In Matthew 6:16-19 Jesus gave his listeners a fuller understanding of the Old Testament scriptures about fasting. Now, in Matthew 9, Jesus having had a meal with tax collectors and sinners, some of the disciples of John the Baptist are left confused. They put this question to Jesus:

Why don’t your disciples fast whereas both the disciples of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees do?

Initially Jesus gave a straightforward reply by way of a wedding picture. Identifying Himself as the bridegroom at a wedding and His disciples as the guests, He made it clear that of course His disciples couldn’t fast during such a celebration. Nevertheless they would fast when the bridegroom is taken away. History tells us that after Jesus was taken away, times of fasting continued to be acknowledged by believers (e.g. Acts 27:9).

But then Jesus followed with two analogies which, until now, seemed to me to have little to do with the question posed by John’s disciples:

No one patches an old coat with a piece of unshrunk cloth, because the patch tears away from the coat and leaves a worse hole.

Nor do people put new wine in old wineskins; if they do, the skins burst, the wine spills and the wineskins are ruined. No, they pour new wine into freshly prepared wineskins, and in this way both are preserved. (vv16-17)

These analogies seemed to me irrelevant…until I thought about the initial question and what lay behind it: “Why don’t your disciples fast?” was really a way of asking: ‘Jesus, are you and by implication your disciples, doing away with Torah?’

These analogies give an answer which says ‘I am not doing away with Torah – on the contrary! I, your Messiah, am leading you into the fullness of Torah.’

Let me explain: The old coat and old wineskins represent Judaism at the time of Jesus - a good coat but with a hole, a wineskin that became rigid through lack of care. The patch and the wine is the Messianic faith that Jesus was proclaiming, the true fulfilment of Torah. Fitting an unprepared patch of Christianity to Judaism or forcing Christianity into a stiff legalistic Judaic wineskin will not be any more pleasing to God than patching up the legalistic forms of Judaism of Jesus’ day.

Assuming this to be a fair understanding, then I propose two prayers:

Heavenly Father…fill us with the new wine of life through the Holy Spirit, under the new covenant of Jesus’ blood. Let us inherit a full understanding of Torah as you always intended it – help us to learn, in you, how to relate to your Law and your people Israel.

Heavenly Father…release unbelieving Israel from bondage to legalistic Judaism, and prepare them for relationship with you and with Gentile believers, through Jesus the Messiah.

Amen?

Author: John Quinlan