Part One - Fasting and the parable of the new wineskin (Luke 5:27-39)

Let’s first have a look at all the people that are included in today’s episode.
There’s Matthew the tax collector, other tax collectors and sinners. There’s also Jesus and his disciples who are eating with them. Then there are Pharisees and the teachers of the law who are criticising Jesus and his disciples.
But if we look at the same story as told in the book of Matthew, we see that disciples of John the Baptist were also among those criticising Jesus and his disciples.
<READ Matthew 9:14>
We can understand the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, but what about the disciples of John the Baptist? Weren’t they supposed to be on Jesus’ side?
This is showing that as the last prophet of the Old Testament, John the Baptist was also unable to completely shed the old legalistic nature.
The Criticism
The main issue of today’s episode is fasting. “Why are you eating and drinking when we’re all fasting on the fast day? With tax collectors and sinners at that!”
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were those who staked their lives on the law. And in Leviticus, the Law required fasting once a year on the Day of Atonement. Fasting is an act of cutting off the energy source of the body, symbolising the death of the physical body. In other words, fasting was an act of acknowledging and accepting the rightful true state of man as only dust of the earth… acknowledging the powerlessness and impossibility of our existence and confessing “I am a dead being”.
In this way, fasting was required by God for us to acknowledge that we are nothing but dead beings in front of God’s grace of atoning our sin, making us deny ourselves and strongly hold on to God’s saving grace.
But so admirably, people kept increasing the days of fasting, which originally you only needed to do once a year. In Zechariah, you can see records of people keeping days of fasting in April, May, July and October. In that way they kept increasing the days of fasting, and it came to the point where the Pharisees, teachers of the law and even Jews like disciples of John the Baptist fasted twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. That wasn’t even the law, it was just customs handed down by the Elders.
They wanted to impress God by their efforts, by increasing their fasting days. And they wanted to show off and gloat that they are this holy people, different to others that so admirably fast so much. 
They are doing the same act of fasting, but doing it with the exact opposite reason that God had intended when making us fast…
Of course, the disciples of John the Baptist would have had slightly different reasons for fasting, because they believed in the coming of the Messiah that John had taught them about. But they still thought that these sorts of law-abiding acts were the showing of the minimum amount of respect and manners for the coming Messiah. But even this is legalism.
On that kind of day when they were fasting with all their might and strength, Jesus and his disciples were eating and drinking with sinners. So the Pharisees, the teachers of the law and even the disciples of John the Baptist are all gathering forces to criticise Jesus and his disciples. And today’s parable is Jesus’ message to them in response.
Jesus’ Response
In today’s parable, Jesus likens himself to a bridegroom of the wedding banquet and says “how can those who are with the groom of the wedding fast while he is with them?”. He is saying that fasting of the Old Testament is something needed for the process of getting to the wedding banquet and enjoying his company, but is useless when you are with the groom. In other words, the law, including fasting, is a teacher who is needed in order to meet the groom Jesus, but the law itself is not something that is worthy or powerful. Rather, the law is there to guide us to the grace of the gospel.
<READ Romans 3:20>
<READ Colossians 2:16-17>
<READ Hebrews 9:10>
Like this, in the age of the New Testament, all the laws like what is pure to eat and what is not pure to eat etc are all useless.

What’s interesting though is that the bible says the whole lives of the believers are one big act of fasting.
<READ Deuteronomy 8:1-3>
Journey in the wilderness before Canaan = Our lives before Kingdom of God
This verse then summarizes this life as one of being “humbled and made hungry”. So the lives of believers are supposed to be characterised by “humility, trials and starving”.
The original Hebrew word being used here to say “cause hunger” is “아나 Ana”, and this word is found in the Leviticus law regarding the Day of Atonement:
<READ Leviticus 16:29-31>
Where it says “You must deny yourselves”, the word being used here is the same word “아나 Ana” that is used in Deuteronomy regarding our life in the wilderness.
<Draw> Fasting = Ana
Wilderness = Ana
Therefore, our life itself should be a life of fasting, which is the same as a life of being humbled, life of trials and life of the old self starving to death. Understanding all this meaning and confessing in front of God “I am nothing but dead dust, please cover me with your grace”, is the religious act of fasting.
So the act of our entire life being presented and given to God is fasting.
When our old self who took the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, became the main principal of judging what is good and evil, and wanted to be the king of the world finally starves to death; then the love that was only focused on self can start to be directed towards God and those around.
So our lives are to be characterised by life in the wilderness of humility, starvation of our self. In other words, a life of fasting.
But…. Are we living that life?
But being honest with ourselves, is your old “self” really dying? Is the life of self-denial taking place? Or isn’t it more the case that we are still seeking the advancement of ourselves, chasing after our greed and desires? Aren’t we constantly asking for bread to advance our glory and our boasting, even through the church? Then that means we aren’t living a life of fasting right?
Then are we all fake?
In Isaiah, God explains the REAL life of fasting in detail:
<READ Isaiah 58:4-8>
What is the life of fasting that God delights in? Denying the self to loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, set the oppressed free, and break every yoke. And to serve those who are hungry, naked and weak, by giving up mine.
Simply put, turning around from a life of self-centredness and self-loving, to a life of serving and loving others, where you empty your self and die to self?
This is not taking place in our lives as well right?
Have a look at those verses very carefully. Those who are able to truly fast in the way that God delights in needs to have these abilities and qualities mentioned above. Who on earth has these abilities and qualities? The bible clearly says “there’s no one righteous not even one”, then who can possibly deny themselves to loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Who did that kind of fast?
Jesus lived the life of fasting through his life and the cross.

What was it that Jesus did first when he started his public life? He went on a 40 day fast. 40 days is a condensed representation of the 40 years that Israel lived in the wilderness. Jesus’ 40 day fast and trial was a summary of Jesus’ whole life. In that way Jesus humbled himself, denied himself, and faced trials. And in the midst of that humbling, starving and trials, he gave the unique correct answer to the exam question God presented:
“Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”
In this way, Jesus is the one who completely fulfilled the fasting that Deuteronomy 8 demands, the goal of the life of the wilderness. And then he imputed that life of fasting to us believers. We receive that life of fasting from Jesus as ours and we become those who have lived the lives of fasting by grace. So the believers of the New Testament have become those who don’t need any other fasting.

Then as the guests of the banquet, what is it that believers must primarily enjoy? It is to enjoy the wedding banquet that the groom has prepared for us, thinking “Because of our groom Jesus, we no longer have to starve, no longer have to fast!”. Enjoying grace. Being moved. Being grateful and thankful.
<Summarize life of self-denial>
Learn, experience, see our need for grace through our failures. Not denying ourselves by our might and strength like the Pharisees, but being denied to self through our failures.
Just like Apostle Paul confessed in Romans 7:23-24
“but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”


It’s self-denial that is done to us by God, not one we achieve by our efforts.

Next week, we’ll talk have our second message on this passage, to explain what Jesus means by the new wine and the new wineskin, and when he says that we will soon be fasting again.