The Joy of the King

Introduction

Why are Jesus’ disciples not serious about their faith? That’s the question posed in this passage; their lack of fasting—a sign of mourning—was a sign, to the people of Jesus’ day, that his disciples were not serious about their faith. Because faith is a serious thing, with rules to be kept. But the gospel of Jesus, the good news of His Kingdom that he proclaimed, it is good news of great joy! The Kingdom of God is a wedding feast rather than a funeral or a day of mourning. That’s our main idea today: The presence of the King ushers in great joy!

We’ll jump right into it, this is the first point in our outline today: there is joy in the Kingdom of Christ.

There is joy in the Kingdom of Christ

This is the scene: people come to Jesus and question Him about His and His disciples’ practice. This is the third confrontation in this section of Mark in which people question Jesus, his teaching, and his practice. These confrontations will continue and culminate in Mark 3:6: “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” They’re making a case against Jesus, yet even in the face of confrontation, he does not stray from the message of His Kingdom.

The question here is about fasting—which stands in for their larger system of legalism, the desire to earn one’s favor with God through rule-keeping. According tot he Old Testament law, God’s people were required to fast only one day a year, on the Day of Atonement. But by the time of Jesus’ day, the tradition of the pharisees expected, in order to maintain righteous living, fasting two days a week. From once a year to twice a week! Fasting was a sign of mourning and it was marked by severity, somberness, ash and sackcloth. It was a sign of true piety and was referred to as the “affliction of the soul.” You knew someone was serious about their faith if they fasted.

Were Jesus’ disciples not serious about their faith like others of their day? Jesus answers this question with a parable of a wedding feast for it would not be appropriate to fast—again, a sign of mourning—during such a joyous celebration. You may know that an ancient wedding feast would go on for days at a time, a week-long party and celebration. And though fasting twice a week had become custom, it was understood that a wedding would release you from any obligation to fast, in fact they were released from any religious obligation that might diminish their joy during this celebration. Image a great party, all the food you’d want, but it’s your fast day. During this occasion marked by great joy, there was no fasting in sight!

Jesus doesn’t have a problem with fasting itself, instead the emphasis of the parable is on the joy that the presence of the bridegroom, His presence, makes possible in our lives. The messiah, the savior is here! Let us rejoice! The joy of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaims is growing and going out into the world, the joy of the Kingdom is ushered in by the very presence of the King with His people. Those who are with Jesus should have their lives marked by great joy.

For us today, there is certainly an appropriate time to fast (Jesus teaches on fasting), but for those who believe in Jesus, who know Him as our Lord and savior, who are united to Christ, our lives are not to be typified by grief, somberness, and legalism, but rather by great joy! Even our fasting should be grounded in joy.

Quick story—when we were in early in the adoption process of our son, my wife Megan spent a couple of weeks in Ghana to be with him. I stayed here and actually led a youth group winter retreat. One of our contacts in Ghana asked Megan what I was doing while she was there and she mentioned I was snowboarding with the youth group. And he was SHOCKED! “Isn’t he a pastor?” He said. Here, pastors don’t have fun like that. We can be fun!

Paul says this in Romans 14:17 “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Paul recognizes that joy is a part of the very character of Christ’s Kingdom. Do you know someone whose faith in Jesus is marked by great joy, someone who exudes the joy of the Lord? Not a fake, always smiling kind of joy, but something deeper, a strong foundation of the joy of Christ. I’ve known people like that! I want to be more like that! What about the other extreme? Have you ever known someone whose faith is, in all things, very serious and somber? The kind of person you just want to remind them that Jesus loves them and there is joy in knowing the Lord!

The joy of the gospel and Christ’s Kingdom should run so deeply in our hearts, and this is why I believe we must be reminded daily of the gospel. We must be reminded of the preciousness of this gift we have in Christ, and as we are , we receive it again and again with great joy! Otherwise, if we forget the gospel, we move straight back to legalism, trying to earn God’s favor.

And the joy of the Kingdom should also run so deeply in our hearts that the trials of this world, though they surely will come, they will not overtake us.

1 Peter 1:8 Peter writes this to Christians under great persecution: “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.” The deep joy that is found in the presence of Jesus Christ enables us to navigate seasons of life marked by suffering and brokenness. And it is the firmness of our faith and the foundation of joy that allows us to say, no matter the circumstances, what the Psalmist declared: Psalm 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” That is where the joy of the Kingdom gets us.

And though Jesus is not physically present with us as he was with the disciples, we need not move away from joy. For he did not leave us along, he gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts.

The joy we have in the Lord by His presence comes from His very Spirit dwelling in us today. We have constant access to Christ through the Holy Spirit who encourages us, reminds us of our redemption and salvation, testifies to our Spirit who we are in Christ. This is the joy of the Kingdom that Jesus ushered in and which persists in us even today. Is your faith and your life marked by great joy? If you’re looking for where to start, pray what the Psalmist prays: “Lord, restore to me the joy of your salvation.”

There is joy in the freedom of Christ.

Jesus then gives two parables: the patch in the garment and the new and old wineskins. These parables are a critique of the rigid systems of legalism that the Pharisees had created and with which they burdened the people. Essentially he’s saying this: you can’t put something so new and paradigm-shifting as the Kingdom of God and the Gospel into the old, rigid, inflexible system of rule-keeping that had been created. If you try, that old system will crumble and you’ll end up losing the gospel anyway.

The first parable: if you patch a warn garment with unshrunk clothe, as soon as that new patch is washed is will begin to shrink and tear away from the old garment, ruining both.

And then there are the new and old wineskins. In Jesus’ day wine was kept in goatskins. New wineskins were soft and pliable, they would stretch when the new wine, which had not yet completed its fermentation, was put into them. Over time the new wineskin would adjust to the fermentation, eventually they would become brittle, rigid, no longer able to stretch. You could not put new wine in the old skins because as that new wine fermented, it would crack and break the skins and you would lose both. He is saying their system of legalistic law-keeping (here, in particular, this idea of frequent fasting) was a brittle system that would buckle and break under the freedom and joy of the Kingdom of God.

The Gospel says: you cannot earn your salvation through rule-keeping and ritual observance but that in Christ you are loved and accepted by God so fully and completely that there is no work you need to do. And out of this deep, abiding joy, the deep joy of the new wine, we are transformed, moving into obedience. But the old system has things backward, it says you’d better shape up, you’d better live right or you’re hopeless. Our hope is not in our ability to keep to the rules. Legalism and the gospel, these are incompatible, Jesus is saying. If you try to keep the old system, you’ll lose the gospel of the Kingdom entirely.

I was thinking of this idea of great joy compared to the rigid religious practice of the Pharisees and I thought, of course, a movie classic: Mary Poppins! The story of Banks family in need of a new nanny because of their unruly children. Early in the film Mr. Banks, the stern, stuffy, everything-in-its-place father goes on and on about how much he likes his very orderly life. He wants no signs of joy or jubilee in his home. When they realize their need for a new nanny he sings this: “A British nanny must be a general! A British home requires nothing less! Tradition, discipline, and rules must be the tools! Without them - disorder!”

You can almost hear the Pharisees singing those words: Tradition! Discipline! and rules! Throughout the film there is a conflict between the tradition and rules of Mr. Banks and the joy that Mary Poppins brings to this household. Now Mary is not without rules and structure, she has an expectation that the children will grow and mature even! But she seeks their maturity in a way so marked by joy! The joy that invades this home overtakes the rules that did little but oppress.

One of the best illustrations of this comes from scripture itself. Paul tackles this incompatibility head on in his letter to the Galatian Church. He said this: Gal. 1:6-7: 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—7 which is really no gospel at all.

And the ‘different’ gospel they were turning to? Some were requiring circumcision alongside faith in Jesus. They were preaching a rule-keeping work alongside the gospel of Jesus Christ. In doing so, they were saying that Jesus’ work on the cross and His resurrection were insufficient for our salvation. And then what happens?

Endless rule-following but not grace; it is the treadmill of works righteousness, always trying to keep up but going nowhere; no greater depth of maturity, just a surface level law-keeping. You see, as soon as we start to say that Jesus’ work was not enough, then we have stopped believing in the gospel.

We need our faith and our observance of that faith to be fully shaped by the Gospel (the new wine!) rather than trying to fit the gospel into our system. Our traditions and structures must serve the joy of Christ and His Kingdom, not the other way around. Jesus brings new life, the relationship we have with him is growing and changing, it is the new wine.

And this is the warning for us today. We may be tempted to see ourselves as only as good as the good works we do and the rules we keep. You may think you’re only a good christian if you do all the right things, or read enough scripture, or have spiritual practices, like fasting. No. These are means to deepen our relationship with God and our maturity in Christ, but they do not save us! He saves us!

What in our own practice might be an old wineskin? Our current way of things, tradition is not bad in and of itself, but if we make the gospel subservient to our way of things we have gone too far.

Maybe it’s your current level of spiritual maturity, you’re content, you feel no need to go deeper, no need to pursue God further. That may be an old wineskin that is ready to crack and crumble. Maybe it’s our personal comfort and preference, if those things become more important than the call of God on our lives. These things are brittle and they will fail. The New Testament says that we are being renewed day by day, but if we hold on to the old, how will the new come? What are the old wineskins in your life?

And there’s one other dimension of the wineskins that I want to focus on today.

There is joy in the mission of Christ

Another important implication of the new wine and wineskins is that Jesus has in view a Kingdom and Gospel that is for the world, the whole world, not only for ancient Jewish people. We’ve already seen in Mark that the Gospel is more expansive than many of his early followers understood; Jesus went to a party at Levi’s house with sinners and tax collectors! By chapter 5 of Mark Jesus is ministering to and healing Gentiles. You see, the ferment of the new wine needs new wineskins of a missional Kingdom, the new wine is the gospel for all people, every tribe, tongue, and nation.

We’ve talked already about the deep, abiding joy of the Lord and of the gospel. When the gospel transforms in us this deep, inexpressible joy, it will also change our desire for mission and evangelism. It changes our desire for our neighbors, we have this joy fermenting in our hearts and we should want to share it with others!

Again, I go back to the example of Paul and the Galatians. They church was growing among the Gentiles, yet the old wineskins of circumcision were being put on them as a heavy burden. The new wineskin of the gospel makes room for the Gentiles, makes room for us in God’s Kingdom. It makes room for people of every corner of the earth. That’s the progression of these new wineskins and Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisee’s system. He always had in mind a Kingdom that was more expansive than they would have imagined.

Paul says this in Philippians 2:17–18 “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” He expresses gladness and joy for his life being spent, even to the point of death, in service of his faith and for the sake of others. So precious and joyous is the new good news, this new wine, that this is Paul’s posture. Do have this same attitude toward our neighbors? Those in our city or across the world? The joy of Christ should move us into service and mission. It should shape the way we see these things. Serving in children’s ministry is not just a duty, but it is the joyous opportunity to share Christ with the next generation.

The joy we have in the presence of our savior should so transform us that we would throw off anything that hinders our ability to share this joy. I want to conclude here by focusing back on that joy we have in Christ and the image of the wedding feast he gives us. I said earlier that attendees of a wedding feast were excused from religious observance that diminished joy. There’s something nice about that, but you see, for each of us, we are not guests at this wedding.

We’re not the guests because we are the bride. We are the bride of Christ. However deep the joy of the wedding guests reaches, the joy of the bride goes deeper still. We are not guests that have joy for a few days, we are the bride that enjoys this union with the bridegroom Jesus Christ and a joy unending. We are the bride who, by His blood, has been cleaned from sin. Our sin is real, it is a problem, but where the old wineskins go wrong is in thinking that keeping all the rules will make us right. No. It is the bridegroom Himself who makes us clean, purifies us, prepares us as a bride, and then calls us His own, and with His very presence with us we are invited to share that with others to the ends of the earth. This King and His Kingdom is one of great joy for us today. Amen.