Fasting or Feasting?
INTRODUCTION
We are now introduced to some strange bedfellows. The Pharisees, as a group, rejected the ministry of John the Baptist. John, in turn, denounced the Pharisees as “a generation of vipers” (Matt. 3:7). But here the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees, who are at odds about most things, find that they have something in common—fasting. The disciples of John fasted evidently because they thought it to be a proof of their repentance; the Pharisees fasted because they considered it part of their religion.
I. The Question About Fasting (v.18)
“The Disciples of John” and “The Pharisees”
The Practice of Fasting
II. The Purpose of Fasting (v.18)
The Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur
Humble Yourselves
The fast began on the evening of the ninth day, and ended on the evening of the tenth, when it was succeeded by general feasting
III. The Answer About Fasting (vv.19-22)
The Presence of the Bridegroom (v.19)
The Absence of the Bridegroom (v.20)
Two Parables (vv.21-22)
If a garment has been washed several times and has shrunk, if it is then ripped, it cannot be patched with new cloth. If it is, the new cloth will then shrink, and the patch will tear loose and the original tear will be exacerbated.
In the ancient world, the standard wineskin was a goatskin. When new wine was put in a new goatskin, the wine would ferment, emitting gasses that would expand and stretch the wineskin. New wine went into new wineskins because the new wineskins could stretch and handle the expansion. But every Jew in Israel understood that new wine could not be put into old wineskins because the old wineskins had already been stretched to the max. New wine would ferment and expand an old wineskin to the point of bursting. Then both the wineskin and the wine would be lost.
Putting new wine into old wineskins (v. 22) and patching an old garment with a new cloth (v. 21) are just as inappropriate as fasting at a wedding feast.
Something so transcendentally new had happened that they could not receive Christ into their lives without being made new themselves. It would be impossible to be a Christian and keep to the old ways.
In short, He was warning the Pharisees that, when the heavenly feast came, they were not going to be ready because they were rejecting their King. They were rejecting the Son of God.