One of the greatest disillusions I’ve ever experienced occurred while I was engaged. My wife and I started dating in high school, but when we were in college, it was like someone flipped a switch and billboard sign lit up that said, “Get engaged! Get married! Live happily ever after!” So naturally, throughout college, we talked about marriage and engagement and looked forward to that day when I would get down on one knee and propose.
But no one told us how absolutely difficult the engagement is. It wasn’t like we had a bad engagement, but we were blindsided by the stress and tensions of living in a more serious but not quite married yet relationship. Then finally that wedding day came and we threw a party and celebrated our lives coming together.
Have you noticed that Jesus was a celebratory kind of guy? Yesterday’s passaged showed him feasting with sinners and tax collectors. This obviously got the eye of some of the religious folks because in today’s scripture, they come up to him with some questions and concerns.
Take a look at Matthew 9.14-17:
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, 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 men 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.”
If Jesus was known for being a celebratory, feasting kind of guy, John the Baptist and the Pharisees were known for their ascetic practices. They fasted at least twice a week. So they were disgruntled to see that Jesus is out having a good time while they’re denying themselves.
Jesus’ answer to them is illuminating on many levels. First, he calls himself the bridegroom which is playing off Old Testament passages that call Yahweh the bridegroom (Isaiah 62:5; Hosea 2:19-20). In a subtle way, Jesus is making an identity statement. Second, if what he is saying about his identity is true, then the proper response is not one of fasting, but one of celebration. Who goes to a wedding and mourns? I don’t know about you, but I go to weddings, especially receptions, to have a good time! This is an image that Jesus uses to communicate what the reality of heaven is like (Matthew 22:1-14, 25:1-13).
Third, Jesus foreshadows a time when he, the bridegroom, will no longer be present. That will be the time that his followers fast. In fact, the word for “taken” in verse 15 has some violent connotations. Jesus recognizes that after his death and ascension that his followers will fast to mourn his absence (and express longing for his return), and Christians did do that. They began to fast twice a week like their Jewish predecessors.
This would have been somewhat startling to John’s disciples, but Jesus gives them two quick pictures to help them get the point: with his arrival, something new is happening, something that doesn’t quite fit with the old ways of doing things—that something is the Kingdom. Jesus says that you don’t sew old and new cloth together because the new cloth will shrink and make a tear; in other words, the new and old don’t go together. Then he says that new wine in old wineskins is a disaster waiting to happen because the new wine will ferment, releasing gasses that will cause the old, brittle wineskin to crack. Jesus’ point: everything is different now that my Kingdom and I are here.
What difference does all this make for us today? Everything is different, that’s for sure. The Kingdom of heaven is breaking in all around us and in our lives. God is at work unlike ever before. But I still miss the bridegroom.
It’s like being engaged; I can see the wedding day ahead. I can see the banquet prepared for his beautiful bride and I know there is a party waiting to happen. I long for that reunion with our Lord and I anxiously await the day our lives are joined together in the new heavens and new earth. I live in the reality of the now, that the kingdom is at hand, and the not yet, that the wedding day is still to come.
How does Jesus expect me to respond? Well this passage shows that he at least expects us to fast. He knows that we’ll so desperately long for him that we’ll fast to express our desire, to anticipate that joyous reunion, and to plead for him to come. We’ll fast because we miss our bridegroom.
If you’ve never fasted, maybe it’s time for you to give it a shot. Start off small, maybe skipping a meal or two, and work your way up to a full day fast (from sundown to sundown). Don’t do it out of legalism or because you have to. Do it because you miss your bridegroom so much that it’s the only way you can properly respond to his absence.
But don’t lose heart. As I learned while I was engaged, the wedding is well worth the wait.
And our wedding day is coming.
Jeremy Hyde
Jeremy Hyde
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