New Wine in Old Wineskins

Nearly 20 years ago, a friend visited me on a Friday morning in Ooty, India. As customary, I offered him a cup of tea. He politely refused, saying that he fasted every Friday. That was a big sacrifice for him since he was a diabetic patient.

People fast for various reasons. Hannah fasted since she didn’t have a baby (1 Sam 1:7–8). David fasted since his baby was on the deathbed (2 Sam 12:16). Israelites fasted when they fought their brothers, the Benjaminites (Jud 20:26), and when Saul and Jonathan died (1 Sam 31:13). They often fasted when they sinned and were sorrowful (1 Sam 7:6; Ezra 8:23; Neh 1:4; Isa 58:3). And Ahab fasted when he heard the prophecy that dogs would eat his wife Jezebel’s dead body (1 Kings 21:27). Basically, sad and sorrowful people fasted.

Fasting is “not eating.”* Those who fasted abstained from food as a sign of mourning and sorrow.

In Jesus’s time and among religious circles, fasting became a sign of piety. When the religious leaders fasted, they didn’t wash their faces, looked somber, and disfigured their faces for people to see and praise them for their reverence (Matt 6:16). They boasted about the frequency of their fasting (Luke 18:12).

This was a new teaching compared to the old teaching of fasting because one was sad for a misfortune or sorrowful for sins or evil committed. Both teachings don’t mix like oil and water.

While Jesus was teaching in Galilee, some disciples of John and some disciples of the Pharisees were listening. Unlike their teachers, who taught them to fast once or twice a week, Jesus nor his disciples fasted. Instead, they feasted even in tax collectors’ houses.

When those disciples challenged Jesus, he asked them a commonsense question.

“The sons of the bridegroom cannot fast when the bridegroom is with them, can they?” (Mark 2:19) **

They would have attended many weddings and known the answer was “no.” Sons of the bridegroom wouldn’t be fasting but feasting. Jesus continued:

“The days are coming when their bridegroom will be snatched away from the sons. On that day, they will fast” (2:20).

Jesus foretold of his death and departure and the disciples’ sadness and sorrow by his absence. That would be the reason for the disciples to fast – sadness, the original definition of fasting.

The old and new definitions of fasting shouldn’t be mixed. Mixing them would be as disastrous as stitching a new piece of unshrunk clothe with an old worn-out garment. When we wash, the new piece of clothe will shrink and tear the old garment. Similarly, mixing these two definitions of fasting would be as foolish as putting new wine in an old wineskin. When the new wine ferments and expands, the old wineskin will burst, spilling the contents.

Jesus taught them that fasting for sorrowfulness and religious piety were different. Fasting for sorrowfulness was the old definition of fasting. His disciples would do such fasting when he departed them. Fasting for a show of piety was the new definition of fasting, which he didn’t advocate. Both these teachings do not go together.

We, too, must ask ourselves why we fast. If we fast because we are sad, sorrowful, or want God to answer our prayers, then we follow the biblical definition of fasting. But if we fast for a show of piety, it is pharisaical hypocrisy.

*The Greek word is nesteuo (νηστεύω) from ne (νη) “not” and esthio (εσθίω) “to eat.”

**Jesus called the disciples the bridegroom’s sons, showing a close connection between them.