Monday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 17, 2021

Mark 2:18-22

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to Jesus and objected, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As 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 on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”

“The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.”  The verb here is in the imperfect, and so the sentence means: “The disciples . . . were those who fasted.”  While the Law prescribed fasting at various times, members of such sects as the followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees fasted regularly at other times as well.  In fact, fasting might be said to be their norm, with meals and feasting the exception.  This practice marked out the members of the sect from other Jews and also unified the members among themselves.  In some cases, the fasting was undertaken as penance and in others as a sign of preparedness for the coming of the Messiah and the “wedding feast” he would inaugurate: “He that has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice” (John 3, 39).  

“People came to Jesus and objected.”  The Greek text does not identify who it was who came to Jesus, here, although the inference is that it was a group of the disciples of the Pharisees and/or of John the Baptist.  It does not seem to be simply members of a curious crowd.  Also, the Greek text says nothing like “objected”.  The Greek verb means “they say”.  And so it seems that a group of those who were members of these sects were discussing their ways of life and someone brought up the followers of Jesus.  Did they not fast?  The question may seem trifling to us but actually had important ramifications.  Membership in a sect was tightly regulated.  We see this particularly among the Essenes, whose writings on the subject have come down to us.  A prospective member went through a probationary period of learning and conversion which might last years.  Being allowed to fast and eat within the sect was seen as a privilege.  But the disciples of Jesus did not fast — that is, above and beyond the fasting imposed by the Law.  It seemed, then, that there were no special requirements for a person to be his disciple.  What, then, did it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?  From the outside, it seemed very vague.

“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?”  The Lord identifies his disciples as “wedding guests”, that is, the friends of the bridegroom, thus making himself to be the bridegroom.  Since he uses terms John the Baptist used, this may indicate that Jesus was speaking primarily to John’s disciples here.  But the “bridegroom” of whom John spoke was the Messiah, and they all knew this well.  Jesus is telling them that his disciples did not fast because the sign was now fulfilled and fasting at this time was inappropriate because he, the Messiah, had arrived.  “As 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 on that day.”  The words “when the bridegroom is taken away” would not have made sense to them because according to their understanding of the Prophets, the Messiah, when he came, would institute a new age for Israel.  There would be no “taking away”.  Of course, we understand that the Lord is speaking of his Passion and Death and, following his Ascension into heaven, the remainder of the age until he comes again to judge the living and the dead.  The Lord speaks in prophecy.  But the fact that he left these others in darkness regarding his meaning reminds them that they are not his followers, and that there is a limit to what they can understand about him as outsiders.  

This “limit” as to what outsiders can understand about him is key to what he says next: “No one pours new wine into old wineskins.”  All the Evangelists quote Jesus using this figure.  The Lord is simply saying that without grace, faith is impossible (and without faith, we cannot understand who the Lord is or what he did except on a very rudimentary level).  Faith cannot be imparted to a person who is not made a new creation in baptism.  Grace makes a person a “vessel” capable of being filled with the “new wine” of faith.  

Baptized in Christ, we are new wineskins filled with his new wine, but we are not made so only in order to sit around and age in a cellar.  We are to go forth and to witness to the glory of our Vinter.