FASTING OR FEASTING

Mt 9:14-17

This passage continues the narrative of Matthew’s feast. The Pharisees were not the only ones surprised to see Jesus among tax collectors and sinners; John the Baptist’s disciples were also dumbfounded. From their perspective, Jesus was feasting while they were fasting, quite a contrast on what is perceived to piety. They assumed Jesus and His disciples would do as they did, and practice piety by being separated from the world. When Jesus is asked: why you and your disciples do not fast? He answered with a vivid picture of the wedding ceremony.

"The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." Jesus compares himself to the bridegroom and his disciples to the closest friends of the bridegroom. Then how could a company like that be sad and grim? That was not time for fasting but for rejoicing. There are great things in this passage. Jesus' reply to the question is not a yes-no answer, but has a time factor involved in it. What seems extremely remarkable is the kind of answer this is.

What Jesus is, in fact, saying is that for his disciples it is his personal presence or absence that determines whether or when they fast: Thus Jesus' reply implied the following: "Fasting is not determined for my disciples by the ordinances of Judaism but by their personal relationship to me.

He is questioning the old order of Judaism and suggesting something quite new: a new ordinance where he himself is the determining factor, not the old regulations. So, in this metaphor Jesus' point is essentially a negative one: the new order cannot be integrated into or joined onto the old order. New wine in fresh wineskins.

Three things for us today:

1. This passage tells us that to be with Jesus is a thing of joy. In the presence of Jesus there is cheer. Gloomy-encompassed Christianity is an impossibility.

2. It also tells us that no joy lasts forever. Worldly joy is always passing it is transitory. Only the joy of God lasts forever, and if we have it in our hearts nothing can take that joy away from us.

3. This is also a challenge Jesus giving it to his disciples and to us today that you have experienced the joy that following can bring; be also ready to go through the trouble, the hardship, the suffering of a Christian cross. The Christian way brings its joy, but the Christian way also brings its blood, its sweat and its tears which none the less must be faced. So Christ is saying: are you ready for both the Christian joy and the Christian cross?