The Patched Garment and the Wineskins

   Bought my first car in Ireland in 2007, Nissan Primera. I loved driving that car and it was very dependable and reliable, too me touring around Ireland. But all good things come to an end, and by 2013 after 5 yrs of service, I was spending more on maintenance replacing parts just to keep it going. Using things often makes them sentimental to you especially if you have history together and probably the reason I was not giving it up. But alas then engine gave up and winter was coming so I just have to let it go to the scrappers. And move on..with a new car but not before I took a selfie for remembrance before the scrapper hauler towed it away.

   The Pharisees and the disciples of Christ have one thing in common, they were obedient. To obey and be dedicated is a good thing actually, and they were proud of it. The Pharisees to their tradition and heritage, and John the Baptist's disciple obedient and imitative of their prophet John who at that time was in Herod's prison. But to be obedient to something that is long due to be replaced or had outlive its importance is an ingredient to failure and delusion.

And so we have the conversation:

Mat 9:14  Then the disciples of John came to Jesus, inquiring, Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, [that is, abstain from food and drink as a religious exercise], but Your disciples do not fast?

Mat 9:15  And Jesus replied to them, Can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is still with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Mat 9:16  And no one puts a piece of cloth that has not been shrunk on an old garment, for such a patch tears away from the garment and a worse rent (tear) is made.

Mat 9:17  Neither is new wine put in old wineskins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.


- Jesus did not say fasting was wrong, even Jesus fasted and prayed. What Jesus did imply is that they were irrelevant at that time. Fasting was for a season of need, not the season for celebration. The disciples of Christ are bounded to Christ, not the Jewish laws nor the authority of John. By describing his disciples as wedding guests and He the bridegroom, Jesus was actually saying that he was above the Jewish laws and its system, or the authority of John and cannot be forced to conform to be like anyone of them. He was present, and being an authority in Himself,  should his disciples mourn ? If the disciples of John would only be truly listening to John's own preaching and shouting - "that someone is coming after me I am not even worthy to untie his sandals" Mar 1:7, they would not be dumb enough to succomed to a behavior of blind obedience when the very person their Master was preaching about was the person they are talking to.

- Incompatibility. You cannot use new cloth to patch old garments, or old wineskins to store new wine. Christ (and his gospel) is incompatible with the old system and cannot be forced to conform. It just wouldn't work!

  Times do change, methodologies become different, progress happens, people grow, die or retire, new technologies come, etc.. we just have to accept to move. Living in the past, or conforming to past systems (depending on circumstances) will most often not work anymore and  may not be compatible with what God has newly prepared for us to face in the present.

   I remember a friend of mine who was a diligent roman catholic. Then he came to accept Christ as his Lord and Savior. But for sometime he tried o blend in the old and the new. He would still go to masses, pray the rosary, kneel before statues, etc... and read his bible. As he continued to grow and learn more from God's word, there was an internal struggle within him which was brought about by his dedication to his rituals and the scripture saying differently especially in the area of idolatry, kneeling before stone and repetitious prayers which is a negative in scripture. This has led to a stage of depression and guilt..difficult for him. He just cant let go and thought the gospel was simply a patch or amendment to his current religious practice.

   Same thing with the issue surrounding the letter to the Galatians. Jews who became Christians continued back to doing the same Jewish traditions and led to the forcing Gentile who became Christians to be like them, like Jews. It was like the gospel they heard was purely cosmetic, gives them a different dress, but that the law of Moses and the Jewish rituals are still the real thing. Even Peter was persuaded and got embarrassingly scolded by Paul (Gal 2:14) basically for being a conformist. Peter forgot the old system does not work anymore! It is not compatible  with the gospel of grace and freedom. We are no longer under law but under grace, not slaves but free, not bastards but adopted sons& daughters-children of God, not in darkness but in light, etc..

The message of incompatibility rings throughout the new testament:

For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness? 2Co 6:14

For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light. Eph_5:8 

If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 1Jn 1:6

   We have to move with Christ and we have to discern whether we are bogged down with tradition, failures, norms, expectations, sentimentality (failed expectations, or perhaps the loss of a loved one) and peer pressure that we are stuck with what we have or what we are now rather than moving with the Spirit.

   When it is time for change, to move forward, to move on, we must embrace the call of Christ and follow his lead. The cross before me, the past behind me. New skins for new wine.