Luke 5:33-6:11

Scripture Introduction:

George Washington had wooden teeth.

Bulls get angry when they see the color red.

You get cramps if you go swimming right after you eat.

You swallow 8 spiders a year while sleeping.

Albert Einstein failed his math class.

You have to wait 24 hours before submitting a missing person’s report.

Touching a toad gives you warts.

In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve at an apple.

The state that grows the most peaches is…Georgia.

Bats are blind.

Ulcers are caused by stress.

“If you build it, they will come” is not a line from Field of Dreams.

In Star Wars, Darth Vader said, “Luke, I am your father.”

The monopoly man wears a monocle.

Everything I just said to you is not true. Some of you may want to fight me on these. I know when I was compiling this list I was rather confident that these things were true.

But think about it for just a second. Have you ever done a scientific study on whether or not a bull gets angry when it sees read? Have you read a scientific study on this? Where did you acquire this information? Why are you so confident in it?

Field of Dreams….I’ve seen that movie so many times. It was part of what inspired me to become a professional baseball player. And I could have swore that the line was “if you build it, they will come”. I’ve heard this countless times in church growth seminars. I’ve heard it in leadership things. I’ve heard talks where they debunk this idea. But the whole movie itself isn’t about “they” will come. It’s about “he” will come. He is Shoeless Joe Jackson and “he” is the main characters father. THEY actually doesn’t even make sense to the original…but it has endured for so long…that misquote…and all those not so true things I just said…have endured for a long time. It’s knowledge we’ve just picked up…it’s assumed…

Now it’s pretty innocent and not all that life-changing for me to believe that George Washington has wooden teeth. If I find out that this is in fact not true I’m not going to be all that upset because I haven’t built my life upon this. Even something in Scripture like realizing that the text never says that Adam and Eve at an apple…that’s not too tied to my faith…it’s okay for me to realize that it actually only says fruit.

But what happens when some of these assumed facts are tied to things we’ve built our lives or built our faith upon. What happens when those things get questioned…or somebody says, “well, actually....” that’s when we can get a bit more heated. But that anger isn’t even tied to whether or not we’ve built our life upon something…it’s often connected with how strong we believe something to be true.

In the first century there were several things that were assumed. Things that just seemed innate. If you were a religious leader these were things you had to follow…things you were supposed to follow…and if you didn’t follow them, then you were disqualified, and you should be rejected. They had become so much a part of the culture, accepted fact, and then that accepted fact was attached to the Scriptures…and then if you didn’t adhere to them you were seen as not following the Scriptures.

In our text this morning we’re going to see some of these things…things which Jesus does that has the Pharisees and other religious groups during the day really bothered. You can’t do that stuff, Jesus. See if you can spot the assumptions that they are making…see if you can hear how Jesus is kind of blowing those up.

READ TEXT (Luke 5:33-6:11)

Sermon Introduction:

We’re going to see the rejection of Jesus ramp up a little in this passage. He’s already been subtly charged with blasphemy. But most of the conflict so far has been inward. But we knew it was coming…this was part of what the angel said to Mary…we knew form the early pages of this story that Jesus was coming to fulfill the hope of Israel…he was coming to fulfill God’s purposes from before the foundation of the world…but we know from the early pages that this is going to face opposition. They’ve been inward mostly…now the questions start being outward....

Why aren’t your followers fasting? And then it gets amped up a bit. Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Now this is an accusation up there with blasphemy. That is huge. The accusations against Jesus are getting much stronger and much more than just mere questioning.

As we see at the close of our text for this morning… “they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus”. Mark has them plotting with the Herodians how to destroy him. Luke is a bit more subtle…he has the opposition ramp up a bit slower than Mark does.

But you can feel the tension. It’s coming. This isn’t just “by golly, touching a toad does give you warts…my granny told me that and she isn’t ever wrong...” This is them saying, “This man is rejecting long standing truth of our elders. This man is a danger to our entire way of life and entire system. He is dishonoring God.”

They are thinking they are doing the right thing. They are honoring God. This blaspheming Sabbath breaker is gaining popularity and if they are about protecting the people…protecting the nation…protecting themselves…then they need to stop this guy. If Jesus is allowed to keep teaching this stuff and leading people astray then God is going to be displeased with them. They’ll end up in exile. They’ll end up even further harmed by the Romans. This isn’t good. So for the sake of God’s kingdom and the sake of Israel this man must be stopped.

That’s how powerful assumptions can be. They can cause you to miss Jesus in the name of God. If Jesus was playing by their rules they wouldn’t have a problem with him. But from the beginning of his ministry he is shaking two big pillars of first century Judaism. The first is about fasting and religious devotion—the second is an even deeper held belief, the Sabbath itself.

It’s one thing to be confident of the fact that the monopoly man has a monocle. Again, I’d have thrown down on that one. I could swear that I’ve seen him on that board game with one…and I’m still not convinced that he doesn’t…but that’s not a core belief. We’re seeing here what happens when Jesus challenges even deeper and more important assumptions. You see if you’re wrong about the Monopoly man it’s not going to do much…but if you’re wrong about these things? We’re talking heaven and hell, relationship with God, etc. quite a bit is at stake here.

1. If you want to fit in as a religious leader then you’d better have your followers fast.

The two leading movements with the people in Jesus’ day were those of John and his disciples and the Pharisees. They were the ones seen by the people as the most dedicated to their religion and to the Lord. If they were, as a nation, going to be pleasing to God then it would be through reform—and these reformers, John, the Pharisees, and now Jesus would lead them to that.

Jesus would have had quite a bit in common with the Pharisees—and certainly with John and his disciples—probably more in common than any of the other groups. So this critique at first glance is coming from those who are on the “same team”. They all believe that change and revival is needed…they were all champions of a bit of a reform movement. But the Pharisees were the ones who held the religious power in that day.

The original intention of the Pharisees was to preserve the Torah—the Law—to honor God and to draw people back to holiness and following YHWH. And their theory was to erect fences around the original rules so that you didn’t even come close to breaking God’s commandments. Over years the fences became just as important as the Torah itself and so they erected fences around the fences…that process continued until the Law or at least the law that the scribes and Pharisees had written—the oral tradition—had become a huge burden to the people. We’ll see more of this when we discuss the Sabbath. But we also see this in their observance of fasting.

What is fasting? Fasting is depriving yourself of food (or possibly some other pleasure) for a spiritual purpose. You’re saying to God, “I want you more”. In the OT there was only one required fast and that was on the Day of Atonement. “I want my sin forgiven, my relationship with God at peace…more than I want food.”

By the time of the first century though there were three types of fasts: national tragedies, times of crises, and any number of personal reasons. The Pharisees fasted every Monday and Thursday. Who is more serious about God, the guy who never fasts with his disciples or the guys who are fasting twice a week?

The fact that Jesus’ disciples aren’t fasting calls their legitimacy and their religious commitment into question. Hear the assumption? Spiritual people fast. What assumptions like this might we have?

And it’s this assumption that’s driving the question. It sounds like a legit question, really. But that’s not realizing who Jesus actually is. And that’s why his response is about a wedding feast. Those were a big deal in that culture. Week long. Celebration. You’d be in trouble for fasting at a wedding.

But there’s also something a little deeper going on. In the OT the Messiah isn’t referred to as the bridegroom—only God Himself. You see that in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea. So what Jesus is doing here is claiming to be far more than just one of the other religious leaders, this claim is really that He is God in the flesh. When God is right there with you, you don’t mourn you celebrate.

Fasting is silly if Jesus is right there. It’s just legalism. You fast because you want more of God. You want His presence. When you’ve got it, you don’t keep fasting because that’d be saying, “Is that it…is that all there is…I want more so I’m gonna keep on fasting.”

Now there will be a day when Jesus isn’t physically present and then we’ll ache again—then we’ll fast. That’s why Christians fast…it’s a way of saying “come, Lord Jesus, come.”

Notice here how their assumptions are carrying them and it’s causing them to miss Jesus. Real religious leaders fast. Jesus you and your disciples aren’t fasting. You must not be serious about God....and because of this, they are blinded to the fact that God is with them. The thing they were fasting for on Monday and Thursday was right there in front of them and they were so focused on their religious ritual that they missed the point of it. Think we could do something similar?

That’s the first pillar of Judaism that Jesus begins to rattle. The second is the big one. The Sabbath.

2. You can’t be a religious leader and a Sabbath breaker

Earlier I mentioned that one of the things that the Pharisees led out in was erecting fences around the Torah so as not to break any of the rules. One of these examples is in the Torah. In Exodus 35:1-3 it mentions not “working” on the Sabbath. In the Mishnah, that’s their traditions—their writings, they outline 39 classes of work that profane the Sabbath.

Here are some of the examples, “tying or loosening knots”. Did you tie your shoes this morning? Sewing more than one stitch. Writing more than one letter. So you see that these fences really extended beyond what the Lord actually prescribed in His Word. But they wanted to honor God, they didn’t even want to come close to offending Him and breaking His Sabbath.

Another thing that was a “work” on the Sabbath was travelling. You could only walk 1,999 paces—above this was considered travelling which was a work. This Jesus was guilty of in this text. But that is not the one that they are focusing on. They instead mention their fault of “reaping”. Now in Dt. 23 you can snitch grain from a neighbor’s field. But later rabbinic ruling said that it couldn’t be done on the Sabbath. That is why he is accused of being a Sabbath breaker.

But I just as with fasting notice how their assumptions are carrying them. They are assuming that their tradition is quite in line with the Old Testament. To disobey that is to disobey God Himself. So look at Jesus’ response here. He’s connecting himself and his mission to that of King David. He’s not just some other religious leader—he is the one promised in the line of David. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

In Mark, Jesus takes them all the way back to the original intention of the Sabbath. It wasn’t made as a rule to be kept—it was pointing to something bigger—and now that this is here, now that the new King David is here we don’t worry about picking up sticks or walking 2000 steps.

The Sabbath was made for man (for spiritual nourishment, for rest). The Sabbath is made for rest—it’s pointing to our rest in God. It goes all the way back to the Garden. God rested. We rest. Ultimate rest is found in God. It’s made for man…not man for the Sabbath. Jesus knows b/c he wrote it.

Their assumptions are clouding their ability to see Jesus. Their traditions, their beliefs, are keeping them from seeing the fulfillment of all their hopes. God must rescue this way…and so they miss the rescue.

3. New wine, new cloth on old wineskins, old garments.

This whole section is really explained by Jesus’ parables in verses 36-39. And Luke actually adds something that the other gospel writers don’t mention—it’s verse 39.

And I’ll tell you that this verse really threw me for a loop this week. I say that because I’ve preached on this passage in Mark. When I did that I was pretty confident of it’s meaning. But Luke 5:39 seems to be doing something a little different. I’ll explain in just a moment. First, let’s look at the parables.

The first has to do with a new cloth on an old garment. For Matthew and Mark it’s an unshrunk cloth and you don’t put that on an old garment because new cloth will expand when it’s washed and it’ll rip up everything. Luke is a bit more subtle. For him it will simply “not match”.

The second image is of putting new wine into old wineskins. New wine will ferment and expand; if put into old and brittle wineskins they will burst. Old wineskins are fine for old wine. But new wine will expand and cause both the old wineskin and the new wine to be ruined.

The point here is that of incompatibility. The new isn’t compatible with the old. If you try to combine them then the new is going to destroy the old—both will end up being ruined.

So what is the meaning of this? What is the application of this? When I first read this, when I preached through Mark I made the point that it was Jesus who was the new patch and the new wine. I absolutely loved what James Edwards said of this text:

“He is not an attachment, addition, or appendage to the status quo.” Jesus is not something that you add to an already comfortable Christianity. He’s not something that you make fit into your box and if it will fit then that’s cool. Jesus radically transforms everything. Jesus blows the box up and replaces it with His fullness. We don’t make Jesus conform to us, to our rules, to our Christianity…He conforms us, our rules, our Christianity. It’s been said that the goal of Bible reading isn’t to master the text but more fully to be mastered by the text. In a much greater way we can say this about Jesus, our goal is not to “figure Jesus out”, to somehow “master Jesus”…our goal is to be transformed and changed by Jesus.

I still think at the end of the day this is a solid application point, and I think you can make that point from this text. But verse 39 kind of tripped me up a bit. Because here Jesus seems to be saying that the old wine is better than the new.

And this is where I think we can see a slight misstep in the way we’ve often interpreted this passage. We’ve made it as if the Pharisees are faithful followers of the Old Testament—of the OT system—but Jesus is doing something new and he’s blowing up the OT. That becomes really problematic…and it’s especially problematic for Luke. Because Luke is all about fulfillment.

Now, I’m not totally sold on this interpretation but I now think it’s at least possible that the one who is doing the “new stuff” is actually the Pharisees. Their fasting laws, their Sabbath restrictions, that’s not OT intention.

It’s kind of like this. The law—and you see this with the apostle Paul, you see this with the author of Hebrews (which side note some think might be Luke), the Law—the OT—is a shadow pointing to Christ. As the author of Hebrews says it is not “faultless” and it needs a new covenant. To use the language of our parable…it’s like a garment that has a hole in it and it needs a patch.

Something is wrong. The law says, “don’t covet...” and what happens? It actually stirs up within us a desire to covet even more. Don’t step on the grass…I didn’t want to until you told me to. And the Pharisees knew this…they inherited this…people couldn’t keep the law…they got booted out of the land because of this. And so their strategy…let’s come up with some new laws, build some fences around this…and that’s what we have here in their encounter with Jesus.

But what is the fundamental problem? The problem is that you need a new heart. The problem is that the Sabbath, fasting, etc. isn’t about obeying rules—it’s about a relationship. It’s about knowing God. And when you have that knew heart, when you have the new relationship with God, things change. You WANT to obey. And so you don’t need a shadowy thing—a thing that says, “do this, don’t do that” in order to love your neighbor—a changed heart looks for ways to love neighbor. This is why Paul argues in Galatians about the fruit of the Spirit and says, “against these things there is no law”.

If you really understand the “old wine” then you aren’t going to desire this new wine of the Pharisees. That’s one way to take verse 39. It’s also possible that he’s saying, “if you are so stuck on your ways—your “old wine” then you aren’t going to try something new.” I’m not necessarily convinced by that second one, because old wine is better than new wine. But I’m also not entirely convinced by that first interpretation either…I just think it gets us closer.

Either way the meaning is essentially that Jesus is incompatible with a system of legalism. Jesus is incompatbile with the first century Judaism of the Pharisees. And he’s often incompatible with the stuff we build too....

Again I turn to James Edwards’ comment on this text:

The question posed by the image of the wedding feast and the two [short] 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.

4. Shown in the Man with a Withered Hand

As we briefly look at 3:1-6 we see that the Pharisees will have nothing of this new wine, this new cloth. Jesus doesn’t fit their mold so they don’t want anything to do with him. And here in this text we see the result. 3:1-6 really caps off this entire section beginning in 2:1. It starts with quiet opposition and questioning in their hearts and ends with a plan to destroy Jesus.

Here is a man with a withered hand. Would Jesus heal him on the Sabbath? That might sound crazy to us, but remember they had built fences around the Law and then fences around their fences. And one of these rules was that you could only “heal” or use “first-aid” if it would prevent an injury from worsening or if it was life-threatening. This guy’s withered hand was not life-threatening. It didn’t fall under the things that could or should be healed on a Sabbath. His misery could wait until the morning.

But notice what Jesus does. He feels the tension in the room. And he calls the man with the withered hand up front. Should we do good or evil on the Sabbath? This clearly a reference to whether this man should be healed. For this man to remain with a withered hand for one more day would be for the works of the devil to continue for one more day. But Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil—he came to destroy evil. This doesn’t need to wait until morning. Good should triumph on the Sabbath—not evil.

But Jesus’ next statement is interesting. To save life or to kill it? What? It’s not going to kill this dude to have a withered hand tomorrow morning. Where does “kill” come from. And clearly Jesus is again perceiving their hearts because notice verse 6. In a cruel irony the Pharisees are refusing to rejoice at Jesus’ healing this man on the Sabbath because it is “a work against the Sabbath” but instead they are okay with doing the “work” of plotting the death of Jesus.

And this is indeed what happens with anyone that participates in the hellish practice of conforming Jesus to our image instead of accepting Jesus on His own terms. Here you have people so convinced that they “have God right” that they are staring suffering in the face and their hearts are calloused and hard.

This is the question that faces us today. Are we going to simply “add Jesus” to our already comfortable lives? It won’t work. Are we going to try to mold Jesus to our preconceived ideas of what a Messiah should be? It won’t work? Or are we going to surrender to who Jesus has revealed Himself to be? This is the question of every life.

We can be so confident that we have the “old path” the original way of doing things and we aren’t like all these other innovators, but we become blind to our own history, our own innovations, our own assumptions. And we fight what Jesus is doing in our moment.

This is the question we face every time we open Scripture. This is the question we face constantly. Am I going to conform to Jesus or try to make Him conform to me? The latter won’t work. It destroys you and makes Jesus into someone that He is not.

Make this personal. What areas of life do we try to make Jesus conform? Am I trying to get Jesus to put his stamp of approval on my already planned life or am I looking to Scripture as my guide?

Do my dreams for my children match up to the Lord’s?

Does my passion for church?

My vocational goals and dreams?

I want to close by pointing to the beauty and sufficiency of Jesus. Yes, we are often like the Pharisees and try to put Jesus into a mold. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus came to save sinners.

There is tremendous good news in this passage. Concerning fasting we see that there will indeed be a day when we will fast no longer. Why? Because we will be with the Lord. We will be experiencing Him in his fullness. He will no longer be “taken away” because it is finished…His work is complete…all of His redeemed are brought home. On that day there will be no more fasting.

We also see in Jesus—the Lord of the Sabbath—that He is our rest. He has brought us rest. In him we have rest for our weary souls. Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Only the Lord of the Sabbath can make such a sweeping claim. And yes Jesus provides rest. We see it, live it, and know it in part this side of Eden but one day we will rest fully in Jesus.

And finally we see in the story of the man with a withered hand that Jesus is conquering and overturning the works of the devil. There will be a day when there is no more crying, no more pain, no more suffering, no more withered hands, no more broken marriages, no more sin against the Lord, no more difficulty in relationship.

Turn to Jesus as he is.