Old Things
When I worked at a Lifeway Christian Bookstore, one of my coworkers said I was an “old soul” because I’d listen to CDs of Christmas hymns while unboxing books. I tend to love old things: old books, old houses, old cities, old trees, old buildings, old games, old people. I love old things.
Nowadays, however, new is often assumed to be better than old. New tech is better than old tech. New games are better than old games. New cars or houses or phones are better than old ones. New ideas are assumed to be better just because they’re new, what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” Our culture is fascinated with the new.
Loving the Old Ways
But in some ways we persist in loving the “old ways.” Deep in the human heart is an ancient desire to hide from God and others. We hide behind our possessions (what we have), performance (what we do), popularity (what others say about us), or persona (the costume we wear). We feel exposed before God so we diligently try to get out from under his holy gaze.
We also have a deep desire to justify ourselves before God. We say, “The woman you gave me made me do it,” or the serpent made me do it, or I was born this way. We use religion to make us feel better about ourselves, going through all the rituals to atone for things we’ve done in the past. We try to raise our kids to be better than we were so we feel less guilty about what we’ve done. We compare and compete with others, saying, “At least I’m not like that person.”
This is the old way of the human heart, a heart that beats inside each of us, a heart that can only be overcome by something radically new.
A New Way and a New Day Has Dawned
Our text today shows us that in Jesus, something radically new has come. Our text makes a simple but profound point, namely, that in Jesus, God is working to undo the old ways of the human heart.
The main point of this text is that, in Jesus, God is doing something new. We’ll look at three illustrations Jesus uses to make this point and three implications of this point for our lives.
Three Illustrations
In these verses, Jesus uses three illustrations to reveal the newness of his program. The illustrations in verses 34-39 are provoked by the questions in verse 33. The Pharisees weren’t convicted of their sins or moved to repentance after Jesus answered them in verses 31-32, so they come back with another objection. They’d criticized Jesus for eating and drinking with sinners, now they criticize him for eating and drinking at all!
They’re upset that Jesus and his disciples are feasting instead of fasting. The Old Testament only commanded one fast, on the Day of Atonement. But the Pharisees fasted two days a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Apparently John the Baptist’s disciples had also committed to fasting regularly. They did so to prepare for Messiah’s coming. The Pharisees did so to look religious and justify themselves (Lk. 18:9-12). When they fasted, they tried to look gloomy because they wanted everyone to see how spiritual they were and what great sacrifices they were making for God (Matt. 6:16-18).
Jesus didn’t have a problem with fasting. He fasted himself in the wilderness when he was tempted by Satan and gave his disciples instructions on fasting. But, unlike the Pharisees and John’s disciples, he saw it as a voluntary spiritual discipline to be pursued on occasion. He didn’t make his disciples fast because it wasn’t the time for it, as he says in verses 34-35.
You Don’t Fast During a Wedding
A wedding is the first illustration Jesus uses to describe the newness of what he’s doing. All the other religious groups were fasting, so why weren’t Jesus and his followers? He says that he and his guys are taking a “fast from fasting” because it doesn’t make sense to fast during a wedding.
Jesus is saying that there’s a time and place for fasting, but this wasn’t that time. Why? He used the metaphor of what happened at weddings in their culture. Weddings lasted for a week and were a time of great celebration and eating and drinking. No one wanted to be fasting when a wedding was on the calendar. Jesus is saying that, as long as he – the groom, is with them, they should be celebrating. After his execution and departure from this planet, his disciples can fast. But while he’s in their presence, there should be joy and celebration and feasting, not fasting.
Jesus is saying that it’s wedding time in redemptive history. God, the husband, put on human flesh and came to unite with his bride, the church. You don’t tell people at a wedding to drop their cake and punch and begin fasting. That wouldn’t be appropriate, it wouldn’t make sense. You don’t mourn at a wedding, you celebrate. You don’t send sympathy cards to the bride and groom. Just as you wouldn’t serve broccoli and cauliflower at a kid’s birthday party, fasting isn’t the proper response when Israel’s bridegroom has arrived.
Jesus and his disciples were in trouble for being so happy, for feasting instead of fasting. But Jesus says that fasting wouldn’t be appropriate at that time because something new is happening. A new era has dawned in Jesus, the kingdom of God has come in him. So God’s people need to turn their frowns upside down and rejoice that the day they’ve been waiting for is finally here!
New Clothes and New Wine
Then in verses 36-39, Jesus uses two more word-pictures to illustrate what’s happening with his arrival.
Jesus switches metaphors and gives two short parables that illustrate the folly of trying to put the newness of his message into the structures of the old. Verse 36 says that a new piece of cloth shouldn’t be sewed onto old clothes because when they’re washed, they’ll shrink and tear off and make a bigger hole. Verse 37 says that new wine shouldn’t be put into an old wineskin because when the new wine ferments, it emits gasses that expand and stretch the wineskin and would thus burst the wineskin and leave you with no wine and no wineskin. Therefore, verse 38 says that new wine demands new wineskins.
With these parables Jesus is saying, “You can’t take the newness of my message and force it into the old structures because the old structures can’t bear it.” He’s not condemning the law of God. He’s condemning the traditions that the scribes and Pharisees had developed around the law that kept people from coming to him.
Luke is clear that Jesus came to fulfill and even keep the law (5:14), and that there’s continuity between Jesus and the Old Testament. But in response to the religious leaders, Jesus says that what he’s doing isn’t like what they’re doing. With these short parables, he’s putting distance between him and them. He came to fulfill, not abolish, the law, but what he’s doing is different from the Judaism of his day. He’s bringing a new order that won’t fit into the old patterns. He didn’t come to fit into an old religion, but to inaugurate a new age. This is why Jesus is increasingly seen as a threat to them, the preservers of traditional Judaism. His way is distinct from theirs, what he offers is fundamentally different. His was a gospel for outcasts, theirs was a religion for the righteous.
Jesus’ coming signaled the beginning of a radically new era. People weren’t ready for it, especially the religious people. They tried to deal with Jesus’ new way by pushing him into the pattern of the old way. But the old way of the law had already been stretched beyond capacity and couldn’t handle the infusion of the new message of Jesus.
Jesus is saying that people couldn’t enter God’s kingdom if they stayed in the old way. He’s saying that God is doing something new in him, that his coming isn’t an update or revision of an old religious system but is a transformation of everything.
With these short parables, Jesus is drawing a contrast between the coming of God’s kingdom in him and the Judaism of the Pharisees (Lk. 16:14-16). The newness of the good news of the kingdom is better than the oldness of the religion where you had to justify yourself because grace is better than law!
Jesus is beginning to resist his critics attempts to destroy the “new garment” for the sake of the old one. New should go with new (v. 38). These verses are essentially Jesus’ interpretation of the conflict stories we’re in the middle of (5:17-6:11). He’s saying that he’s not like these guys, that he’s come to do something new and better, to set people free not enslave them.
Three Implications
In Jesus, God is doing something new. We’ve looked at three ways Jesus illustrated this principle. Now we’ll consider three implications of this truth for our lives.
Joy with the Groom
The first implication of this text is that there’s joy for those who’re with the Groom. The basic point Jesus is making with his wedding analogy in verses 34-35 is that those who know him and understand who he is will rejoice in him. Matthew’s account draws this out when he says, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” (9:15) He uses the word “mourn” instead of “fast,” equating the two.
Jesus’ point is that fasting, or mourning, in his presence isn’t appropriate. He’s saying that the reason his disciples aren’t fasting/mourning is because he’s with them, and in his presence they experience joy. The disciples have joy in the presence of the Master.
One of those disciples, Peter, later says this applies to all who follow Jesus: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Pet. 1:8). Jesus’ followers live in joy even if they can’t see Jesus.
This joy isn’t some sort of fake or phony optimism about the future. Rather, it’s a settled confidence in God and an experience of the presence of Jesus, through his Spirit. Followers of Jesus say with David, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). Those who know the Groom also know joy.
Love Reveals the New Age
The second implication of what Jesus says here is that Jesus’ new way demands new love. Another of his disciples, John, draws this out for us in 1 John 2:8, “It is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.”
The context around this verse tells us that the “new commandment” John is talking about is the command to “love one another” (vv. 9-11). John calls it a “new commandment” because it reveals the new world.
To understand this, we need to remember that the Bible divides history into “the present age” and “the age to come.” The New Testament says that “the age to come” started with Jesus’ appearance, so that now the two ages overlap. Those who put their trust in Jesus are delivered out of the present evil age and begin to taste the new age to come.
The “darkness” in verse 8 is the present age and is passing away (v. 17). Jesus is the “true light” and John says at the end of verse 8 that “the true light is already shining.” This means that there was an expectation that light would come, and that it has come. The Lord promised his people a day when he would be their light (eg. Isa. 60:19-20). No more darkness. No more sin. No more misery. No more mourning. Only joy in the light of God forever.
John is saying that this light is already shining. How? That’s the connection we can’t miss. The light of God is shining through the command to love. The command to love “is true in him and in you” (v. 8). The reality of love came in Jesus and now lives in Jesus’ people. This is how we know that the “darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.”
The glory of the new age shines through love, first in Jesus, now through his people. The command to love one another is a new command because it reveals the new world. Jesus’ “new wine” gladdens his people and compels them to love.
It’s normal and relatively easy to love people who’re like us. But in the church, you find a mixture of all kinds of people. This is it’s God-ordained beauty. In the church, you have rich and poor, educated and uneducated, intense and carefree, disciplined and flighty, extrovert and introvert and everything in between. But holding them together is love. This is why a church littered with bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness can become such an uncomfortable place to be. Jesus’ love gives his people power to love people they’d rather not love. As we taste the newness of his love, our hearts become new and we begin to love in ways we never thought possible. And this new love points to the new world and new way inaugurated at Jesus’ coming.
A Unique Message
The third implication of this text is the uniqueness of Jesus’ message. Jesus’ message is more than the old message revised and refreshed. He’s not patching up Judaism or our old way of doing things. The gospel doesn’t mix and match with any other religion.
Just as you don’t cut out a patch from new jeans to put it on old jeans, you don’t take Jesus and add him to your old ways. This is what the Pharisees were trying to do with Jesus. They saw him feasting with sinners instead of fasting with them and he didn’t fit with their ideas of what it meant to be holy. So, as one commentator says, Jesus tells them that he didn’t come to patch up their “tired old ways of being good enough for God. He was not there to stay separate from sinners, or to keep one of their grumpy old fasts; he was there to celebrate free forgiveness with the sinners he had come to save.”[1]
As we think about our faith and sharing our faith, this means that Jesus’s gospel doesn’t accommodate any other message. It is utterly unique. His message of free grace for all those who repent and believe is new and better than every other religion, every other “old” way.
The gospel of Jesus explodes our religious categories because, on the one hand, it tells us we’re hell-deserving sinners who can’t do anything to save ourselves, yet, on the other hand, it tells us that Jesus took hell for us on the cross so that we can be saved.
The gospel says your shame and guilt can be covered by simply looking to Jesus, that his work on the cross atones for your guilt and his perfect life covers your shame. Jesus’ message is radical because it takes us out of the driver’s seat of our destiny. It tells us that we can’t manipulate or control God or put him in our debt. It says that new life is available only in him.
Preferring the Old Way
The crazy thing is that, left to ourselves, we like the taste of the old wine that keeps us hidden and in control. This is what Jesus is talking about in verse 39. A “new wine” of grace has come in Jesus, but some prefer the old wine so much they aren’t even willing to taste the new wine. Some are so stuck in their old ways of thinking that they refuse to taste what Jesus has to offer. This was true of the Pharisees. They didn’t think they were sinners so they didn’t join the feast and they didn’t want to taste the wine of Jesus’ grace.
Jesus’ message draws some and repels others who’re so accustomed to the old wine that they won’t even taste the new. The old wine of a self-centered life is good enough for them.
To drink the new wine of Jesus’ way, you have to have a new heart, to go through a change of mind and posture toward him. You have to repent like the tax collectors and sinners (v. 32). You have to agree with God that you don’t deserve anything but hell and then look to God’s Son, believing that his cross is your only hope at new and eternal life.
Are you willing to try the new wine of Jesus’ grace? You can’t put a little bit of him on your old way of life, and you can’t just add him to your efforts to be good enough for God. It’s either Jesus or yourself, new wine or old, life in the joy of his wedding or life in the misery of your funeral, clothed with his righteousness or clothed with your shame and guilt. Which will it be?
[1]Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, Volume 1: Luke 1-12, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009), 238.