New Wine & Old Wineskins
With the bridegroom present, fasting makes no sense, and the new wine of the kingdom bursts old traditions wide open.
2:18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
By now Jesus has already irritated the religious leaders for the things he was doing. Now they’re equally bothered by what he wasn’t doing—or more specifically, what his disciples weren’t doing. “Why don’t your disciples fast like the rest of us?” they ask, noting that even John the Baptist’s wild-eyed crew manages to pull it off. To them, fasting was the sign of true piety, the badge of religious seriousness.
But pause here to remember what fasting was about. In the ancient world, meals weren’t a quick pop-tart and a coffee. Preparing food meant hours of gathering, grinding, cooking, cleaning—time-consuming work. To fast was to free up that time for prayer, scripture, or the presence of God. It wasn’t meant as a performance of holiness but as a pathway into communion. The irony, of course, is that Jesus’ disciples don’t need extra time to enter God’s presence—they’re already eating with him.
19 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast whilefast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
Jesus answers, as usual, with a riddle: “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as he is with them.” Weddings in that culture weren’t a one-night affair—they were week-long festivals of food, dancing, and joy. No one skips the feast to sit in a corner fasting while the party rages. To do so would be absurd.
So Jesus drives home the point: if fasting is meant to bring you closer to God, why fast when God himself is sitting at the table with you? This is the party the whole tradition was pointing to. Of course, he adds a shadow: the day will come when the bridegroom is taken away, and then fasting will have its place. But for now? The kingdom has come near. The feast is on.
21 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
Not done with his riddles, Jesus tosses in two more: don’t sew a new patch on an old garment, and don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. At first glance, they sound like folksy proverbs. But they carry a punch. Jesus isn’t abolishing the old story; he’s fulfilling it. The problem with the Pharisees isn’t that they loved the Law too much—it’s that they loved the husks of tradition more than the kernel of truth. They clung to forms while forgetting the substance.
And the kingdom Jesus brings? It can’t be crammed into brittle old wineskins. It will burst the seams of traditions that have lost sight of their purpose. That’s the challenge then, and it remains the challenge now: are we clinging to practices, patterns, or customs that no longer serve the presence of God? Or are we willing to let the new wine stretch us into something fresh?
Reflection Question
What traditions, habits, or expectations might God be inviting you to hold more loosely so that his life can stretch you into something new?
