Bridegrooms, Seamstresses and Wine Makers

Jesus used three figures to the Pharisees and Scribes to defend his habit of eating with spiritually bankrupt people and their charge that his disciples shouldn’t be feasting but should be like their own disciples who fasted and prayed.

First he likened himself to a bridegroom and how the bridegrooms friends are going to party and celebrate until the marriage takes place… then they could fast and pray.

Of course it was party time when Jesus walked the earth… great teachings, great healings and great miracles. When he was hanging on the cross all the partying stopped.

Second he compared patching an old garment with a piece of fabric donated from a new garment. Who does that? Nobody. And the Gospel of Christ was not going to be just a patch on the Mosaic law. That old garment was going to be thrown away and the new garment would be wholly separate and distinct from the old garment.

Third he asked the question who puts new (unfermented) wine in an old wineskin? No one in the winemaking business reused old wineskins because as the liquid fermented and expanded the old wineskin would have lost it’s elasticity and would burst and the new wine lost and wasted. New wine goes in new wineskins that are elastic enough to contain the expanding fluid.

Jesus was the bridegroom, his Gospel and New Covenant was the new garment and his message was the new wine which the Old Covenant couldn’t begin to hold.

The Pharisees could not understand these figures and probably not the disciples at this early stage of the Gospel either but they would come to understand and obviously with hind sight so can we. And that’s why we are not some kind of hybrid Jew.