Mark 2:18-22 NRSVue
18Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19Jesus said to them, “The wedding attendants cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.
21“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22Similarly, no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins, but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”
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Some thoughts on this scripture
Reflection
The life of religious people is always open to scrutiny and examination from outside. I pray that my way of living communicates gospel values. I take care not to come to uncharitable judgments about the way others live.
Reflection
God calls me to growth and new life. I pray that I may receive all the goodness God has to offer me, being made anew in the image of God.
Reflection
People noticed the contrast between two sorts of religion: the Pharisees'
preoccupation with laws and regulations, and Jesus' love of celebrations and
feasts. In his parables the kingdom of heaven is often a banquet, a wedding,
a party: a place of untrammelled joy, not of tight rules. It is so easy for
us to reduce the interior life, and the freedom and flame of the Gospels, to
a set of pieties and regulations. Jesus would measure our religiousness not
in laws but in love. His images here are of freshness: new clothes, new wine.
Things are different now that he is among us. A new era has begun
Reflection
A religious tradition was to fast when something was missing - to remind us
that we are waiting for god in life, to ask for something, or to be rescued
in bad times. Here Jesus is proclaiming that the one they were waiting for
has come. Rejoicing rather than a penitential fast would be the response.
Sometime in the future will be a time for fasting; the listeners are left
wondering what this might be. We know ourselves that life is a rhythm of
death and resurrection, with its time for rejoicing and times of sadness. The
bridegroom has come - Jesus the Son of God. This is for our safety in bad
times to come.
Reflection
The life of religious people is always open to scrutiny and examination from
outside. I pray that my way of living communicates gospel values. I take care
not to come to uncharitable judgments about the way others live.
Reflection
God calls me to growth and new life. I pray that I may receive all the
goodness God has to offer me, being made anew in the image of God.