MIXING OLD AND NEW
Opening Prayer
Grant me, O Lord, the will to embrace the new things You reveal to me and the wisdom to discern which of the old I must discard and which to retain.
Read MATTHEW 9:14–17
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
“This is he whom seers and sages / sang of old with one accord / whom the voices of the prophets / promised in their faithful word” (Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, 348–413)
Jesus is not against fasting. In his view, genuine fasting is between God and the individual, not merely for show (Matt. 6:16–18). Fasting is essentially a spiritual exercise, a way of cultivating closeness to God, allowing time for meditation, prayer and spiritual growth unhampered by distractions. John and his disciples took spiritual discipline seriously and, as Matthew notes (Matt. 3:4), John himself was a disciplined ascetic. Jesus, however, makes a simple point. His disciples have no need to fast in order to approach him. He is already with them. One day he will not be physically present, and then they will need to discipline themselves to find ways of communicating with him without distraction.
Jesus then addresses the old and the new. Mixing them is risky. His analogies of new patches on old garments and new wine in old bottles are often too simplistically interpreted. Christianity is indeed the new patch or the new wine and Judaism the old. It is often said that the old cloth or old bottle of Judaism simply could not bear the new cloth or contain the new wine of Christianity. This is a reasonable interpretation of Jesus’ words as Mark records them (Mark 2:21,22). We must, however, be fair to Matthew. He is saying something else (17). To Matthew, Christianity does not totally replace the past. Matthew has recorded Jesus’ words that he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. We should expect no less from Matthew. He, more than the other Gospel writers, sees the fulfillment of the Old Testament in every step that Jesus takes and every word that he speaks. All that is good and godly in the Hebrew Scriptures has its endpoint in Jesus. To Matthew, Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy, the ultimate focal point of all psalms and the goal of all history.
Apply
If you were to enter into a period of fasting, what would be your motivation? What in your set of circumstances would galvanize you to fast?
Closing prayer
Lord, preserve us as new wine under a new covenant relieved of the obligation to labor in the old wineskins of law.
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