Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

A Question About Fasting

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.

17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins.

If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed.

But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

During our last time together we looked at Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees while he was, as they put it, eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners.

They accusingly asked Jesus’ disciples “why” he would do such a thing?

The assumption was, of course, that it was unbecoming of him to do so.

And Jesus famously answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

But the religious leaders did not understand who it was they were talking to, and therefore misunderstood his mission and purpose, to seek and save the lost.

Moreover, their question revealed something of their own character.

They demonstrated that they were a people swollen with pride and self-righteousness.

They considered themselves better than those eating and drinking with Jesus, hence their description of them as “tax collectors and sinners”.

It’s why Jesus would point them to the prophet Hosea in the OT and say, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’

For I came not to call the righteous but sinners.”

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The Pharisee saw themselves as righteous, as possessing even a righteousness of their own.

They had concluded that God looked upon them favorably because of their own pious behavior, because of their own righteous deeds.

But Jesus, seeing through this facade, tells them, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’”

Or as other translations render it, “I desire steadfast love, and not sacrifice.”

And what he was saying was that while their lives were consumed with external pious behavior, that their hearts were devoid of a genuine love for God, and their merciless behavior toward others gave evidence to this reality.

That they were keen on sacrifices and making burnt offerings to the Lord, but that they found it impossible to have mercy upon others.

And they were so blind to this that they could not see how Jesus could, in any way, associate with such "sinners”.

Fasting

And my intention of recalling all of this to mind from last week is so that we might have this as a vivid backdrop while we look at verses 14-17 here today.

Because the central issue at hand, here this morning, is fasting, and fasting was one of the many external religious behaviors that was common among both the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist.

Let’s read there again in verse 14,

They were keen on sacrifices and making burnt offerings to the Lord, but showing steadfast love to God and to others was missing.

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

Now, while Matthew paints for us a picture of John’s disciples perplexed by Jesus’ disciples not fasting, Mark and Luke give us a slightly fuller picture.

In Luke’s Gospel account we read that it’s seemingly the Pharisees who ask Jesus this question, and in his account it’s as if there’s no break in the conversation from Jesus’ time at Matthew’s home to this question about fasting.

But when we read Mark’s Gospel account he seems to indicate that people from both parties were responsible for this question.

Mark says in chapter 2, verse 18,

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.

And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?

The bottom line is that we have people form both camps wondering why Jesus’ disciples are not fasting as they do.

Now, it’s well known that at this time in Jewish history that it was typical for the Pharisees to fast at least two times a week, and we have historical evidence that John’s disciples maintained a similar routine of fasting, so on one hand it’s somewhat understandable that they would be confused.

If John the Baptist was right in his assessment, that this Jesus, was indeed the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (as he said in ), then wouldn’t Jesus continue such pious practices, in fact, might they even expect something more difficult to be demanded of them?

The nature of fasting

But

But we read

Because, keep in mind, the previous setting that we found Jesus and his disciples in, they were feasting.

Luke tells us that Matthew threw Jesus, and presumably his disciples, a feast!

A far cry from the nature of fasting.

In fact, here’s some of what the Bible teaches us about the nature of fasting,

David says this in , verse 10,

10  When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,

it became my reproach.

Here we see that David associates weeping and the humbling of his soul with the practice of fasting.

He also says in , verses 22-24,

22  For I am poor and needy,

and my heart is stricken within me.

23  I am gone like a shadow at evening;

I am shaken off like a locust.

24  My knees are weak through fasting;

my body has become gaunt, with no fat.

His description includes feeling poor and needy, that his heart was stricken within him, and that his body had become gaunt, with no fat.

It’s easy to see, even on the surface of the matter, how fasting is contrary to feasting.

Let’s look at just one more text from the prophet Joel, he writes,

12  “Yet even now,” declares the LORD,

“return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

13  and rend your hearts and not your garments.”

and

15  Blow the trumpet in Zion;

consecrate a fast;

call a solemn assembly;

Again, fasting is associated not with celebration but with mourning, weeping, repentance and solemnity.

So for John’s disciples, fasting, in a very real sense, would have been appropriate, even expected; for John the Baptist was doing as all the OT prophets had done, he was calling Israel to repentance.

Mark chapter 1, verse 4 tells us that,

4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

But Jesus’ disciples were not following that same pattern of fasting.

And Jesus is fully aware of this, in fact, Jesus immediately tell’s John’s disciples why not.

We read there in verse 15,

15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Jesus uses a brilliant analogy to communicate what has changed.

He tells them that the person of whom all of the prophets spoke of and looked forward to was here - the bridegroom!

Which of course, is an obvious occasion, not for mourning and fasting, but for celebration and feasting.

This is why his disciples found no occasion for fasting, it wouldn’t have made any sense, because Jesus wasn’t just a prophet like John the Baptist, but the one in whom John, and all the prophets, were looking for.

The Bridegroom & Husband

And what’s astonishing here, of which Matthew doesn’t take time to elaborate, is the fact that Jesus just called himself the Bridegroom, and not just any bridegroom but the bridegroom of his disciples, and by extension the people of Isreal.

So any Jewish man who knew his bible would have known that this is how God described himself and his relationship to Israel in the OT.

The prophet Isaiah wrote this,

5  For as a young man marries a young woman,

so shall your sons marry you,

and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

so shall your God rejoice over you.

and elsewhere this,

5  For your Maker is your husband,

the LORD of hosts is his name;

and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,

the God of the whole earth he is called.

And in the book of Hosea we’re told that God will draw Israel to himself, “And that in that day, declares the Lord, [she] will call me ‘My Husband’” and no longer follow after other gods.

This is the situation of which the disciples found themselves, in the direct presence of their Bridegroom, with cause only to celebrate.

And in the book of Hosea we’re told that God will draw Israel to himself, “And that in that day, declares the Lord, [she] will call me ‘My Husband’” and no longer follow after other gods.

This is the situation of which the disciples found themselves, in the direct presence of their Bridegroom, with cause only to celebrate.

Analogy of unshrunk cloth