To Be or Not to Be

 

“Jesus said to them (Pharisees), ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’” (Mark 2:27, ESV)

When we study Mark 2:27, we must first understand what was happening at the time the Pharisees confronted Jesus. Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grain field. The disciples were hungry, so they grabbed a handful of grain seeds to eat as they followed Jesus. The Pharisees challenged Jesus and His disciples about breaking the Sabbath law of not working on the Sabbath. Jesus reminded them what their venerated King David did when he and his soldiers were hungry. They went into the house of God during Abiathar’s leadership as high priest. David and his men ate the bread of the Presence, which Sabbath laws allowed only priests to eat.

With Jesus’ reasoning, the Pharisees would feel challenged if they agreed with Him. so, their acceptance of Jesus’ teaching would mean they accused their venerated king of breaking Sabbath law. If so, then why could not other hungry men eat on the Sabbath? They would not be eating sacred food, just grain. With Jesus’ reminder to the Pharisees, they may have believed if they decided the disciples had not worked on the Sabbath, they would lose power and authority among the people. Yet, if they agreed with Jesus, then that would say their beloved King David broke the Sabbath law. Never back a caged lion into a corner. Let us now learn more about Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees.

The first thought that comes to mind in seeking to understand this verse is that God created the Sabbath day before He created the Sabbath law. God’s intent of the Sabbath laws was to help people remember and focus on God and to rest. The priests of God interpreted the thirty-nine Sabbath laws God gave. Upon writing the priestly interpretations of God’s Sabbath laws handed down through the oral tradition (the Mishnah), The Pharisees codified over six hundred Sabbath laws by which the Israelites were to live. The priests’ interpretations aimed to help people follow God’s Sabbath laws closer. Their Sabbath laws ended up becoming a litmus test by which to compare themselves to one another and to the rest of the Israelites.

Like the first thought, God commanded the Israelites to keep a Sabbath day as holy, just as Moses recorded in the Ten Commandments (the Mosaic covenant). Remember, God created humanity before He gave laws about the Sabbath. so, the relationship between God and people is more important than the Sabbath laws. Recall, the Sabbath laws occurred to help the Israelites remember and focus on God and to rest. Because God called the Sabbath a day of rest, He put people’s needs as more important than Sabbath laws, because people are more important than laws. If someone is hungry, drowning, ill, or anything else, caring for God’s people became more important to God than following laws. Caring for a neighbor is obeying God. God created people for relationship with Him and other people. Relationship means we care for each other. By caring, we show love to and for God, which He intended for the Sabbath laws. Again, God’s intention for His Sabbath laws was to cause humanity to remember and focus on Him and to have a close love relationship with Him.

As we continue to study this verse, we must understand what the word “Sabbath” means. It comes from the Hebrew word shabbat, meaning peace: to rest or cease. Our minds cannot rest and focus on God if we are concerned about a person for whom we cannot care because of the fear of breaking Sabbath laws. Again, a person cannot rest or focus on God because of urgent circumstances. This makes the laws counter to God’s purpose for the Sabbath day.

God created the Sabbath as a day of rest that He set apart and commanded for worship, reflection, and rest. The Pharisees cared more about the institution called the Sabbath. Their rituals were more important to them because they wanted people to see their own piety. The Pharisees cared more for themselves than for other people. They did not focus on God in their worship, but on what people saw them do. The Pharisees broke the first covenant (the Adamic covenant) the intent for which God set aside the Sabbath day on the seventh day of creation. Their intention for the Sabbath was not God’s original intention. The Pharisees' intention focused on themselves, their power, and their authority among the people.

The question Jesus answered, though the Pharisees did not recognize it, was: Who made the Sabbath? If the Pharisees instituted the Sabbath, then the Sabbath laws would be valid in overruling caring for other people on that day. Yet, the Pharisees did not create the Sabbath. God created the seventh day and rested from His work.

Genesis 2:3 states, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.” God blessed the day. He invoked His divine favor, which creates a covenant relationship with humanity, by instituting a day of rest on the seventh day, which He called the Sabbath day. God blessed the Sabbath day as His creation for humanity. He did more than just establish a seventh day and establish it as a day of peace, shabbat. God blessed the day for humanity to rest. With God’s blessings comes rest because His people know God is faithful. This allows people to have peace in mind, heart, and soul, hence, shabbat.

Genesis 2:3 records God sanctified the day. God blessed the day and the people in the day by sanctifying it. Calling something sanctified (holy) means setting it apart as special for significant persons for a purpose. Here, the significant persons for whom God set apart the Sabbath day is humanity. (See the Adamic covenant.) Genesis 2:3 states God’s significant purposes for the Sabbath. God blessed the day and blessed humanity with it by making it a rest day. God set apart the day—He consecrated it—for a sacred purpose, too. He made it holy and dedicated to Himself.

God, by making the seventh day a consecrated day, made the day of peace (Sabbath-shabbat) into a day of worship and devotion. He separated the seventh day from the first six days of the week, so people would use it for His purpose. God gave to Adam, who represents all humanity, a consecrated Sabbath day of rest (from the blessing) and worship (from the sanctification). The seventh day became a day of peace in body, heart, mind, and spirit. God’s seventh created day is a day to rest the body from work and to rest in heart, mind, and spirit as humanity communes with God in worship and meditation, leading to complete peace.

Understanding this makes it easier to understand God made the Sabbath long before He gave the thirty-nine Sabbath laws. From God’s thirty-nine Sabbath laws, the Pharisees created almost six hundred other Sabbath laws. Neither the Pharisees nor any person in humanity created the Sabbath. God created the seventh day, blessed it, and consecrated it for His purpose to bless humanity. Humanity is to rest on the Sabbath and focus on God in worship, praise, meditation, and prayer.

If, while focusing on God, He causes someone to remember a good that person should do to help someone else, even on the Sabbath, then, in doing that good, shows love for God. A person’s action based on impulses/convictions from God, even on the Sabbath, is obedience to God. Obedience to God is an act of worship. In obeying God by doing good for someone, a person is fulfilling the first and second greatest commandments, as Jesus taught in Matthew 22:36-40. The greatest and second greatest commandments are the summation of the Ten Commandments. We love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength when we obey Him, that which God requires.

God created the thirty-nine Sabbath laws to help people abide by His overarching and original intent for the Sabbath: to be in relationship with Him. That overflows into caring for other people (being in a relationship with them). God’s original and primary intent for creating humanity was so He could be in a relationship with them, like the three persons of the Trinity relate to each other. His intent was to be in a loving and holy relationship with people. That is the overarching theme of the Bible and of all time.

Since the Adamic covenant is the primary covenant of God with humanity, every other covenant builds from it to lead people back to a good and holy relationship with God. The covenants appear circular. They each aid humanity by leading them to God—to becoming closer to God and letting Him make them more in His image.

God making people more into His image is a growth process. It involves becoming more perfected, which can only happen when people believe in Jesus and He saves them from sin and death. Merely existing on earth is stagnating and then dying when the body dies. God’s making people more in His image is His growing and perfecting them until death. At death, Jesus perfects the believer—makes him or her sinless and holy, like Himself.

God, who comes from eternity, made the Sabbath. He created the Sabbath and placed it in time, a finite part of eternity. The Sabbath did not always exist. Time did not exist in eternity until God created sun, moon, light, and darkness and called the light and darkness day and night. Because time is a subset of eternity, so the Sabbath day is a subset of time, which God created. so, God’s intent for the Sabbath day, which He stated in Genesis, is the overriding ruler of the Sabbath. Humanity’s intent and laws are not. Hence, God should be the focus of the Sabbath, not humanity or its created Sabbath laws.

Who was the direct object of God’s gift of the Sabbath, shabbat? Humanity. Humanity did not create the Sabbath and has no power to change the original intent of the day. Additionally, humanity is not more powerful than God; they cannot usurp God’s role and rule.

God did not first create the Sabbath, then create humanity and all living things. No, God created humanity before the seventh day, then He declared the seventh day as the Sabbath, a peaceful day blessed by God with rest and consecration. Man sits in time, but man does not sit in one day of time continually. Days rotate within time to come upon humanity, so they may do what God commanded: care for creation. On the blessed and consecrated Sabbath day, God gives rest and reminders so humanity can focus on and worship Him. Work and renewal, a created rhythm God knew that our bodies and our relationship with Him would need for balance and peace.

Adam did not need for God to tell him to walk with Him in the Garden of Eden. That relationship happened because God established it as part of the essence, the inner yearning, of people for connection, closeness, and union. Because God made humanity for His purpose (to be in a relationship with Him), God created His Sabbath laws to cause His initial and overarching purpose. God’s overarching purpose is to have a close love relationship with humanity and to provide rest for them after six days a week of caring for creation.

God created the days and nights for man to give Him a cycle of people, objects, and places to enjoy. He created them for humanity to sustain them while they walked with God daily. God’s love was so comprehensive, He took care of the needs of humanity to work, create, rest, and relate. Why did God create humanity with these innate needs? First, God created people in His image. Just as God enjoyed a close relationship with the three persons of the Trinity and just as God loved to work and create, He created humanity to desire a love relationship with Himself and with other people.

With these understandings, Jesus took the Pharisees in Mark 2:27-28 back to the overarching theme of the Bible. God created humanity to be in a close relationship with Him. Closely following this, He created one day of the seven, which He created, to be a Sabbath day of rest, worship, and meditation for humanity. God did not create humanity for the Sabbath’s enjoyment. Inanimate cannot feel. Hence, the Sabbath laws dictated by the Pharisees take a backseat to God’s original intention for humanity—to be in a loving relationship with God.

To make that possible, God created the Sabbath day for physical rest and to allow the mind of each person to focus solely on Him and his or her relationship with Him. God’s Sabbath laws were an aid to humans for that purpose. The Pharisees Sabbath laws did not always have the love for God as their intention. Plucking grain from the stalk while walking through a field was not work. It allowed the disciples to have nourishment as they followed Jesus. Jesus allowed it because of His love for them of their body, spirit, heart, and mind. His disciples hungered; Jesus loved and did not hinder their plucking grain.

God’s commands/laws give freedom and show His love. The Pharisees’ laws and other laws, which leaders created throughout history, sometimes hinder the wellbeing of people. They steal freedom and leave fear and failure in their place. Human leaders made these laws sometimes just to make the leader feel superior and to make others experience inferiority. Caring and loving other people were not what the impious Pharisees intended with their Sabbath laws. God’s laws give freedom to find and focus on the Father.

The Pharisees did not change or remove their Sabbath laws. Some came to believe in Jesus and He saved them. What personal laws have you created that keep you or others from feeling loved by God and you?

Choose as Jesus taught.

Choose freedom over fear and failure.

Choose a loving relationship with God.

“And Jesus said to them (Pharisees), ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So, the Son of Man (Jesus) is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” (Mark 2:27-28, ESV)

Old Skin, New Wine

“One puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:22c [NASB])

In Mark 1-2, Mark pointedly recalled for his readers instances of Jesus’ authority and power from the start of His earthly ministry. In chapter one, Mark told of Jesus’ baptism (vs. 9-11) after which a voice from heaven said, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” Being the Son of God meant Jesus had the power and authority of God. Many people did not understand what was said or recognize God’s voice and so, the voice from heaven sounded like thunder to them.  After His baptism, Jesus immediately walked into the wilderness for forty days and faced temptations by Satan, against which He prevailed. After John’s arrest and before Jesus called disciples, He declared His purpose and ministry on earth. He said in 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark continued to tell of Jesus’ ministry and how He spoke with authority and power. He gave examples of Jesus’ power and authority. Consider these excerpts from Mark 1:

·         Mark 1:16-20 Jesus met and called Andrew, Simeon, James, and John to follow Him.

·         Mark 1:20-22 Jesus taught with authority, not as the scribes taught, in the Capernaum synagogue on the Sabbath.

·         Mark 1:23-28 Jesus met a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue. This spirit recognized Jesus and said, “I know who you are-the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and commanded it to come out of the man. With agony the unclean spirit left the man.

·         Mark 1:29-31 Jesus went with Simeon to his house, found Simon’s mother-in-law sick, and healed her.

·         Mark 1:32-34 Many people of the city-town of Capernaum brought the sick and demon-possessed to Jesus and He healed them.

·         Mark 1:39 Jesus went throughout Galilee preaching and healing.

·         Mark 1:40-45 Jesus healed a leper.

In chapter one, Jesus taught with authority and showed His authority and power by healing the sick, calling men to follow Him, declaring His purpose on earth, and casting out demons. Notice in this chapter, He did not face resistance from anyone for what He did. With the start of chapter two, Jesus encountered resistance from the Jewish religious leaders.

People continued to follow Jesus in Mark 2, but none yet believed in Him as the Messiah. The resistance He encountered came from the religious leaders of Israel. The leaders felt Jesus usurped their power so, they challenged Him. Beginning with this chapter, Jesus did more than teach with authority, heal, and cleanse. Consider what Mark wrote in Mark 2:1-17.

·         Mark 2:1-12 Jesus noticed four men lowering a paralyzed man through the roof of a home that contained a crowd so large they could not enter by the door. He forgave the man of his sins. The religious leaders questioned in their hearts how this man, a carpenter from Galilee thought He was God. According to the Law and themselves, this was blasphemy. Jesus challenged them by asking if saying your sins are forgiven is harder or saying get up, take up your mat, and walk. To prove Jesus is the Son of Man, just as Daniel 7 prophesied, He told the man to get up, take up your mat, and walk. By doing this, and the man’s ability to walk, Jesus proved He has the power and authority to heal and forgive sins.

·         Mark 2:13-17 Jesus saw Levi the tax collector and called him to follow Him. Levi invited Jesus and His disciples to eat at his house with his friends. The scribes and the Pharisees challenged His disciples. They asked, “Why is He eating with tax collectors and sinners?” (vs 16) Jesus replied, only the sick need a doctor, not the healthy.

In both passages in Mark 2, Jesus met resistance by the religious leaders. First, they questioned His authority in their hearts. Jesus said He knew what they thought and proved His authority to forgive and power to heal. In verses thirteen through seventeen, Jesus called a conspicuous sinner to be His follower then ate with that unclean person and His friends. The religious leaders would never consider associating with obvious sinners. They wanted to be the standard for holiness and have followers themselves. Jesus proved even sinners are worth His time and attention and can become holy, be healed. Jesus did not stop ministering. He taught the gospel, His purpose on earth, and healed, forgave, and cast out demons because of His love for people and to give examples of His power and authority.

To the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus was a blasphemer because He acted as if He was God by forgiving sins and declaring He is the Son of Man. These leaders knew Jesus came from Galilee and was a carpenter’s son. They understood from their reading of the manuscripts, from the oral tradition, and from their training, the Messiah would arise from the tribe of David, be a warrior king, and would re-establish David’s kingdom. This Jesus was not any of these in the religious leaders’ estimation. He must be a blasphemer they decided. According to God’s Law, blasphemer’s punishment was death by stoning. The religious leaders may have at first chose to side against Jesus because He appeared to be a blasphemer. As Jesus’ ministry continued and people decided to follow Him instead of the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, they became jealous and afraid they would lose their standing among and power over the Israelites. For these reasons, they sought to get rid of Jesus. With these twin emotions flowing through the hearts and minds of the religious leaders, they need not have worried. No one yet believed Jesus was the Messiah. They had not placed their faith in Him as the Messiah.

In Mark 2:18-22, Jesus will again teach by example and will use parables. He will rise to the challenge some people put to Him. Jesus will teach through three common analogies that everyone is unclean, and each person needs a Savior.

In the encounter by Jesus with the Pharisees in 2:12-17, the issue for the Pharisees, besides fear and jealousy, was eating with the unclean, at least the people the Pharisees considered unclean. Under Levitical law, people who were ritually unclean could not be around people who were clean. How was this designation determined? God chose the tribe of Levi to be His priests. He made them the law-teachers, keepers, and givers. They, too, were the judgment-givers God chose to tell the people how to become clean again when a person sinned against God. Remember, Israel was a theocracy, a nation whose head was God. The leaders of the people, the Levites, expanded on the laws God gave. Some of those expansions included not associating with people they considered unclean, sinners. Since the tax collectors took more money than the Roman government required and kept the excess for themselves, the tax collectors were sinners and, so, unclean. Others who the Levites considered unclean were prostitutes and lepers. God had a means by which every person could make atonement for his or her sin daily, the morning and evening sin sacrifice. God told the Levites to take the offering by the people and offer it to Him as a sin sacrifice each day. Until they sinned again, that sin offering for past sins sufficed to make them clean for that time. Yet, the Levites decided for themselves, once a sinner always a sinner, or in their thinking, once unclean always unclean. That is why eating with Levi and his friends was hard for the Pharisees to swallow. It makes the lesson of 2:18-22 difficult for them to grasp, too. Jesus confronts the Pharisees about their religious rituals and what He came to bring and give each person who believes in Him.

While John’s disciples and the Pharisees fasted, some people (other translators say onlookers or some of the disciples of these men.) asked Jesus, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” (2:18) Again, the question is about rituals. Before that time, the Pharisees instituted more weekly fasts so people would think they were more pious than other people and would look up to them. Those who did not fast as much as the Pharisees, the Pharisees considered beneath them, inferior. Because some of John’s disciples had remained loyal to the Pharisaical traditions, they, too, fasted more often than God required. Fasting in the Old Testament involved abstaining from food and possibly drink for a set period of time to express grief (1 Samuel 31:13, 2 Samuel 1:12 & 12:20-23), or penitence (1 Samuel 7:6 & 1 Kings 21:27), or to prepare one’s self for prayer (2 Samuel 12:16-17 & Psalm 35:13), or to seek the Lord’s favor (Judges 20:26 and 2 Chronicles 20:3). Jewish law required fasting only for humbling one’s self in preparation for and including the Day of Atonement. God declared purpose of the Day of Atonement was so the people could cleanse themselves from all sins before being with Him (Leviticus 16:29-31 & 23:27). In one other place, God commanded fasting as an act of contrition to return to Him with a person’s whole heart/being (Joel 2:12).

The Old Testament did not instruct people to fast two or three times a week. It never told the people to fast so he or she could appear more religious. Jesus confronted that misconception in Matthew 6:16-18. He condemned fasting to draw attention to one’s self and one’s piety. Similarly, Jesus told the people not to give alms or to pray so others would see them do these things. He told them, instead, go into a secret place and let God be the only one who sees you doing these things and He will reward you in secret (Matthew 6:1-8). Jesus did not condemn fasting. He even taught by example when He fasted forty days and nights in the desert in Matthew 4:2 and Luke 4:2. This justified fasting showed a person’s sincere seeking of God. It is a denying of one’s self (one’s flesh) and focusing on God. If we consider the New Testament after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Christian church fasted in preparation to make important decisions (Acts 13:2-3 & 14:23). They sought God while fasting instead of seeking to fill their flesh. The New Testament has no law requiring fasting.

While we do not know for sure who asked Jesus why He ate with sinners, we realize from the question asked, the person still did not believe about Jesus being the Messiah. By this question, we recognize the questioner realized Jesus did not follow the religious rituals. Jesus’ actions and teachings kept rubbing like sandpaper against the rituals the religious leaders set. They tried to force Him to do as they said, but He determinedly chose to follow God’s will and not what man dictated. Jesus, recognizing the unbelief of the questioner and the listeners, taught by using three commonplace occurrences in the lives of the Jews-weddings, repairing cloth, and storage of wine.

First, He asked, “While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they?” This was a rhetorical question. Everyone knew the answer to this was a resounding, “No.” Jesus continued, “So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.” (2:18-19) Jesus answered the rhetorical question leading the listeners to His point and alluding to His future-Jesus won’t be with His disciples on earth always. When He is gone, they will mourn and fast during their mourning. Jesus added another depth to this image. In the Old Testament, God is the bridegroom in Isaiah 54:5 & 62:5, and in Hosea 2:19. Since Jesus is the Son of Man, He used this metaphor of the bridegroom to refer to Himself. Now, consider the Israelites culture. When a wedding occurred, the wedding feast lasted seven days. Much rejoicing, eating, drinking, and dancing marked the wedding of a man and woman. Because Jesus has come as the Bridegroom, His followers are His bride and while He is with them, they would eat and drink. When Jesus left, His bride, the church, would mourn. His arrival as the Messiah, the Son of Man, was to be a time of celebration like a wedding, not a time of penitence, atonement, and grief.

Rejoice, the Messiah has come!

In this lesson, Jesus told the people not to use fasting as a marker of a person’s devoutness. When Jesus came, He fulfilled the Law; God required no fasting any longer. He didn’t remove fasting as a spiritual discipline. Jesus wanted the people to realize the gift of salvation came by God’s grace. Salvation requires grace, God’s grace, and nothing else. We cannot gain salvation by doing anything like praying, giving, or fasting. We don’t get more salvation by doing these things. Salvation is salvation. It is complete and sufficient (ample) for each of our sins. Salvation and grace come from God Who is perfect and holy.

Grace + nothing = Salvation

Because people often understand a lesson better by using everyday objects or occurrences, Jesus continued to answer this question using the analogy of a torn old cloth and a new cloth. He said in verse twenty-one, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results.” Read that verse again. Understand Jesus’ concern for the old cloth. His concern was that the tear would be greater than it was before the repair if the person used unshrunk cloth. Jesus came to give a new way to be in relationship, in covenant, with God. That new way is like the new cloth. If you try to sew new cloth onto the old cloth, the old way of living with its old rituals that did not give salvation, then the new cloth won’t stay attached and the old cloth will have a worse tear.

Consider the next analogy. Jesus said in verse twenty-two, “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” In that day, a tanner made a wineskin of a whole and uncut skin from a sheep or goat. He would remove first the neck, then each leg. After the tanner removed the skin, he tied off with a cord all but one opening, sheared the hair close to the skin, tanned the skin, and then turned it inside out. By skinning the animal this way, no leak could occur from a break in the skin. When a person put wine into the skins, the fermentation was not complete. During that fermentation, vapors arose. Those vapors would stretch the skin into which the vintner poured it. A new skin had elasticity to expand as the gasses arose from the fermentation process. An old skin was inflexible. If the vintner put new wine that was still fermenting into an old wineskin, the old skin that was rigid could not expand with the resultant gasses and would burst the old skin. The new wine of which Jesus spoke is His Holy Spirit whom He imparts to each believer. The old wineskin was the rituals of religion each of the Pharisees and John’s disciples used to show his piety. These rituals were something from their past of which they didn’t want to let go.

 Jesus showed concerned for the wine and the skins. He doesn’t want the faith of a person to become rigid and caught in ritual just to show one’s piety and prove he or she is better than other people. Jesus wants to give new life to each person. He wants to have His Spirit abide in each person to teach, equip, guide, encourage, admonish, and grow him or her into a closer relationship with God and likeness with Him.

Jesus lived every day with regular people. Some people were mostly good, some were considered unclean, some were sick, others were possessed by demons, all were sinners. When asked a question, Jesus wanted to make sure people understood Him well and so used analogies from every day life. These analogies are parables. Just as groomsmen do not fast at a wedding, but rejoice, Jesus wants us to rejoice with Him by accepting the new life He offers by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5, 8). Grace is God’s gift to us given by sacrificing His Son, Jesus, on the cross to take our penalty for our sins. Nothing we can do would be enough to cleanse us from what we’ve done wrong. Only God’s sacrifice of His sin-free and perfect Son is sufficient. Jesus wanted to make sure people understood this. The new life He gives cannot be added onto old rituals. We cannot and do not have to add any personal works-actions with resultant attitudes-to what Jesus gives us. When we believe in Jesus Christ, we become new like the new cloth and the new wineskin. If we just add what Jesus did to what we already do, the patch will tear off and the hole in the old cloth will be worse. Considering the analogy of the wineskins, when Jesus pours new wine into wineskin, He can’t pour it into an old wineskin of old rituals. It will burst. We cannot add the new way to the old way. The old wineskin of old rituals or religion cannot contain the Spirit of God. Keeping the old rituals means a person has not truly given his or her heart and life to God for salvation and His purposes. The person cannot grow and become more like Jesus daily because of the rigidity and bursting of their old wineskin. 

Each of us must look at our lives. We must ask ourselves what we do in our religious moments that are just ritual and what God requires. We cannot add to our salvation. Jesus paid the full penalty for each person’s sins. His sacrifice was sufficient and perfect. Nothing needs to be added, Nothing we, human, fallible created beings can add to it makes Jesus’ gift of salvation more perfect. Perfection is already perfect. So, what do we do? What religious rituals do we have that make us consider ourselves and ways as better? Do we go to church every time the doors are open? Do we make sure we are on every committee? Do we make sure we give the most money to church? Do we say long, rambling prayers in church, Bible study, cell groups, etc. to prove our piety? Do we fast every week and make sure people know it? People consider and do many other rituals to make themselves feel better and appear better than other people. But we must consider, does God require these of us or are we just doing them for show? The other side of this question is, are you making Jesus fit your idea of church? How are we making Jesus fit into our cloth or His Spirit into our wineskin? Do we think we can we even consider tell God where He is allowed in our lives? What arrogance and self-centeredness!

Perfection is already perfect.

Jesus’ offered salvation is already perfect!

Jesus invites us to His feast. He invites us to be His bride, His church. Jesus doesn’t come to fit our mold. He came to make us new and give us a new life. He calls us to rejoice with Him at the blessings of God each day. The people of Israel had trials, but He taught they could rejoice even while facing trials because He was their Bridegroom and was with them.

Today, we can know and believe with our hearts, Jesus is with us now. We can rejoice because of the hope He gives for now and eternity. Our faith doesn’t have to be old, dry, inflexible, torn, and human ritual. It can be alive because of it being in Jesus Christ. Jesus gave His sacrifice because of God’s grace. He gives us salvation and new life.

You no longer have to go to a wedding and fast.

Go to the wedding and rejoice…even during trials.

Jesus is enough. He paid it all.

God’s grace can save us through faith in Jesus Christ.

God offers salvation to everyone.

Will you accept?

¹And you were dead in your sins. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:1, 4-5, 8-9 [NASB])

Lord, I fail often. I am a sinner. I find what I do is not enough to make me feel good about myself. There’s nothing I can do to make my guilt go away and, Lord, I come today to lay it all down at Your feet. Please, take my pain and my shame. Take my heart; it’s all I have. Cleanse me. Make me new. Give me Your loving grace. I accept You as My Savior, Oh Son of God. Forgive me, please. Amen.