Life of Christ 49
We are entering a time
in Jesus' ministry in which His fame has gone past the point of 'Did you hear
about this guy?' to 'Do you think he is the messiah?'. Consequently, there are
those who will seek to look beneath the surface of His reputation, and find out
what makes Him tick. We saw this recently when, during a stopover in Capernaum,
He was confronted and questioned by a waiting committee of the 'doctors of the
Law.' Following that, He meets and calls Matthew, and spend some time with Him.
This brings us to our story today (Matthew 9.14-17), another investigative
story, if you will.
John the Baptist, almost
a year into Jesus' ministry, still has his own ministry, including a small band
of disciples that remain loyal to him. Apparently, word has spread through the
grapevine from one group of disciples (Jesus') to another (John's) that Jesus'
group of seven or eight didn't fast every week. John's disciples did, and, of
course, the Pharisaic rabbis had their own disciples, and they fasted as well.
Fasting is commended in the
Old Testament, and it had become customary in the years between Ezra and Jesus
for spiritually observant Jews to fast once a week. The Pharisees, as was their
wont, thought if once was good than two was better, and they fasted two days a
week. But Jesus' disciples didn't fast at all. Some of John's disciples got up
the courage, and on a visit to Galilee, probably specifically to see Jesus,
asked Him why they didn't.
Jesus answers their
question by explaining that it isn't reasonable to expect a man to fast at a
feast. Feast times were rather a period for rejoicing. Such occasions do not
fit with the idea of fasting, which includes sorrow, penitence, and humility of
soul. Jesus says, in essence, that since He, the Messiah, was here, the fact
needed celebrated. There would be plenty of time for mourning and sorrow after
He left.
Following that
explanation, Jesus gets to the unspoken root cause and problem of their
question. We will see that this was often His way. He would answer a question,
and then go beyond the simple answer to deal with the actual problem. Why did
the Jews fast once a week? Was there a scriptural command to do so? No, but
there was a traditional call for it, and that was the reason – tradition.
Jesus was dealing with a
religious system, cultured and led by Israel's pharisaic religious leaders,
that emphasized the now traditional extra-biblical externals more than it did
the spirit of the Torah, and obedience from the heart. He knows He has to tear
down this too highly esteemed respect for tradition if He is to turn the people
in the direction of real religion.
At the same time, Jesus
already knows that His attempt won't work, that Israel will reject Him, and
that He will be killed. He has not yet begun emphasizing it to His disciples, but
He does know it. His early knowledge is indicated clearly in John 2.18-19 when,
just weeks into His ministry, He cleanses the Temple of the moneychangers, and
refers to His own death and resurrection in answer to a question. Ergo, He
knows as well that if He is going to fail at reaching His people, and at His
attempt to fix what was broken in Israel's religion, that He must start
something brand new to take its place. Thus, He gives an example to John's
disciples to illustrate His reasoning behind overthrowing tradition, and going
with something brand new.
'No man putteth a piece
of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh
from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into
old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles
perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved'
(Matthew 9.16-17).
This process often
involved certain kinds of yeast, which, once introduced into a wineskin stayed
in the skin even when the alcoholic wine thus made was poured out. If you then
poured new or sweet wine, which was just grape juice, into that skin, and if
the temperature was just right and the sugar content of the grape juice was
correct, you would then get a new batch of alcoholic wine regardless of whether
that was your intention. More often than not, though, you would get a chemical
reaction, which since you weren't expecting and thus weren't monitoring, would
burst the wineskin open due to the fermentation process going on inside.
In other words, as Jesus
said, if you put new wine into old wineskins, skins that had alcoholic wine in
them, that new wine would begin to ferment and the bags would burst. What you
needed to do was put new wine into previously unused wineskins so there would
be no active yeast cultures inside to spoil it.
Jesus, to use His own
illustration, was not just fixing an improperly made batch of alcoholic wine.
He already knew that wasn't going to work. He was going to have to make a brand
new batch of wine altogether. And it would be the height of foolishness for Him
to place that brand new batch of wine right back into the old wineskins of
traditional Judaism. The old wineskin would just ruin the new batch of wine He
was making.
For example, Jesus did
set the record straight in relation to the popular yet oh-so-wrong hermeneutic
of Old Testament interpretation. His Sermon on the Mount is clear proof of
that. But that wasn't enough. No, His life produced, not just a fix to a
wrongly interpreted Old Testament, but an entirely brand New Testament. The
system of Temple worship, and its stepchild the synagogue would be replaced
with a brand new institution called the Church. Judaism itself, with all of its
numerous flaws, would be replaced with a brand new religion we call
Christianity.
It is fair to say that
Christianity has its roots in Judaism, and grew out of Judaism, but is not fair
to say that Christianity is a reformation of Judaism. It isn't. It is something
revolutionary. It is something brand new.
So many people wrongly
assert that Jesus was a reformer, one who came to fix what was wrong with the
religion of His day. They couldn't be more wrong. Reformation means the
improvement or amendment of something that is wrong or corrupt. Jesus wasn't a
reformer for He didn't leave behind an amended and fixed Jewish religion.
Revolution, on the other hand, means an overthrow of what exists by replacing
it with something totally new, and that is precisely what Jesus did.
This is, to me, a
totally crucial thing to understand about the life of Christ, and most people
seem to miss it. He was a revolutionary, not a reformer. The American
Revolution didn't fix what was wrong with the British governing system. It
produced an entirely new country. Jesus didn't come to tweak Judaism, to edit
it, or to add a little here and there around the edges. He came to bring
something entirely new. He put new wine into new wineskins.
Jesus was a revolutionary.
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