Messiah’s New Age – Luke 5:33-39

Leaf.tv describes the process of making a wineskin for storing wine.  The skin of a goat is tanned with tannin from the mimosa tree.  Then it is coated with pitch from a pine tree or juniper.  The pitch has been purified through heating and used to waterproof the inside of the leather skin.  Then the skin is sewn with hemp or flax into a bag shape and a sealable nozzle of pressed resin or bakelight is put into the opening.  Of course, if the wine is fermenting it also causes the bag to expand to its limit.  You can only use that wineskin for new wine once.  An already expanded wineskin would burst from fermenting new wine.

And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”  (Luke 5:33-39 ESV)

Fasting is a way of saying, “As important as eating is to me, I will forgo eating to mark my grief or to let God know how sincere I am about Him being my ultimate food.”  Fasting has been a part, thus, of every religious practice.  But when there is a time of rejoicing because the bridegroom is here, fasting is a slap in the face to the bridegroom and his happy celebration at his wedding.  Jesus here elevates his status in the eyes of the Pharisees, who, of course, do not want to recognize his importance.  When Jesus is gone (a veiled reference to his death, which will be perpetrated by the Pharisees and others), then his disciples can mourn and fast.

But there is a second reason that fasting is not appropriate.  Jesus is introducing a new era in the plan of God, the unfolding of the new covenant talked about in Jeremiah (ch.31) and other prophets.  The end of the age has come upon Israel in the person of her Messiah.  You cannot expect old forms to suffice for the new age.  And if you will once imbibe the new wine you will see its superiority to the old wine.

Everything changes for the better with Jesus.