Portraits of Jesus: The One Who Ushers in the New
Notes
Transcript
Our first Scripture lesson this morning comes for Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
Our second lesson is from Luke 5:33-39:
And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’ ”
May God bless this, the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
Our opening Scripture lesson comes for a very familiar passage found in Ecclesiastes. This passage, reminds us that there is a time for everything. This truth is the heart of the controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees found in our Gospel lesson. The Pharisees did not understand what time it was—they were still living in Old Covenant sorrow, when they should have been living in New Covenant joy.
A Time for Joy!
A Time for Joy!
The present time we are living in is not a time of sorrow, but a time of joy! The presenting problem in our text is fasting, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” However, feasting was not the real problem—the real problem was sorrow vs. joy.
For the pious, the Old Covenant was primarily a time of sorrow, this is because “the sin problem” had not been fully and decisively resolved. The Old Covenant sacrificial system, was only effective because it pointed to the sacrifice of the Promised One who would “crush the serpent’s head”. The Law itself could only reveal God’s moral standards, it lacked any power in helping us keep that standard. Moreover, the Old Testament monarchy, was a moral, political and spiritual disaster; pointing again to something better. As the Old Testament closes, we find the Old Covenant remnant still in exile, longing for the Messiah to come. The opening verse of the Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, perfectly captures the mood of this time:
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That morns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
This is reflected by the type of fasting that dominated this period. The predominant type for fasting in the pages of the Old Testament were fasts of penitence and sorrow over sin. For example, the Day of Atonement was celebrated with a fast (Lev 16). After the Babylonian Exile, the people were instructed by Zechariah, in remembrance of the grief they had caused God by their sin. Consequently, mournful fasting became a mark of piety.
To make matters worse, the corrupting power of the sin nature, perverted this piety and turned it into hypocrisy. Jesus spoke out against this hypocrisy in the Sermon of the Mount:
“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
The Pharisees thought that in order to be spiritual, they had to be as unhappy and uncomfortable as possible. They were like the women the humorist Erma Bombeck once overheard speaking to her daughter during a worship service: “Stop that grinning—you’re in church!” It so sad that many in the church today are like this woman—they are still living in the mournful sorrow of the Old Covenant, rather than in the Joy of the New Covenant.
In comparing Himself to a Bride Groom at a wedding feast, Jesus is using an illustration everyone could understand and identify with. Wedding feasts are a time of joy, and to be sorrowful at such an occasion would be totally inappropriate. What Jesus is saying is that because He is here the time of sorrow has passed, and the time of joy has come!
Why has the time of joy come?
It has come, because Jesus is the One who has the authority to forgive sins and make the unclean clean! Jesus was the long awaited Promised One!
In our text, Jesus refers to a time when the disciples would mourn again. He is referring to the time between His death and resurrection. After, the resurrection, the church has even more reason for joy.
So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
Some have argued that this present Gospel age is also a time for mournful fasting, because the church is physically separated from Christ. However, this contradicts what Christ and His Apostle teach.
First of all, Christ is with His church in the person of the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught that it was better that He go away, because He would be present with us in the person of the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:7). For this reason, Jesus says He will be with us always, saying in the Great Commission, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me....And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:18-20)
Secondly, while passages such as James 4:9 do speak of mourning for sin, it is always followed by a promise of restored joy when we confess and repent of those sins, trusting in the blood of Christ to forgive us of those sins. Extended periods of morning and sorrow over sin is inappropriate under the New Covenant because the moment we repent and trust in Christ that sin is removed!
Finally, there are no examples of mournful fasting by believers living under the New Covenant. The example of Christ in the wilderness and of believers in the book of Acts are all fasts seeking God and His guidance. For example:
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Before I move on, I want to make sure you do not misunderstand what is being taught here. Jesus is not saying that there will not be times of sorrow in the lives of New Covenant believers, but these times of sorrow are to be temporary. The Bridegroom has entered the room, and the feast has begun! Our lives should not be marked by sorrow, but by joy!
This brings us to the next thing Jesus teaches us:
Do Not Ruin the New with the Old
Do Not Ruin the New with the Old
Jesus teaches us this by using two parables. In the first, He uses the example of trying to patch an old garment, by tearing off a piece of cloth from a new garment and then sewing it onto the old. This is something no one would do, because it ruins the new garment and the new patch will not match the old cloth. Moreover, both Matthew and Mark include a point Luke does not—the new unshrunk patch will tear an even bigger hole in the old garment when it is washed!
The second parable is similar, if you pour new wine into old wineskins, the still fermenting new wine will burst the brittle old wineskins.
Taken together, Jesus’ point is not hard to understand—Jesus has ushered in the New Covenant and to attempt to confine it to Old Covenant norms will ruin both.
The Church is not under the Law of Moses, but the Law of Christ. The reason, the moral law of God, as summarized in the Ten Commandments is still applicable to the New Covenant is because of the nature of moral law. Moral law by its very nature does not change because it is a reflection of God’s moral character and God cannot and does not change. This is true even of the Fourth Commandment, because the commandment to take one day in seven as a day of rest has not changed, only the day of the week in which that rest is observed has changed. Under the Old Covenant it commemorated God’s rest from His work of Creation and under the New Covenant it commemorates God rest from His world of redemption, which is Sunday.
The ceremonial and civil laws of the Old Covenant have all been fulfilled in Christ and have now passed away. To attempt to live by these laws now is totally inappropriate.
Some however, are reluctant to give up old ways. Jesus speaks to this as well:
Do Not Let the Good, Keep You From the Best
Do Not Let the Good, Keep You From the Best
As Jesus closes, He says, “No one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”
Jesus’ point is not the older wine is better, but rather that most people are reluctant to leave old ways.
The most common reason people give for not accepting the Gospel is because they are reluctant to give up old ways.
Some Christians when hearing an unbeliever say this will respond, “No! No! No! You do not have to give up anything, just come as you are. Jesus will change you afterwards.”
While I appreciate their desire to see people saved, what they are telling unbelievers reveals they do not understand the Gospel. In Luke’s Gospel we hear the call to repentance 14 times. In our passage last week, we heard Jesus say:
I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Earlier, in chapter 5, we find Jesus commanding His disciples to leave everything and follow Him. Later, in chapter 14, Jesus says:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
In most cultures, and increasingly in our own, the cost of following Jesus is being disowned by your family and friends. Brothers and sisters, to turn to Christ in faith, is to turn away from everything that is not His.
Repentance does not mean that we instantly get our life in order. It means we instantly set ourselves to the task to setting them in order by the power of Christ. This is what the Bible calls sanctification. Sanctification is not justification, but it always follows after it, as does adoption.
Jesus, was not denying that there were some “good” things in the Old Covenant. He was the author of it! However, He was not calling them, as He is calling us to better things; and this is what we are to call others to as well. This glorious truth is powerfully expressed by Paul in these words:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Brothers and sister, the One who ushers in the new has come!