Jesus at the Center

A Hard Saying in Luke 5

Well, we're moving through the Gospel of Luke, and we're in chapter 5—the end of chapter 5—and I don't know how many of you read ahead to see what's coming on Sunday. And if you did, and you felt like, "Man, I have no idea what's going on here"—exactly.

We're looking at a hard saying of Jesus. And when I say "hard saying, " I don't mean hard like it's difficult to swallow or difficult to appreciate—like when Jesus says, "You can't follow me unless you pick up your cross and follow me. " You understand that, but it's hard, right? Or when he says, "You will be persecuted for my name. "

You're like, "Okay, I understand what that means, but man, that's tough to take. " I don't mean tough to take—I mean hard to interpret. I mean, difficult to understand. One of those passages where you wish he added some more explanation and you don't really get it. And even his explanation that he does add is harder to understand than the first thing he said, okay?

So it's a short passage, but it's dense because it's hard to interpret. So let me give you the background. In a moment, we're gonna read the passage, obviously. And as we read it, I think you'll see the challenge of interpretation. But let's think about the background and the setting. All right—so we don't just jump in cold like, "What's happening here? "

Well, in this scene, Jesus just finished healing and some people question his authority to do that, his authority to forgive. He's proving the gospel reality with his healings. And he's teaching the gospel, the message of repentance and forgiveness. And in this scene, some people come up to Jesus and it's hard to discern if they're being antagonistic or if it's an honest question. I think maybe it's both, but probably I think it's an honest question.

And they notice that on the day of the week where others are fasting, Jesus' disciples aren't fasting. So everyone else is—their stomach is growling and they're like, "Man, I can't wait to eat tomorrow. " And they look around and there's Jesus' disciples having a barbecue—just not the pork, right? They're throwing down in front of everybody, and they're not hiding it. And they're like, "Man, well, why are you guys fasting? I don't get it. We're all fasting. "

So they come to Jesus: "Why don't you teach your guys to fast? " They're not quite saying, "Jesus, why don't you fast? " We don't want to challenge the teacher. But you're teaching these disciples who are under you way different than everyone else is teaching their disciples—everyone else fasts, you don't.

And in that time, everyone would fast the same day of the week. So the shops can kind of close down. And it's not like the mom is fasting, but she still has to prepare a huge feast for everyone else in the family—the hungry teenage boys. No, we're all fasting. And we're not going to demand everyone's cooking. There's no cleaning. There's no washing of dishes. There's no prep. We're just all fasting as a community together.

So that's how you know that these guys don't fast, because everyone else is doing it—same day of the week, every week. That was the discipline.

It wasn't an Old Testament rule. The Old Testament allows you to fast. The Old Testament teaches you what fasting is for—when you do fast, what it should be like—but the Old Testament doesn't say you must fast, and it certainly doesn't say you must fast weekly, and it definitely didn't say every Tuesday. This was a developed part of their culture to do it, okay?

But it's a spiritual discipline. There's nothing wrong with fasting. It's a part of the reality of worshiping the Lord in the Old Testament, so it wasn't wrong that they did it. But they think something is wrong with Jesus not teaching his disciples to do it when everyone else is doing it.

So far so simple, right? That's the background. That's why they ask the question. The hard part isn't the question. The hard part is it would be nice, you would think it'd be nice if Jesus said, "Oh, we fast on Wednesdays. You know, you guys eat Tuesdays. " Or, "Hey, Old Testament was about fasting. This is New Testament time, we don't fast. " Maybe just say that.

But instead he talks about the bridegroom—"I'm the bridegroom"—he's present, wedding feast. And then he backs that up with wineskins, and the old wine, new wineskin, or new wine and the old wine and it breaks—and then garments. Actually, he does the garment one first.

It's confusing. It's a little hard. So here's how the sequence goes, okay?

So we can have it in our heads as we read through the passage—what's happening here—and then we'll unpack it together. First, Jesus is challenged about why his disciples don't fast when everyone else is fasting. Then Jesus gives an answer, and then Jesus tells a parable to explain the answer. So he gives a difficult to understand answer, and then he gives one of the most difficult parables to understand to help you understand the difficult answer, all right?

That's it. Jesus doesn't explain it. He doesn't unpack it. He doesn't apply it.

He just puts that in front of them to chew on, and we've been chewing on it for 2, 000 years plus—trying to figure out what is happening here. When you go to modern scholars or preachers on this, they explain it in various ways, and some of them don't even really explain it at all. It's kind of disappointing when they skip past it really fast. Others apply it in ridiculous ways.

You know, "the new wineskin" is, "the church should do new songs. " And you're like, "What? " "The new wine" is new ways of doing ministry, and "the old wineskin" is old ways of doing ministry—that's old. So we need to do new things. This is the kind of stuff I read. So we shouldn't preach anymore, because preaching is old. We should do things new.

That doesn't make any sense, okay? So let's read it.

Reading Luke 5:33–39

Let's read this paragraph. It's 33 through 39—Luke 5: 33 through 39. I'm gonna read it straight through and then help you understand why it's challenging, okay? And over lunch, you might be like, "Man, this was a tough text today. " I know—but we're preaching. What am I gonna do, skip it?

This is not necessarily a passage that would be chosen if we just chose topically here, but it is inspired. And in fact, Mark has it, Matthew has it, Luke has it. Not that if only one of them has it, it's skippable—I'm just saying, I think each of the three synoptic gospel writers thought, "This has to go in here. " It's important. So let's read it. Starting in verse 33.

Then he moves on. That's it. So what is Jesus driving at here?

What Makes This Passage Hard

So for instance—and if you're wondering already, what's the practical value of this? One of the practical values is when you're stuck in scripture, how do you get through it? How do you study hard parts of scripture? That's part of what we're learning today, what we're gonna do together.

So maybe if you're stuck on a passage, pull out a sheet of paper and just write down your questions. What are you stuck on? What don't you get? And just write it down. Here's three that I wrote down.

What does Jesus mean about the bridegroom, and what does that have to do with fasting? Isn't that the first obvious one? We weren't talking about weddings, bro. We're talking about fasting. So I could see if like, well, I'm the chef or something food-related. He's like, "I'm the bridegroom. "

Okay, what's that have to do with it? And then what is going on in the parable of the garments and the wineskins? Is it about something old is bad and then something new has arrived that's better? So ditch the old, you need to embrace the new. Is that what he's getting at? That's how a lot of people take it.

And then I wrote down: only Luke includes verse 39. And I can see why Matthew and Mark left that one out, because it's weird. First, it seems like he's saying, "Hey, don't be stuck on the old stuff. Something new is here. Don't take the new thing and put it in your old stupid wineskins. You need new wineskins. You need a new garment or something like that. " So old, new, yay, right?

And then what does he say in verse 39? No one who drinks the old wants the new, because they go, "The old is better. "

Old wine—I mean, if you had a choice: the waiter brings to you, "This wine is from yesterday, " and, "This wine is from 1942. " Which do you think? Well, maybe it's too expensive—maybe finances is why you choose the new one—but you don't want the new one, right? The old is better. So if he just had two parables on new being better, then he ends with a phrase that goes, "But no one wants the new because the old is better. "

I don't know about you, but I'm like, "I don't get it. " And I see why Matthew and Mark are like, "Nah. We can't capture everything Jesus said, and that's one I think we'll leave out. " And Luke was like, "Nah, I'm putting it there. I'm putting it there. "

And I'm glad he did, because I think eventually we'll see that it's a clue. So let's take this one piece at a time. I think we can't afford to miss this.

You're gonna learn a little bit about how to investigate a passage, okay? But I want you to go on this journey of interpretation with me in this paragraph, as we attempt to solve this one piece at a time, because I think what he's actually teaching here is central to everything. I think what Jesus is teaching here is the key to your entire Christian walk.

So think about it. These people—they're praying and they're fasting weekly, which is great. I mean, it's great.

He doesn't go, "You dummies, God doesn't want your fasting. " He doesn't say fasting is bad, fasting is stupid, it's foolish. He doesn't say, "Why are you still doing that? " In fact, he even says there'll come a time where my disciples do fast. So it's not whether it's wrong—it's when to do it. But he doesn't say it's bad.

Fasting is good.

It happens in the Old Testament. Jesus doesn't say it's wrong, but his disciples aren't doing it. So it's a legitimate question: "We're all fasting and your guys aren't fasting. So I don't get it. Why are they not fasting? " Nothing is wrong with praying and fasting, but Jesus is not leading his disciples to do it.

So why is this important? Is it possible that you and I pray—that you and I fast—that you and I practice certain spiritual disciplines like reading God's word, or fellowshipping, or mentoring, discipling, or singing, and completely miss what Jesus wants entirely?

Not because it's wrong to read God's word, or that it's wrong to pray, or that it's wrong to fast. But in the way in which we're doing it, we're as backwards as old garments and new patches. It's as incompatible as putting new wine in an old wineskin. It's not that the wine is wrong or that the garment is wrong—it's that we're doing something with it that doesn't make any sense. And if that's true, we need to know that. Because otherwise, all the grind you're putting into showing up to Sunday school, showing up to church, reading your word, memorizing scripture, going to growth group, praying with one another, confessing sins to one another, raising your kids in church—could it be for nothing?

I think that's where this is eventually going. I think that's what's happening here. And if I'm right about that, we can't afford to be like, "Ah, this one's too hard, next passage. " We've got to sit with it. So bear with me as we investigate this passage together.

Two Tools for a Hard Text

And we're gonna put out in front—I'm gonna put out in front of you two, before we investigate, okay—two tools, all right? Two principles of interpretation that'll help you when you're in a tough passage like this.

Two things, two keys, two principles that if you keep it in mind—write it in the front of your Bibles or something—remember it when you're in difficult scripture. These are important.

The first one is that there is unity in scripture. There is unity in scripture. When Mark is writing, when Matthew is writing, Luke, John—they're never just writing.

They're never just like, "And what happened next? Oh. " Right? Like when children are still developing the ability to story tell, and they come home and you're like, "How was class? " And they're like, "Well, the teacher said this, and then I had a hot dog, and then the shoes were really cool that my friend had... " and you're just—you know—it doesn't connect, right?

But then eventually they learn to sequence the story and tell it in an engaging way, and it doesn't take 45 minutes to tell a five-minute story. That's something that has to be developed.

The gospel writers are not stream-of-consciousness writing. They're not just taking whatever scraps, post-its they can find around and dumping it into a document. When Luke, Matthew, and Mark follow the bridegroom thing with this wineskin parable, it's not because—"Oh, by the way, he taught this random parable. " It's because they go together.

And this goes together with the whole unit, everything that we've been seeing about Jesus preaching the gospel—why is he healing?—to demonstrate that the gospel is real, and all of that. All of scripture goes together. It's never just random.

And so that means you can't go, "Well, however we understand the bridegroom has nothing to do with the wineskin. " It's the opposite. Whatever he means by the bridegroom thing is backed up by the wineskin, the garment thing. And whatever he means by the wineskin-garment thing, it can't have anything to do with when to go shopping, right? Or what kind of aged wine you should order at a restaurant.

That doesn't make sense because whatever it means, it has to do something with the bridegroom thing, which has to do with fasting.

So it all goes together. So whatever interpretations we're coming up with, it has to click like, "Ah, that backs up that. That makes sense. " It shouldn't go in opposite directions. That's the first principle.

The second principle is that we should understand the less clear passages of Scripture with the more clear passages of Scripture, okay? The clearer passages help us with the less clear passages. And sometimes we do this backwards.

Sometimes people study the book of Revelation, study these difficult sections about Antichrist or the beast or Satan being bound or whatever. They start with that and they take that and interpret the rest of Scripture with it. No, I think take the clear ones—what does Paul say about the end times? What does Jesus say about the end times? Old Testament—and then understand what John is doing in Revelation.

So here, the parable is really difficult. The wineskin thing and the garment thing—it's tough. But the bridegroom thing is a little clearer. So we're gonna use our understanding of what he means by the bridegroom thing to help us understand the other thing, because they all go together. We'll start with the clearer one that'll help us understand the less clear one.

The Bridegroom and Fasting

And that's how you interpret scripture, principally speaking. So let's do that. Let's start with the basic question of what's happening here. And I'm gonna tell you up front what I think Jesus means by his answer, okay?

I think that Jesus is explaining that while there's nothing wrong with fasting, there is a time and place for it. And the time and place for it is when he, the bridegroom, is not with them.

That's when it makes sense to fast. It makes sense to fast as you were expecting me to come. It'll make sense to fast later when I'm taken away from you. But while I'm here with you—hey man—you should be celebrating with us. You should be enjoying my presence. You should be in on these meals that I have. The sinners are good with it.

You guys are like, "I'm fasting. " You skip an opportunity to have a meal with the Messiah because you're fasting? When the Old Testament fasting—a lot of it was, "Messiah, please come. " Well, I'm here, and you're not eating with me because you're fasting.

It's kind of ridiculous, and I think that's what Jesus means. Not that fasting is bad, but if you knew what fasting was for—and who the central audience is—not Lucas, right? Jesus saying, "If you knew the central audience was me, then you wouldn't be fasting right now, because I'm the bridegroom. "

Let's look at that together. I want you to look again—verse 33, just the 33 to 35, the whole bridegroom piece. "The disciples of John fast and offer prayers. " Who's "they"? It's not real clear.

I look back in the beginning of chapter 5 and even into chapter 4 and there's all kinds of different—you've got scribes, you've got Pharisees, you have people being healed, you have Gentiles, you have people from Nazareth, people from Capernaum, you've got his disciples, people that aren't called his disciples yet—all kinds of people.

But whoever they were, they referred to the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees. So it's really easy for us to go, "Here's a stupid question, and Jesus shuts it down for being so stupid—stupid people. " That happens sometimes, when the scribes are trying to trap him, when the Pharisees are trying to catch him, right?

But I'm not sure that's what's happening here, because it starts with the disciples of John. And in fact, when you read this episode in Matthew's gospel, it says the disciples of John are the ones asking the question.

Are they bad guys? No, I think they're just trying to figure this out. Their leader, John, said, "This is the guy. He's the lamb. " So I don't think we're supposed to read this like Jesus is being interrogated necessarily in an antagonistic way. I think it's an honest question: "I don't get it. I thought fasting was good. "

Again, you look at Jesus' answer. He doesn't rebuke them for fasting. He doesn't say fasting is wrong. There's a time and a place for it. Verse 35: "The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. "

But he fronts that with an Old Testament analogy. The bridegroom was the groom of the bride. If you're wondering, "What is a bridegroom? " We just say "groom" now, okay? The bridegroom—the groom of the bride.

And he's using that Old Testament analogy. In the Old Testament, God, Yahweh, would frequently picture Israel, his people, as his bride and he's the groom, okay? And oftentimes—well, not oftentimes—in those days, we kind of have a practice where the groom and the minister are standing up front and we're waiting for the bride to walk in, but they would wait for days and days for the groom to come home—for the groom to come back from his journey, to come back from whatever he was doing.

And the wedding party is getting everything situated: we're getting the bride ready, we're getting the people ready, we're getting everything ready, and everyone's waiting for the groom to arrive. I'm not saying we should switch it—I'm just saying this is the background of what's happening here.

So he's going, "Imagine a wedding party longing for the groom to come, and we're not gonna feast until the groom comes. " It's kind of like you're fasting. And some of you who've been to weddings, you are fasting, okay? While they're out taking pictures for four and a half hours, you're starving and you have a little toothpick and a piece of cheese—you're dying—but we're not gonna fast, we're not gonna feast until the couple walks in, right?

And so the Old Testament analogy that Jesus is using is: part of fasting is this longing, this desperate longing for God to come, for God's presence to be here. And yes, there's a temple, and yes, there's a tent of meeting, but that's not you here. And so we want this Messiah to come and walk among us and eliminate the enemies and handle sin and heal us from diseases. We need that to come. And so fasting had with it this longing and expectation for the groom to arrive.

And that's why Jesus says, "But I'm the groom. " And what fascinates me about that is when you read the bridegroom passages in the Old Testament, you don't see anything connecting the bridegroom specifically to a Messiah. The bridegroom is always Yahweh. The bridegroom is God, the God of Israel. So for Jesus to say, huh, "I'm the bridegroom. "

You know when people say, "Jesus never claimed to be God. " Just don't read your Old Testament, and maybe you can get away with that. But for Jesus to say, "I'm the bridegroom, " is crazy—unless he's Yahweh. And that's precisely what Jesus is saying here.

So he's saying, "While I'm here—here I am—and rather than feasting and celebrating my presence, you continue to fast and mourn God's absence before God, and that doesn't make sense. " It doesn't make sense for you to fast and long for someone who's here—who's right here in front of you.

It's not wrong to fast and pray, but it is inappropriate to fast and pray while the bridegroom is right here in front of you.

You get it? That's what he's saying. He predicts a time that's coming soon for them, when the bridegroom, Jesus, will be taken away from them, and they won't always have him present with them. Fast then—that makes sense. That's appropriate. But while I'm with you, that makes no sense. So is that clear so far?

Jesus is not rebuking them for fasting. He's simply teaching that because fasting is sad and related to mourning and related to a desperate longing for God's presence—to make God's face shine upon his people, in general, or maybe even over a specific situation in your life—it only makes sense if God is not among them.

But since Jesus is physically with them, and they're wondering why Jesus' disciples don't fast, Jesus is basically turning the question on them: "Why are you fasting if I'm here? " So that's what Jesus' answer is all about. That's what the bridegroom thing is doing.

Garments, Wineskins, and Old Wine

Now we can try to understand: how does this parable work to back that up? Whatever the parable means, it's gotta be backing that up, because that's what he's doing.

And a lot of people, they take it to mean that something old is bad, something new is good. You're not ready for the new, because you keep embracing the old. You keep clinging to the old thing—you’re never going to get the new thing. And I don't think that's right. That's the most common interpretation.

I'm just going to admit and be upfront with you. But I've investigated this a lot through Mark, through Luke, through Matthew. That doesn't mean I'm right, but I hope you can see what I'm seeing here and it makes sense for you.

But whatever it means, it has to back up the first thing: that there's nothing wrong with what you're doing; it only makes sense if I'm at the center of it. Whatever the parable means, it's gotta have something to do with that.

But this normal interpretation—that you can't have the old and the new, they don't go together; ditch the old, embrace the new—and you go, "Well, what's the old and the new? " Well, they vary, right? But a lot of the time they'll say, "Well, the Old Testament is the old thing, and Jesus is bringing the New Testament. They want to cling to the law, and Jesus is like, 'No, no, no, not law, not law. ' That can't jive with what I'm bringing—I'm bringing something anti-law. "

Just like a new garment and an old garment and a new patch don't match, new wine and old wineskin don't match—the gospel and the Old Testament don't match.

We've been through a lot of Old Testament books here, guys. Does that make sense to you? Jesus goes, "Old Testament, meh. I'm doing something totally new, totally different—totally—you know—if you're stuck on the Old Testament, you'll never embrace this. " I don't get it. Jesus cites the Old Testament. He just used the Old Testament, right? He doesn't go, "Eh, forget the bridegroom, I'm something else. " No—I'm the bridegroom. He's depending on your knowledge of the Old Testament to even get what he's saying.

Doesn't Jesus teach us that not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law? In other words, all of it stays. Isn't Jesus the one that goes, "You've studied the Old Testament this way—I'm telling you it means this. " And he raises the bar. Far from deleting the Old Testament passages, he raises the bar on the Old Testament.

Have you heard, "Don't murder"? Well, yeah—that's true, that's still true. But if you murder in your heart, you're guilty of the law. You've heard, "Don't commit adultery"? Well, if you do it in your heart, you're like, "What? It doesn't really say heart. "

Well, it's not for nothing that the Ten Commandments end with—all of them are visible, visual, you can objectively see someone doing it—except the 10th one, which is covetousness. And in a sense, the covetousness of the heart leads to all those other outward things.

You covet and you commit adultery. You covet and you bear false witness against your neighbor, because you want him to be in trouble so you can have his stuff—or whatever the reason might be. Well, we can't say the law had nothing to do with the heart. So Jesus isn't really bringing something new. He's helping explain what it always really was, right?

Or when he teaches on divorce, he's like, "Well, Moses tolerated divorce, but I'm bringing a new teaching. " No—"I go before Moses, " right? Before Moses handed out certificates was Moses recording the first marriage.

So I don't think Jesus is anti-Old Testament. And it doesn't make sense to me to go, "He's going Old Testament, boo. New Testament, yay. " That doesn't connect, that doesn't make sense with the rest of Scripture. And then, of course, we see New Testament writers using the Old Testament to teach New Testament Christians all over the place. Every New Testament book is Old Testament-dependent—not Old Testament bad, we're doing something different.

So I think it can't mean that. And I think the hang up here is when people think Jesus must mean something old is bad that can't mix with something new that's good. I think that's where we go wrong. I don't think he's saying old bad, new good. I don't think that's the point at all.

I think both the old and the new are both good. And the point is not that it's bad mixing something old with something new. I think the point is doing things that are absurd to do—doing things that don't make any sense—doing things that are right to do in certain regard, but if you do it in a wrong way, it's crazy, or it's absurd, or at least it's inappropriate.

For example: stuffing your face before the wedding party gets there. They may not kick you out, but if everyone's waiting on the feast that whoever has paid for—for you to be a guest at that table—you’re like, "Oh, this is taking a long time, " and you bring out your sack of burgers from— they might at least look at you weird, right? You probably wouldn't do that. You wait. You wait for the meal.

And Jesus is trying to illustrate that with a garment illustration and a wineskin illustration. Not that old is bad, new is good. He's just saying when you do it in this certain way, you messed up the whole garment, right? Instead of fixing it, you destroyed the whole garment. Instead of keeping the wine, you destroyed the wineskin and the wine is spilled out all over the place. It's crazy to do it that way. So don't do it that way. That's what he means.

Not old bad, new good. So Jesus is gonna teach this parable to explain why fasting while Jesus is present with them is inappropriate—or I might even say it's absurd. Not that old is bad and new is good. It's inappropriate.

So look at 36 to 39. He also told them a parable. Here's the garment parable, okay?

"No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. " Why would you do that? Well, the old one has a hole and you're patching it, okay? But if you do that, he will tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old.

So follow Jesus' logic. Where did you get your patch? From a new garment. And you put it to cover the hole in the old garment.

And this is clear in Matthew and Mark's recording of it. But what Jesus is saying is: the old garment has been washed and cleaned and dirty and washed and cleaned, and it's shrunk already. It's not gonna shrink anymore. The fibers aren't gonna shrink anymore. It's done shrinking. The new cloth—the new garment—hasn't shrunk yet.

So this is not just a now problem. This is—you know—you’re looking at the shirt, "I don't know, will it fit? " Well, it might shrink—that whole thing. That's ancient. And so you'd get a robe, a garb, and it'd be a little long, and it'd be a little long here. But even for them, you wash it, you dry it in the sun—it shrinks. And now that's the new size.

If you take a patch from the new garment that hasn't shrunk yet, put that patch on the hole of a garment that has shrunk already, the patch is going to shrink smaller than the size of the hole, and it tears the garment.

And what happened to the new garment? A big old hole in it. So you've ruined the new garment and you've torn the old garment.

Is Jesus saying old bad, new good? He's saying you ruined both of them. Both of them are ruined. So what's his point?

You wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do it. If you were eight years old, maybe you'd do it. If you have some experience with some clothing, you know you wouldn't do that. That would be absurd to do that.

No—you patch the old with something old, already shrunk, so that it actually saves the old garment, and you don't take scissors to the new garment. Both of them are important. So that's what he means about tearing the garment, and then it's not going to match.

Matthew and Mark say not just that it doesn't match, but it tears the old garment. That's where I'm getting that from.

Okay, now he turns to the wines, and he's doing the same thing. It's the exact same thing.

He says, "No one puts new wine into old wineskins. " If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

So we'll just pause there for a second. The new wine needs a new wineskin because these wineskins are actually skins. They're made from animal hide. They're made from leather. The new wine still needs to ferment and expand, and the new leather would be supple enough to stretch with that expansion, okay?

Old wine can stay in an old wineskin because it's not going to expand further—at least not enough to burst or crack the leather that's now dry. You go in your garage, you find your grandpa's baseball glove—it's probably pretty dry and cracked. And if you're not careful restoring it, you can crack it trying to reshape it. That's how leather works.

The new wine in an old wineskin is going to break the old wineskin because the old wineskin's already stretched. Now, if that happens—you take the new wine and you put it in the old wineskin—the new wine expands, the old wineskin breaks. What did you lose? You lost the new wine and you lost the old wineskin.

Didn't Jesus emphasize that? He says, "If you do that, the new wine will burst the skins and the new wine will be spilled. " That's gone. So the new thing is gone. And the skins—the old skins—will be destroyed. And then I'll just put in parentheses: and that's not good.

So he's not saying, "Stupid, dumb old wineskins. " He's saying you would cherish the old wineskin. You would keep the old wineskin. You would protect the old wineskin. It's not old means bad. It's just absurd to take new wine and put it in an old wineskin. It's crazy—you wouldn't do that, just like you wouldn't patch the old garment that way.

So I think his point is not pitting old against new. I think his point is doing things that don't make any sense—just like fasting when I'm present with you. That's his point.

So he's capitalizing on their understanding that there are things that you cherish in this life. You cherish that garment.

It's not like— I don't know—today, maybe some of us, you snag your sweater on a thing and you're like, "I could fix that. Or I could go to TJ Maxx. Time for a new sweater anyway. " You have 30 of them in your closet to begin with. But in this day, not so much. You remember when Samson killed 30 dudes for garments? You're like, "Dude, do you not have a closet at home? "

Well, garments are important. Garments were handcrafted things—sometimes made by someone in the family or was special. I mean, you don't just throw garments away. And the same thing with the wineskins. It's not like you would toss them out like they're Gatorade bottles. Think of it a little bit more like your Owala. It dings a little bit, you just toss it and get a new one. Well, maybe you put a sticker over it or something, but you didn't buy the Stanley cup to toss it after every drink. So think along more of those lines.

Why would you ruin the wineskin, man? You have to kill a whole other animal and weave together leather to get a new one. It's a lot. It's expensive—debilitatingly expensive—and you're in a place of poverty, like Jesus' context here.

So no—he's not saying old bad, bring in something new. If anything, old is good. Old is good, and you're gonna ruin it.

Let's say the old does represent the Old Testament. Let's say it represents something about what they already understand about fasting, prayer, whatever the Old Testament teaches about what you do in a relationship with God. If that's the case, Jesus isn't saying, "Dump it. " Jesus is saying, "If you don't engage in those things with me at the center of it, then you ruined it. "

You can't accept what I'm bringing, and you can't even have what you think you have in the old. Not because the two are incompatible—they're compatible. You're incompatible if you don't have Jesus at the center of all of your religious activity.

If Jesus is not your audience—if you worship a generic father-bridegroom, but you don't have a relationship with the Son—you have none of it. That's Jesus' point.

You might fast. You might pray. Is there something wrong with fasting and praying? No. But is Jesus at the center of your fasting and praying? No. Then it's a waste of time. I think that's what he's getting at.

Now how about—real quick—verse 39. Man, this is a storm before a loop. I'm like, "I think I'm tracking, I think I'm tracking, " and then he says in verse 39.

So this sounds to many of us like old is something that you kind of discard—you have to embrace the new. And then he says in verse 39, "No one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good. '"

So if you take old as bad and new as good, this hardly makes sense, because then Jesus is going backwards, right? Now Jesus is saying, "Wait, the old is better. " You're like, "Wait, what? I thought we had to ditch the old to get to the new. "

Some will say, "Well, Jesus is being sarcastic or ironic. He's basically telling the Pharisees, 'You know what your problem is? You'll always stick with the Old Testament law, and you'll never appreciate the new gospel. You'll always say the old is good. '"

But I don't think that's what Jesus is saying, and the most obvious reason why is because old wine actually is better. It's not like only snobs think old wine is better. Old wine is better.

I mean—I don't know—maybe you could find someone out there who would sip it and go, "No, actually, I love that this was yesterday. That's way better than the 1942. "

I don't drink wine, but from what I understand, it'd be as hard to find that person as you would for someone who destroys their garments with the wrong patches or destroys their wineskins with new wine, or throws out their Stanley every time it's dirty, right?

It doesn't make any sense. And I think that's what Jesus is saying. I think it's still communicating that same thought.

I don't think Jesus is saying, "Hey man, no one who appreciates the Old Testament is gonna appreciate the New Testament, because they're always gonna say the Old Testament is better. "

No one? What about the people he saves? What about John's disciples? I don't think that's it.

If you agree with me that this parable is not about old being bad and new being good, then we don't have to take this as Jesus going back or going in reverse because he's not saying old bad, new good.

Then it doesn't bother us if he says some people taste the old and they say, "Hey, that's good. " It's simpler than that.

What Jesus is saying: just as it would be absurd to patch a shrunk garment with an unshrunk patch, just as it would be absurd to put new wine into an old wineskin, it would be just as absurd to pass up old aged fine wine because you prefer the new.

His point is: no one does that. So when he does the garment thing, he's like, "No one does that. " Who fixes their garment that way? Answer: nobody. Nobody sane does that. Who puts old wine in a new wineskin? Who does that? Nobody. Nobody does that because it's ridiculous to do that.

Who tastes old wine and goes, "Man, that's really good, but you know what? I'll prefer yesterday's. " Nobody does that because that's crazy.

That's his point. And when you see it that way, it goes one, two, three—they all back up the same point.

Who fasts longing for the Messiah when the Messiah is right there in front of you? Nobody. Lost people—people who don't know the voice of the shepherd. People who don't know Jesus in front of them when they see it. It's absurd.

And not only have you lost Jesus, you've lost all of religion. The wine and the skin is gone. The new garment and the old garment is gone.

Application: Spiritual Habits with Jesus at the Center

So the underlying principle is this. We should practice our spiritual habits. Yes, the focus here is fasting, but I think it's the example. But our spiritual habits—fasting—he talks about prayers, doesn't he? He mentions prayers: the disciples of John, they pray and they fast. So it's not just fasting.

A Warning from Matthew 7

You remember in Matthew 7—one of a few places where we're reminded of this reality.

Jesus taught, "not everyone who says to me on that day, in the end, 'Lord, Lord, ' will enter. "

I mean, there's people who definitely don't call Jesus Lord, but there are people who call Jesus Lord who don't make it.

But notice how Jesus ends it. He says.

So remember—to the Father—"Didn't we do these things in your name, Father? " Or Lord?

I want you to understand this, not to preach a whole nother message on a whole different passage, but this is a clearer one, helping us with the less clear one.

What Jesus is teaching here is that these people on that day that call God Lord, doing the will of the Father—even address the Messiah as Lord—they did many mighty works. They prophesied, they cast out demons, and they did mighty works.

And Jesus says, actually, all of those things that are really churchy, really religious—all of those things were actual works of lawlessness. They were actual rebellious acts. Why? Because I didn't know you.

So the relational knowledge of Jesus Christ has to precede all of the spiritual habits that we develop in our lives.

So these guys got really good at praying, really good at reading scripture, and in their get-togethers, some of them became more prominent—they're really good at scripture, they're really good at praying. These guys became the leaders, the elders, the teachers, and then those guys were the ones that were called upon when somebody was foaming at the mouth and had a demon.

And they're like, "Call these guys, " and guess what? Sometimes it seemed to work. "We cast out demons in your name. "

Jesus doesn't say, "No, no, no, you didn't. " He's like, "You did a lot of things, but you didn't know me. You didn't know me. You didn't have a relationship with me. " And I think what this passage is teaching, just to wrap this up really quickly.

Practicing Christianity without Jesus at the center of it, without a relational knowledge of Jesus Christ first—doing Christian things without knowing the Christ—is as crazy as putting new tires with great traction on a car that has bad brakes. It's as foolish as taking a brand new, never washed, heavily dyed, dark red sweatshirt and throwing it in a wash cycle with your pure whites. That's stupid. So is that.

That's Jesus' point. No one patches an old garment that way. No one treats their old wineskins that way.

No one who practices true religion before God does it without Jesus as the point and center of it all, but people do it all of the time.

How often do you find people looking for a church to raise their kids in, but openly admit they have no real relationship with Jesus? Well, then what is the point?

How many women marry men that claim to be Christian but demonstrate no genuine relationship with Jesus—but they do it all the time—and vice versa because guys do it too?

How many scholars become experts in scripture but they openly deny Christ? It is possible, church, to become experts in scripture but deny Christ. It is possible to be involved at church—to frequent growth groups, to be present at prayer meetings.

You know I love all of these things, and we teach that they're important to your spiritual life, but if you don't do them with a relationship with Jesus as the foundation to it—if he's not your why, if he's not your reason—then it could be all for nothing.