Note: This series is written as a first-person narrative in order to present Jesus in the context he walked with the unknown disciple that narrates presenting my thoughts and sparking more thoughts with his questions. Enjoy.
Matthew’s Banquet Continues
While at the banquet, Jesus was asked, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”
People held rabbis responsible for their disciples’ behavior. What Jesus said next puzzled me.
“Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”
Who’s the bridegroom? Is this a parable?” I wondered. “Is it Jesus?” Who’s going to take him?”
He continued with a parable. “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”
Hmm, we use goatskins for wine and water. Wine expands as it ferments so it has to be poured into new wineskins. An old wineskin can’t stretch anymore.
What did he mean? He’s bringing something new and people love the old too much to let it go? I had to think about this some more. Good thing we were about to travel again, in a roundabout way to Jerusalem.
Luke 5: 33-39
A Ronin's Journey 