TITLE: “From Fasting to Feasting with the Bridegroom”

 

In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.  Our text for today is from the Gospel just read, from Mark chapter two.  The theme for our sermon is “From Fasting to Feasting with the Bridegroom.”

Fasting is a practice that is not very common in our culture today.  In fact, many consider the idea of having any kind of discipline about food as extremist or bizarre.  To be sure, diets are as common today as the McDonald’s around the corner, but why do we diet?  We diet to lose weight, to feel or look better, maybe to make a better impression or even to get a better job.  Dieting, or discipline about food, for most people isn’t a way of life; it is a means to get somewhere else.

Fasting in Jesus’ day, however, served many purposes.  There was one day in the Old Testament that was set aside for fasting: The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur.  This was the one-day of the year that the High Priest would make a sin offering at the Temple, and would cleanse the people from their sins.  There were other times when people would fast, however.  Times of penitence, national calamity, or mourning were also appropriate times for fasting.

The Pharisees, however, could not be satisfied with that.  They fasted on two days of every week, Mondays and Thursdays.  This was a part of their regular piety.  It was a show, to demonstrate to the people how holy and righteous they were.  We fast twice a week, which means that we are better than any of the rest of you.  Can you remember the story of the Pharisee and the Tax-collector?  That’s what the Pharisee claimed before God, as a way of proving his righteousness and worthiness.   Tragically, it appears in our text that some of John’s disciples had aligned themselves with the Pharisees.  So it is appropriate that the people should ask Jesus, Why do John’s and the Pharisee’s disciples fast, but not yours?

Now in order to understand this, we have to know some of the context.  Right before our text, Jesus called Matthew the tax-collector, and Matthew in celebration threw a feast, a party in Jesus’ honor.  So Jesus went to Matthew’s house, and ate with “tax collectors and sinners.”  This, of course, utterly scandalized the Pharisees, because Jesus’ feast was probably on one of these days for fasting.

Jesus in our text makes a comparison.  He compares himself to the bridegroom, or groom.  When the bridegroom is present, it is a time of rejoicing!  This is a time to celebrate.  So what Jesus is saying is that when He is present, it is a time to rejoice.  Jesus wasn’t criticizing fasting per se, but rather the unfaithful and pointless abuse of fasting.  Jesus said that there would be a time when he would be taken away from them.  That was after the Last Supper, when he was taken away to be killed for our sins.  But when Jesus is present, it is a time to rejoice!

We shouldn’t be too hard on these Pharisees, though.  We do the equivalent of showy fasting all the time.   How many of us like to trot out our service in the church as proof of how good we are?  We so love to have high opinions of ourselves.  I help at the church, I do this or that in the community or at home, and that makes me a worthy person.  That is proof that I am good, and that I deserve to be praised and honored above all men.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not saying that these things are bad or wrong.  They are good and worthy.  But we use them to our own sinful purpose.

Frankly, it’s incredible how our sinful minds and hearts can twist the good and noble into the sick and wrong.  God is working great things in you, and you want to take credit for it!  God is come into our midst to forgive sins and create anew, and we somehow want to live back under the Law.  We want to fast and to do good works, in order to prove to God that we are worthy of His love.  You are not worthy of His love.  That’s the Law.  The Law demands perfection, and no amount of good or pious work on your part can complete this.  There’s nothing you can do to please God, because you are a sinner to the core.

To demonstrate this point, Jesus’ uses a couple parables.  No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, otherwise when the new piece shrinks, it will make the tear worse.   It’s like this.  If you take a pre-shrunk piece of cloth and sew it onto a piece of cloth that has not been pre-schrunk, what’s going to happen?  It’s going to bunch up, and probably tear one or both of them, because they weren’t made to go together.  But Jesus is not talking about sewing techniques here.  He is talking about your nature.  Your nature cannot be reformed.  It is easy to think that our human nature is just a little tarnished, just a little dirty around the edges.  Clean it up and it will be just fine.  Jesus says, no!  Not true.  Your so-called righteousness are as filthy rags.  These rags can’t be cleaned up or repaired.  They are not compatible with the new.  They need to be tossed aside and new ones put in place.

And that’s what Jesus does.  He’s talking about Baptism here!  Remember the words of Paul, For as many of you have been Baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.  Your old, filthy human nature is taken away and burned, and you are clothed with Christ.  That is your new nature.  Oh, to be sure, there are still remnants of that old nature that try to creep up and remind you of what you once were.  But you are now in Christ.  You have put on Christ.  He covers you with the white garments of salvation.  That is who you are.  Christ doesn’t try to fix you.  By your own nature, you are beyond help.  So he does one better.  In Baptism, Christ starts over.  He begins anew with you.  If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  That’s you.  You are in Christ.  You are new.  The works of yesterday, the scrambling and scratching to please the demands of the Law are over.  Christ has cast Satan out of you and made you new in Him.

And in the same way, Jesus tells another parable.  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.  Old wineskins were already stretched out.  They had no place to expand with new wine.  So trying to put new wine into old wineskins was a waste; it would ruin the new wine.  Now remember, Jesus isn’t talking about simply wine here; He is talking about Himself, and He is talking about you.  You can’t receive the wine of His blood based on your old nature.  You would burst with the holiness of it.  But when you are made new, then you can receive the wine of His blood in faith.

Christ has made you anew.  Jesus has recreated you in His image, to be His sons and daughters, so that you may feast with Him and the great banquet of heaven.  You come to the altar and receive the bread of His body and the wine of His blood, because you are a new creation.  And this feast, it does more than simply remind you of something Jesus did.  No, this feast of heaven actually gives you what is promised.  Take eat, take drink, for the forgiveness of sins.  Every time you come to this Altar, you are recreated in His image.  You are reconnected to the God who loves you, who wants what is best for you.  You are re-grounded in the God of all creation.  This is the God who comes to you, who knows your hurts and sorrows, and who will do anything for you, even to the point of a lonely death on the cross.  For you.  For you.  For you.

Do you remember the words of the catechism?  Who receives such Sacrament worthily?  How does it go?  “Fasting and outward preparation are certainly fine outward training. But that person is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words: "Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”  Luther commends fasting and outward preparation for the Lord’s Supper, but there is only one thing that makes one worthy: Faith.  And remember, this isn’t faith that you make.  This isn’t a faith that you try and gauge and measure by how good you feel or how much you want to do good things.  No, it is faith that God gives.  It is faith that says “AMEN” when Jesus says, “I forgive you your sins.”  This is faith that simply believes the words, “given and shed for you.”

Jesus said that His disciples should feast when He is present, and fast when He is gone, to prepare themselves for His coming.  His departure was at Calvary, when He died on the cross for your sins.  But he returned.  And he promised to them, I will never leave you nor forsake you.  So now He comes to you, to feast with you, and rejoice in His great salvation.  That is why every Sunday morning is a victory feast for God.  Every Sunday we gather, or better, are gathered together by God, to hear and receive the great work that His Son, Jesus, did on the cross for our salvation.

So what does this have to do with your life today?  It has everything to do with it!  God has freed you to do great things for the kingdom.  Oh, sure, they may seem like little things to the world, like doing a bake sale or helping with the altar guild or whatever.  But in God’s eyes because of Christ, they are wonderful and great!  Think of it like this.  If you are a parent, and you see your child try to help out with something around the house, it’s an incredible thing, isn’t it?  It’s incredible because they’re helping, but it’s also incredible, because they learned it from you, from watching you, from following your example.  In the same way, God rejoices in the things we do on this earth to His glory, because they are a reflection of who He is as the Lord of all creation.

Rejoice, then, children of the heavenly Father!  You are in his hand, and He cares for you when no one else cares.  He comes to give you the greatest and most wonderful gifts of all time:  Forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  When you have that, everything else pales by comparison.  He gives you life, hope, forgiveness, and peace that only he can give.  So come and get it.  Join in the feast of the Lamb.  Eat his body and drink His blood, and be connected to the eternal God of our salvation.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

 And now the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.

 

Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Epiphany 8B (Feb. 27, 2000)

Mark 2: 18-22

 

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Last Revised: February 28, 2000