Day 5 of Lent: Monday
A DISCIPLE REMEMBERS: THE DISCUSSION ABOUT FASTING
A work of Scriptural imagination by Herb Agee
We were confronted one day by the disciples of John the Baptist. That’s what they were calling him now…it was sort of like a stage name. But, because Jesus was becoming so popular, John was losing his crowd. This group of hardcore John followers was pretty upset about that and when we saw them coming toward us, we sort of gathered in a circle around Jesus to protect him. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid. Looking back on it, I can see how ridiculous it was that we thought we needed to protect Jesus. But we did. Peter even picked up a couple of rocks to have handy. That was the nice thing about where we lived, there were always rocks around.
Anyway, as these guys walk up, Jesus steps out of the circle. The leader comes up to Jesus and in this real whiny voice asks, “Why don’t your disciples fast like we and the Pharisees do?” It had this “John’s disciples are better than yours” sound to it. Jesus turned around and looked at us with this smirk on his face that only we could see and sort of whined, “Yeah, you guys. You haven’t been fasting? You told me you were. What are the Pharisees going to think of you?” We weren’t always sure when Jesus was joking, but we were pretty sure this time. James pipes up, “It makes us too hungry.” We all laughed, even Jesus.
Then Jesus turned back and said, “Sorry, we were just joking around. But seriously, do wedding guests mourn while they are celebrating with the groom? Of course not, but someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.” The guy just stood there with this blank look on his face. Jesus looked around at us and we were all nodding our heads like we knew what he was talking about even though we didn’t understand what he meant either. So he tries again, “Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? The new patch would shrink and rip the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear.” He’s getting nowhere here. He continues, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”
So there you have it. Jesus answers the question, “Why don’t your disciples fast?” with a story about a groom who disappears, patching old cloth with new and the fact that fermenting wine expands.
You should have seen those guys…by this time their brows were furrowed and they were nodding and some were stroking their beards like they were thinking real hard and beginning to understand what this wise teacher was saying. They thanked Jesus for his answer and backed away and left. Jesus turned to us and said, “I thought that went well.” We all burst out laughing and were patting Jesus on the back and John said, “Great answer, they’ll be trying to figure that stuff out for awhile.” You see, we all thought Jesus made up a bunch of convoluted stuff just to confuse John’s arrogant disciples. It wasn’t until after he was resurrected and gone that we realized what he was saying. He was the groom who would be taken and the Kingdom he was bringing was so new that it couldn’t be just mixed in with the old. The old way wouldn’t contain it. I remember thinking that about Jesus at his baptism, “Suddenly he knew that he was to lead God’s people on a new path…into a new kingdom…a kingdom, not about law, but about love; not about rules, but about righteousness; and he knew that he was to be that path.”
Well, the old is rarely excited about the new. And the old Kingdom, even the one we were hoping for, was not prepared for what Jesus was bringing. We would find that out soon enough.
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