Look forward, not backwards!

Mark 2:18-22

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were observing a fast; and [some people] came and asked Jesus, Why are John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fasting, but Your disciples are not doing so? 19 Jesus answered them, Can the wedding guests fast (abstain from food and drink) while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and they will fast in that day. 21 No one sews a patch of unshrunken (new) goods on an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and the rent (tear) becomes bigger and worse [than it was before]. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the bottles destroyed; but new wine is to be put in new (fresh) wineskins.

Food for thought!

Jesus is in the business of stirring up trouble! From the time He appeared and began His earthly ministry, to the moment He ascended back into Heaven, Jesus was busy upsetting tradition and tipping sacred cows. Where the Jews were concerned, Jesus was involved in one religious scandal after another.       

Jesus had already offended the religious Jews when He publicly forgave a man’s sins, Mk 2:5. Then they got upset because He was seen attending a feast at Matthew’s house, Mk 2:16. Matthew was a tax collector and they could not understand why a holy man like Jesus would spend time with sinners; for others, Jesus was simply scandalous.        

The verses we have read today open up another scandal between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. This time it involves their traditions, their rules, their laws. Jesus dared to ignore their rituals and they are offended once again!

Jesus knew and knows quite well that his way of life was shatteringly different from that of the "religious"; He also knew and knows how difficult it is for our minds to accept and embrace whatever is new, and here he uses two illustrations to show how necessary it is to have an adventurous mind.

(i) He speaks of the danger of sewing a new patch on an old garment. The word used means that the new cloth was still undressed; it had never been shrunk; so when the garment got wet in the rain the new patch shrunk, and being much stronger than the old, it tore the old apart. The spiritual principle here is very clear. The old cannot be blended with the new!

(ii) Wine was kept in wineskins. There was no such thing as a bottle in our sense of the term; they used animal skins made into bags or wine skins. When these skins were new they had a certain elasticity; as they grew old they became hard and unyielding. New wine is still fermenting; it gives off gases; these gases cause pressure; if the skin is new it will yield to the pressure, but if it is old and hard and dry it will explode and wine and skin alike will be lost. Jesus is pleading for a certain elasticity in our minds. It is fatally easy to become set in old ways.

When our minds become fixed and settled in old ways, when they are quite unable to accept new truth and to contemplate new ways, we may be physically alive but we are mentally dead. That is why there are many living dead people. This is the danger we all face as we grow old;  as we grow older almost all of us develop a dislike of that which is new and unfamiliar; we grow very unwilling to make any adjustments in our habits and ways of life. As they say, old dogs don't learn easily new tricks!

As we begin this week, let us remember that it is NEW; this week never existed; it is brand new. So applying Jesus' principles, don't bring last week's failures into this new week; let us be elastic and receptive to new ideas, new opportunities but also new challenges. Let us not put the old into the new! It doesn't work. You can't drive forward your car, your life, your business when all the time you're looking into the rear view mirror. Can you?