The Great Physician
A Counter Cultural Jesus
Mark 2:20 is a hint of our Lord’s anticipated death, resurrection, and return to heaven. It is unlikely that His disciples, at that early stage in their training, even understood what He meant. However, Jesus was not suggesting that His absence from earth would mean that His followers would have to replace the feast with a funeral! He was only pointing out that occasional fasting would be proper at a future time, but that joyful celebration should be the normal experience of believers.
Jesus came to usher in the new, not to unite with the old. The Mosaic economy was decaying, getting old, and ready to vanish away (Heb. 8:13). Jesus would establish a New Covenant in His blood (Luke 22:19–20). The Law would be written on human hearts, not on stones (2 Cor. 3:1–3; Heb. 10:15–18); and the indwelling Holy Spirit would enable God’s people to fulfill the righteousness of the Law (Rom. 8:1–4).
Salvation is not a partial patching up of one’s life; it is a whole new robe of righteousness (Isa. 61:10; 2 Cor. 5:21). The Christian life is not a mixing of the old and the new; rather, it is a fulfillment of the old in the new. There are two ways to destroy a thing: you can smash it, or you can permit it to fulfill itself. An acorn, for example, can be smashed with a hammer, or it can be planted and allowed to grow into an oak. In both instances, the destruction of the acorn is accomplished; but in the second instance, the acorn is destroyed by being fulfilled.
Jesus fulfilled the prophecies, types, and demands of the Law of Moses. The Law was ended at Calvary when the perfect sacrifice was once offered for the sins of the world (Heb. 8–10). When you trust Jesus Christ, you become part of a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), and there are always new experiences of grace and glory. How tragic when people hold on to dead religious tradition when they could lay hold of living spiritual truth. Why cherish the shadows when the reality has come? (Heb. 10:1ff) In Jesus Christ we have the fulfillment of all that God promised (2 Cor. 1:20).
For I came not. Though this was spoken for the purpose of reproving the pride and hypocrisy of the scribes, yet it contains, in a general form, a very profitable doctrine. We are reminded that the grace of Christ is of no advantage to us, unless when, conscious of our sins, and groaning under their load, we approach to him with humility. There is also something here which is fitted to elevate weak consciences to a firm assurance: for we have no reason to fear that Christ will reject sinners, to call whom he descended from his heavenly glory. But we must also attend to the expression, to repentance: which is intended to inform us that pardon is granted to us, not to cherish our sins, but to recall us to the earnestness of a devout and holy life. He reconciles us to the Father on this condition, that, being redeemed by his blood, we may present ourselves true sacrifices, as Paul tells us: The grace of God, which bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and righteously, and devoutly in this world, (Tit. 2:11, 12.)
The Gospels record only sporadic and coincidental exchanges between Jesus and the Sadducees, Herodians, and Zealots, and none between Jesus and the Essenes; but throughout his ministry Jesus is in a standing debate with Pharisaism, primarily over the issue of tradition. The essential difference is especially evident in Mark 7:1–23, in which Jesus accuses the Pharisees of overvaluing oral tradition and undervaluing the intent of the law itself.
The Pharisees normally fasted on Mondays and Thursdays (Did. 8:1; b. Ta‘an. 12a), although this was not required.
Those who challenge Jesus on the issue of fasting are identified by Mark in the most general terms (“Some people”). They evidently were commoners rather than Pharisees, which reinforces the impression that fasting was regarded as part and parcel of true piety in the Jewish world of Jesus’ day. Their question, “ ‘How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?’ ” insinuates that if Jesus and his followers intend to be taken seriously they had better pay greater attention to fasting protocol.
The chief impression of both parables is their finality. The unshrunken patch “will pull away” from the old garment, “making the tear worse.” The Greek word for “pull away,” airein, is the root of the word in v. 20 describing the bridegroom being “taken from them” (Gk. apairein). Likewise, the wineskins will be “burst” and “ruined” (Gk. apollymi, “destroyed”). In both instances something once serviceable is destroyed and of no further worth. The new patch and new wine are incompatible with the old cloth and wineskins; and if the attempt is made to combine them, the new substances will destroy the old.
“Both parables are about the relation of Jesus, of Christianity indeed, to traditional Judaism.” The parables illustrate the radical posture and presumption of Jesus. Jesus is the new patch and the new wine. He is not an attachment, addition, or appendage to the status quo. He cannot be integrated into or contained by preexisting structures, even Judaism, Torah, and the synagogue. He is, of course, neither ascetic nor anarchist, and thus he participates as a human being in human structures. He goes to the synagogue, but not as everyone else goes to the synagogue. Jesus goes with a new teaching (1:27). He is like the scribes in that he teaches, but his authority surpasses theirs (1:22). He honors Torah by sending the healed paralytic to make the offering required by Moses, but he is not bound by Torah; he breaks it when it impedes his ministry (2:24; 3:1–6), and he subordinates it to himself (Matt 5:17; Rom 10:4). His contemporaries exclaim, “ ‘We have never seen anything like this!’ ” (2:12). He relinquishes himself completely, though never surrendering his divine authority. He gives himself in service, though rendering allegiance to none but God. He gives his life to the world, but he is not a captive of the world. The question posed by the image of the wedding feast and the two atom-like parables is not whether disciples will, like sewing a new patch on an old garment or refilling an old container, make room for Jesus in their already full agendas and lives. The question is whether they will forsake business as usual and join the wedding celebration; whether they will become entirely new receptacles for the expanding fermentation of Jesus and the gospel in their lives.