. It never ceases to amaze me how some cause or other will draw together people who might otherwise never see eye to eye, and how they will abandon their dearest convictions if they determine a common enemy.
2. Sometimes, even in the Christian church, we may allow some doctrine or other to take on such supreme importance that it seems nothing else matters.
a. E.g. head covering, translation issue, frequency of the Lord’s Supper observance, and the Sabbath day etc.
b. When we get caught up in single-issue causes we often miss the core thing, we are blinded to the truths that really matter.
c. Isn’t that what Jesus meant when He said, “Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”
d. How quickly the love of God is forgotten when someone offends against our hobby horse!
B. For these two groups that hobby horse was fasting.
1. Now lets understand something, Jesus was not opposed to fasting, indeed he fasted Himself, and as we even see here He commended fasting to His disciples, but now was not the time.
2. The observation of the disciples of John and the Pharisees surrounding the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples gave them cause for concern – you see to John’s men fasting was associated with holiness, it was a natural fruit of repentance, because in the Jewish mind fasting signaled humiliation and mourning, in particular mourning over sin and in so doing, staying the judgment of God.
3. In the minds of the Pharisees fasting was a badge of honour, it was part of who they were, part of their religion.
4. Here is the interesting thing… do you know how many times a year a Jew was commanded to fast?
a. Once. Only one time in the year did God call upon the Jews to fast – see Leviticus 16:29-31 – “affliction of soul” was an idiom for fasting.
b. Once; on the Day of Atonement – that was it.
5. Yet, by the time of the exile the Jews were fasting four times a year – Zechariah 8:19.
a. Each of those occasions accorded in some way with events surrounding the exile.
6. But by the time of Christ the Pharisees were fasting over 200 times a year!!
a. They fasted every week, on Thursdays and Mondays, the likely days on which Matthew’s feast was scheduled.
b. Why then? Because, according to their tradition when Moses went to receive the commandments the second time he ascended Sinai on Thursday and returned on Monday. So on those days the Pharisees fasted from 6 am to 6 pm.
c. That is why when we come to Luke 18 and Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican He has the Pharisee saying, “I fast twice in the week.”
C. This was such a hot potato issue for them, and yet it was an issue with absolutely no Scriptural warrant.
D. Now, don’t get me wrong fasting has its place.
1. The Jewish people fasted during times of trial, or bereavement, it was an expression of grief or mourning, they fasted to avert judgment as an expression of sorrow over sin, and they fasted during times of national calamity.
a. I think we could use some of that today.
b. Did you know that the history of this great nation is littered with national prayer days?
c. That between 1535 and the last national prayer day in 1947 there was 544 public fast and prayer days for this nation.
d. It is a well-documented fact that Churchill himself called for four days of national prayer as the evacuation of Dunkirk got under way.
e. God help us now, for we have a body of men in government who neither know God, nor want God, and the concept of prayer is very far from their consciousness.
f. May God have mercy upon us as a nation!
2. The early church fasted too, we read that as the church at Antioch “ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” (Acts 13:2-3)
3. When Paul and Barnabas returned from that first missionary journey the last thing they did was to exhort the believers at Lystra and Iconium, and to appoint elders there, and “prayed with fasting”, commending those believers to the Lord.
4. So it seems that fasting was associated in the early church with important decision making, particularly with regard to church leadership.
a. Today many church leaders are chosen because they are popular or gifted, but I wonder how often churches, our own included, stop to fast and pray before appointing elders or deacons.
5. So fasting is a part of our duty as believers, and we do not deny it, but it is, in the words of John Philips, “a difficult tool to use.”
a. You see it can become to us, even as it became to them a badge of honour, a legalistic matter. It can create spiritual pride, and cause us to become self righteous and critical of others.
b. I will tell you this, it is often the case when a church chooses to fast that eyes are kept out to find those who are not fasting, and though no condemnation may be spoken, there is a sense of indignation at those who choose not join us, and that is wrong.
E. That same sense of indignation was found in the disciples of John and of the Pharisees, and so they came to Jesus asking, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?”
III. Simple Clarification – vss 19-20.
A. Jesus answer to this query was really quite simple, in fact John’s disciples should really have seen this from the first, He said, “Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.”
1. John had taught, “ I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
John 3:29 He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.” (John 3:29-30).
2. It seems like the Lord is reminding them of John’s words, but he goes on to clarify just why it is He and His disciples are not fasting like the others.
3. He asked them if it was appropriate to fast during a wedding in the presence of the bride and groom, and the answer is no.
4. In fact to do so would have been a huge social blunder.
a. You see according to Jewish custom all mourning was suspended during a marriage week (remember Jewish weddings lasted 7 days).
b. In fact, even the prescribed daily prayers ceased in order to accommodate the festivities. In fact the Talmud even absolved wedding guest from observing the Feast of Tabernacles!!
c. It was a religious duty to gladden the heart of the bridegroom and his bride during that period.
d. So with Christ, the bridegroom present, it was clearly out of place to fast, His presence was an occasion for joy and celebration, NOT of sorrow and mourning!!
B. But then the Lord added a more sobering tone when He said, “But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.”
1. Here, of course, He is alluding to Calvary, when His life would be offered up as a sacrifice – then would come the time for mourning and sorrow, but not before.
2. By the way, every time you see Jesus speak like this you should be reminded that He was not unaware of his purpose or destiny.
3. The cross was never an accident, not even the work of men, it was part of God’s design; the pathway chosen from before the foundation of the world was laid.
IV. Sharp Comparisons – vss 21-22
A. Now, so as to underline the explanation He gave, Jesus employs two object lessons, and we want to think of these as we draw to a close.
B. The first centres around a clothing repair, “No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.”
a. When the Lord refers to a “new cloth” here he is speaking about a piece of material that is untreated.
b. The word “new” means “unmilled, undressed”. In other words this cloth had never been shrunk and as such was unsuitable to patch up an old garment, for no sooner would it be sewn in than it would be exposed to water, either in the rain or in the wash, and the patch would shrink ripping the old garment even further.
C. The second centres around the production of wine, “And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.”
a. Some people read this and assume that Jesus was making reference to the process of fermentation and teaching that the old bottles, having been already stretched could not resist the expansion of the liquid that would come about through fermentation.
b. But actually the expansive force of fermentation is such that even the strongest barrels may be burst by it – so there is little chance for any goatskin bottle.
c. Rather the term “new wine” refers to fresh fruit juice, and the point Jesus was making was the by storing fresh fruit in an old skin would result in its contamination, fermentation and expansion thereby losing the product in the process.
d. The point of putting it in a new bottle was not to allow for fermentation, but to prevent it and in so doing preserve the juice.
D. Both illustrations serve essentially the same purpose – they were teaching that Jesus was doing something completely new.
1. But He was not tagging something new on to the old, he was not patching up Judaism with the gospel, nor indeed could the new be housed in the same form as the old.
2. The old economy was one of law, but Jesus came with a gospel of grace, and you cannot fit grace into the skin of law, for in so doing grace becomes no longer grace and the impact of its message is lost.
3. You see what the fasting Jews of Jesus day needed to see was that the coming of Christ changed everything, and what he brought was something different and new!
4. Here is one of the great mistakes of the so-called Messianic Christian – he wants to take sew Christianity onto Judaism, but those two cannot be truly coupled – yes, our faith is rooted in the oracles of God preserved by the Jewish people, - and yes God is still interested in Israel and the Jew, BUT the church is NOT Israel, and the Christian is Not a Jew, and grace cannot be coupled with the Law.
Conclusion: Now let me close out by applying this to you and I. Many people think of Christianity like a sticking plaster. They see Christ as someone who has come to patch up fallen man. But Christ did not come to reform the human condition; He came to regenerate us, to give us new life, through the new birth and to create a new man altogether.
So many people make promises to God that they’ll “do better.” But Christianity is not about “doing better"… or even "doing the best I can", rather it is a complete change from within brought about by the Spirit of God! You cannot patch up a dead man.
Illus: Just last week two women were arrested at Liverpool airport for trying to board a plane with a dead body, they put the dead man into a wheelchair and put sunglasses on him, and were trying check in for a flight to Berlin on Saturday. But airport staff became suspicious, and the two were arrested on suspicion of "failing to give notification of death."
A lot of people act that way with their spiritual state. They try to cover up the fact that they are dead in trespasses and sions by dressing the corpse up in good works, and kindnesses and charitable deads. They try to make a man who is dead in trespasses and sins look like he’s alive – and they may even patch a little religion on there to complete the look. But the truth is, it’s still a dead man. The only hope for such a one is resurrection.
Outside of Christ we are dead men, and we can apply all the dressings and the disguising we like to the outside, but unless we give that silly game up and allow Christ to come and live on the inside and makes us a completely new person, we are kidding ourselves. We are patching up the old with the new, and the new is not compatible with the old.
Tonight I want to invite you to become a new person in Christ. To be completely changed by Him, to become a new creature altogether. But to do that we have to get real with God. The Bible says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” You need to be in Christ, and Christ needs to be in you. If you want Him, and what He has for you, I wonder tonight will you surrender your all to Him and invite Him in.
