#12 Parties, Patches and Wineskins
Series: Mark
March 15, 2020
Chuck Sligh
Several ideas and illustrations for this sermon were adapted from David Dykes’ sermon on SermonCentral.com, Old Whiners or New Wineskins.
TEXT: Mark 2:18-22 – "And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? 19 And Jesus said unto them, 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. 20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. 21 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. 22 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."
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever known someone who was a chronic whiner? They’re constantly whining about their health, or the weather, their boss, their appearance, their spouse, their kids, or what’s going on in Washington. Do you know someone like that? Let me turn that around: Do you think anybody was thinking that about YOU?
Chronic whiners and complainers are everywhere. I came across a list of actual complaints that were sent to a travel agency.
• “On my holiday to Mumbai, India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”
• “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”
• “No one told us there would be fish in the ocean. The children were scared.”
• “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they all spoke Spanish.”
• “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
Whiners. Who needs them?!
In our passage we’re going to discover there was a group of religious whiners who followed Jesus around complaining, and Jesus explains that they represent the old guard—a way of thinking and living that was to pass away, for someone and something new and vibrant and infinitely better had arrived..
Follow along with me in your Bible as I read Mark 2:18-22 – “And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? 19 And Jesus said unto them, 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. 20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. 21 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. 22 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.”
The Pharisees were professional whiners. They followed Jesus around and criticized everything He did and said. In the previous passage, they whined that Jesus had hung out with sinners and outcasts at a feast Matthew had thrown. Jesus and His disciples were the party-goers and the Pharisees were the party-poopers.
In today’s passage, they hammered Jesus with another complaint. They whined, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast, and of course, we fast, but your boys don’t fast, so they’re not very religious!”
Jesus took their whining complaint and responded with three mini-parables. This is the first time Mark records a parable in his brief Gospel The word parable comes from the words “para-bole” which means “through alongside.” When Jesus told a parable, He told a natural, earthly story or made a natural, earthly analogy; then beside it, He tossed down a deep spiritual, heavenly truth. Someone described a parable as “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”
Some of Jesus’ parables are long and famous like the parable of the Prodigal Son, or the parable of the Good Samaritan. But these three parables in our text today are only a few words long. They have some explosive truths in them that signal a massive paradigm shift God was about to inaugurate. The first one is about a wedding party; the second is about a patch; and the third is about wineskins. Simple things, but with deep meanings.
Let’s look at them this morning:
I. THE FIRST THING JESUS TAUGHT WAS THAT A WEDDING FEAST ISN’T THE TIME TO FAST. – Verses 18-20 – “John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting: and they came and said, ‘Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ 19 And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.”
The only time Jews were required in the Law of Moses to fast was on the annual Day of Atonement as an act of repentance for sins. But the Pharisees, in order to show their piety, promoted fasting twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Apparently, John the Baptizer’s disciples followed the same practice, and were upset that Jesus’ disciples didn’t fast, while they were suffering.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with fasting, per se. In fact, there are good Bible reasons Christians should sometimes fast. Jesus Himself fasted and prayed often—but it was never a ritual designed for others to see.
The problem with the practice of the Pharisees was two-fold:
First, they took the human practice to fast twice a week—which had never been mandated by God’s Law—and made it equal to the commandments of God, something Jesus constantly criticized the Pharisees for.
One was deemed “spiritual” or “holy”, not merely on the basis of God’s commandments, but by following the rules and traditions of men as well. THAT was a problem for Jesus.
Second, fasting became a ritual designed for others to see instead of for God to see.
The Pharisees whitened their faces and piled ashes on their hair and moaned and groaned so everyone would know they were “spiritual.” But in Matthew 6, Jesus taught that when fasting, people should not look somber and disfigure their faces as the Pharisees did to show others they were fasting. Instead he told them put oil on their heads and wash their faces as they normally would, so it would not be obvious to others they were fasting. It was to be something known only by the Father, who sees what is done in secret, and would reward them for their devotion. (Matthew 6:16-18) The Pharisees had taken a wonderful act of spiritual discipline and had changed it into a badge of super-self-righteousness.
The disciples of John followed the Pharisees’ example in fasting often, but for different reasons. – They fasted as an expression of repentance in preparation for the Messiah to come, not realizing yet that He HAD come already. So Jesus explained why His disciples didn’t need to fast by comparing Himself to a bridegroom.
A Jewish wedding was something to behold! You think we sometimes go overboard at weddings?—Nothing compares to a wedding in Bible days among the Jews! The wedding feast was the climax of a year of betrothal. That time of expectation and planning was much more involved than our informal engagement period.
Following the actual wedding ceremony, there was a full week of eating, dancing, singing and celebrating that took place. In America, after the wedding, couples leave immediately for their honeymoon. In Jewish weddings, the couple stayed and were treated like a king and queen—they were even given garland crowns to wear during the week-long celebration. It was the best week of their lives and the friends of the bridegroom did some serious feasting, pulled pranks and had a great time fun and celebration. It wasn’t a time for FASTING!—It was time for FEASTING!
Now in our text, Jesus identified Himself as the Bridegroom and we know from a study of Revelation that His Bride is the church. At this point the Bride had not yet been revealed, but she was waiting patiently for her time to make an appearance. Jesus said that while He is present, that’s not the time to fast; it’s time to feast.
In verse 20, Jesus spoke of, “…when the bridegroom will be TAKEN AWAY from them,…”
Normally, a bridegroom stayed together with his new bride, not go away. The phrase “taken away” in the Greek suggests a violent departure and presaged what was to come, when Jesus, the Bridegroom, would be violently taken away from the disciples and crucified. That would be the time to fast.
II. SECOND, JESUS TAUGHT THAT A NEW PATCH WILL RUIN AN OLD GARMENT – Verse 21 – “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment: or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse.”
Today we have developed all kinds of synthetic fabrics that don’t shrink when washed. In Jesus’ time, new cloth would always shrink after the first few times it was washed. A person wearing a new garment had to make sure it was a couple of sizes too large so that over time, the garment would shrink down to the right size. Garments were often torn or moth-eaten, so they had to be constantly repaired. If you had an old robe with a hole in it, it would be foolish to sew a new patch of cloth onto it. When it was washed, the new patch would shrink, but the old cloth would stay the same, causing it to rip! It would have ruined the old garment, merely enlarging the tear.
What was Jesus teaching? He was teaching that He could not just be added on to the old structure of Judaism.. Both verses 21 and 22 tie into the Bridegroom theme in the previous verses. The old ritualism and hyper-seriousness and outward show of religiosity represent the old garment that Judaism had devolved. Jesus, the Bridegroom who feasts and enjoys life with His disciples, who lives in the spirit of the Law, not the letter of the Law—that is represented by the new patch. Jesus was saying you can’t add the new to the old; something radically new and different was needed—a whole new garment!
III. THE THIRD THING JESUS TAUGHT WAS THAT THE NEW WINE WILL CRACK OLD WINESKINS. – Verse 22: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins: or else the new wine will burst the wineskins, and the wine is spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined; but new wine must be put into new wineskins.’”
We use bottles to hold wine today, but in the Jesus’ day wine was stored in goatskins. These skins were removed, scraped clean inside and then tanned over a fire. Then the skin was stitched back together, with the neck of the goatskin becoming the neck of the wineskin, and then the seams were sealed to hold the wine.
A fresh wineskin was soft and supple. When new wine was poured into it, gas was released from the natural process of fermentation. The new wineskin could stretch easily to accommodate this expansion.
Old wineskins, on the other hand, had already expanded and hardened from their original supply of wine, thus becoming stiff and rigid. If you poured new wine into an old wineskin, over a period of just a few days there would be an audible sound as the hardened skin began to crack and split. The old skin could not stretch because it would have become inflexible and soon the stitches would start to pop—the seams bursting open and the new wine leaking out.
These are beautiful illustrations. But Jesus simply a storyteller or an illustrator; He told these earthy things to help us understand deeper heavenly truths.
The meaning of the parable of the wineskins was the same as the parable of the patch—that with the coming of Jesus, the old could not contain the new. The new piece of cloth and the new wineskins were what we now call Christianity. The old garment—patched and worn out—and the old wineskin—hard and rigid—were Judaism, with its feasts and fasts and rules and regulations and sacrifices and ceremonies.
Jesus was teaching that His coming changed everything. He had come to bring in something new and different and far superior. Trying to sew Christianity onto a corrupted form of Judaism would not work. The Old Covenant was obsolete and was to be replaced altogether with the New.
This is the theme of these three parables and what ties them together. The old way centered on ritualism and outward show; the new centered on Jesus, the Son of God, who was to be celebrated. A new garment—that is, a totally new paradigm—was required. The old paradigm could not hold the new.
CONCLUSION
• What does God want us to take away from what we’ve learned this morning?
Well, first, the story of the Bridegroom teaches us that life is about a joyous relationship with Christ, not religious rituals.
The Christian life is more like a wedding celebration than a funeral procession. The Pharisees’ attitude was, “It’s not fair for you guys get to enjoy life when we have to endure religion! If you were really holy, you would be miserable like us!”
• The Pharisees were GRIPING while Jesus’ disciples were GRINNING….
• The Pharisees were SOMBER, while Jesus’ disciples were SINGING….
• The Pharisees were LANGUISHING; Jesus’ disciples were LAUGHING….
• The Pharisees were CRITICIZING, while Jesus’ guys were CELEBRATING….
• The Pharisees were JEALOUS; Jesus’ group was JUBILANT.
Which group are you in?
Illus. – Comedienne and commentator Erma Bombeck told how she was sitting in church one Sunday when a small child turned around and began to smile at the people behind her. She was just smiling, not making even a peep.
When her mother noticed, she whispered, “Stop that grinning—you’re in church,” and then gave her a swat and when she got a proper frown, said, “That’s better!”
Erma concluded that some people come to church looking like they had just read the will of their rich aunt and learned that she had given everything to her pet hamster!
Brethren, Christianity brings perpetual joy for those who will follow Christ and cultivate their relationship with God.
Illus. – A preacher I knew had won a man to Christ who had had no church background, so he had not learned church lingo, like, “Praise the Lord” to express joy and thankfulness. When he was baptized, he was so overjoyed, he used the only vocabulary he could think of to express his joy without cussing. He came up shouting, “Hot dog! Hot dog! Hot dog!” The preacher said the man never lost that “Hot dog!,” celebratory view of his salvation and walk with God.
There should be a perpetual wedding joy with Christ for those who know Christ. May God help us be more like the disciples of Christ and less like the Pharisees!
Some people are a never-ending fount of joy and praise and edification and others gripe and complain and murmur all day long. In other words, some people are a blessing WHEREVER they go, and some people are a blessing WHENEVER they go.
Which are you? May God help you be filled constantly with Christ’s wedding joy!
Second, the story of the patch reminds us that Jesus doesn’t just patch up your old life; He gives you a new one!
The old garment represented a very old idea of pleasing God by outward works and spending a lot of time and effort in appearing good on the outside to other people. Jesus was saying He didn’t just come to improve the old ideas of Judaism—He came to replace it with something totally new.
There was no way His new covenant could be used to “patch up” dead ritualism that much of Judaism had devolved into. The Pharisees were threatened by this because their religion was based upon keeping the law instead of living under grace.
Some people think they’re pretty good and only need Jesus to just “patch up” some problem areas of their lives.
Illus. – Most men love duct tape. Someone said that all a man needs to be happy is duct tape and WD-40: If it moves and shouldn’t, use the duct tape;… if it doesn’t move and should, use the WD-40.
But the truth is Jesus didn’t come to put duct tape on your heart. He came to give you a NEW heart.
When Jesus comes into your life, His goal is not to reform you; His goal is to transform you. We’re all sinners by nature and by choice. To try to “fix” our sinful character is like sewing a new, un-shrunk patch on an old garment—RIP!
In our first birth (our physical birth), we were deformed by sin. That’s why Jesus says we need a NEW spiritual birth. The Bible says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Illus. – A hillbilly mother had nine or ten children. One of her boys fell down on a new blacktop road and was covered in tar. He was a mess! His mother was outside trying to clean the sticky tar off of him and said, “I declare, Tom, it’d be easier just have another one than to clean you up!”
That’s like us: Jesus doesn’t just try to clean our old hearts up; He gives us a new heart.
Finally, beware of a hardened heart that refuses to accept new understandings of truth from God’s Word.
Human nature rebels against the idea of anything that seems to threaten the “good old days” and the “good old ways.” Our motto is “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Jesus compares that attitude to an old wineskin and He’s actually saying, “If you don’t fix it, you’ll break!”
Illus. – I remember talking with a man who steadfastly believed that he was saved by his baptism and his good works that followed his baptism. His sole hope of salvation was in human works and effort. I showed him verse after verse that taught that salvation is by God’s grace alone, received by faith alone in Christ alone And I posed the question, “If you can be saved by your works, then what good was Jesus’ death on the cross?”
But he kept saying, “But that’s not what I was taught. It’s not what I was taught.” Like the Pharisees in our text, he could not open his eyes to anything different than the past false teachings he had grown up in. And therefore, like the Pharisees, he could not be saved until he repented of his trust in his own human effort.
The Pharisees were trained that one received God’s acceptance by the giving of alms to the poor, by following God’s laws, by acts of repentance, like fasting and by ritual washings and ceremonies. But Jesus teaches us that the Gospel of grace through faith and the ritual of religion were mutually exclusive. One must choose one way or the other. One way leads to eternal life; the other leads to eternal damnation. Do not harden your heart to God’s truth of salvation by grace. Turn to Jesus today and believe in Him and follow Him for the rest of your life.
