Did you ever see a water bag of canvas, or hessian?
.jpg "Hessian bag - probably would not hold water.")
The canvas water bag was not a skin but it could hold water, and even cool it. There was some loss, with water moving through the fabric. However, it was durable and effective.
Consider these words of Jesus: No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins.[b] Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins. Both the skins and the wine will then be safe (Matthew 9:16-17 CEV).
This was in a unique illustration used by Jesus; that is, unique in the record we have. We read it in Matthew 9, Mark 2 and Luke 5. The fact that all three Synoptics record this unique parable might give it some weight? But, maybe today's reaction to this parable is that the situation is all in the past; done and dusted? What does Jesus say here to this day? What do you think? Is there anything else with a comparable meaning? (Future post!)
Wine skin? Was Jesus concerned for the survival of containers, and wine? Hardly was that the point - the need is to consider the words in context - see below.
Incidentally, I would say the ancient use of an animal skin gave a less durable but more leakproof container. The animal must have been carefully butchered so that then the openings could be closed. Apparently the skin was not only dried (presumably after washing) but was also smoked (see Psalm 119:83), and so cured into its final shape. (Pots made of clay [eg, amphora] were also used extensively, but they could be cracked, etc.)
I have not seen a canvas or skin bag used to hold wine. I have seen old garments patched with new(er) cloth!
So then, to compare the relevant "new wine" accounts:
Some followers of John the Baptist came and asked Jesus, “Why do we and the Pharisees often go without eating,[a] while your disciples never do?” Jesus answered: The friends of a bridegroom aren't sad while he is still with them. But the time will come when he will be taken from them. Then they will go without eating. No one uses a new piece of cloth to patch old clothes. The patch would shrink and tear a bigger hole. No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins.[b] Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins. Both the skins and the wine will then be safe (Matthew 9:14-17 CEV).
Or, as Mark has it:
Once when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees do?” Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can’t fast while the groom is with them. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. “Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins” (Mark 2:18-22 NLT).
Or Luke
They said to him, “John’s disciples(b) often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom(c) fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them;(d) in those days they will fast.” He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better’” (Luke 5:33-39 NIV).
The questioners were reacting to unexpected change from their normal. According to Matthew the question came primarily from the followers of John (the baptist). I can easily imagine other people picking up on the matter.
They asked "why?"; "how come?" (So Matthew and Mark spell it out, and Luke implies). What was going on with fasting in those days? There were longstanding expressions of the then current religion but those expectations seemed to be crumbling around Jesus.
Their question was specifically about the matter of fasting, was it not? That is, about foregoing food in the interests of personal religious observance. I do not think the idea was frugality and economy to allow more generosity to the poor. Nor was it about any possible health benefit. No, this was (is) a matter of religious practice.
Jesus' answer parable - new wine, and new cloth - is not specifically about going without food, is it? What was he saying? He was preparing the way for his followers to merge into a new covenant via a new and living way (see below). In fact, to enter his undreamed-of kingdom.
As to the fasting, Jesus did say here that the time would come when his followers would fast, even though they were not at the time. We do even see possible evidence of that, then future, activity in the New Testament (NT) pages subsequent to Jesus. For instance, from the time when the message of Jesus was to be promoted outside Palestine: While they (Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen and Saul) were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2 NRSVUE). They were to go west...
There were well-established fasting precedents in the Old Testament (OT). For example, in Judges 20:26 we see people fasting (further below). However, just the same, I have not found a general injunction to fast, apart, possibly(!) from one specific day (further below). Was it common in everyday religious culture of earlier times, I wonder?
I have found stern warnings against thinking a fast can change things with God. If they fast, I will not hear their cry of despair. If they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. Rather, I will finish them off by sword, famine, and plague” (Jeremiah 14:12 CSB). This warning is more extensively given in Isaiah 58 (see below).
Isaiah answered the people who thought they had done their bit, but God had not "come good". (They had fasted! What had God done?)
Jesus recognised what was practised in his culture and, like the OT prophets, definitely warned against fasting for show: “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matthew 6:16-18 NIV). The chapter of Matthew contains a series of unique directions from Jesus against using almsgiving, or prayer, or fasting, for religious display. I am reminded of Jesus' description of the Pharisee of the parable in Luke chapter 18, who sadly thought his twice-weekly fast demonstrated his worthiness and gave him an advantage with God.
Jesus had described a true way to practice fasting (above). He had said his followers would fast when he was gone. Does that mean religious fasting is for now?
Whatever, it is clear there was an accepted fasting practice in Jesus' community which was not being observed around him, much to the puzzlement, or consternation, of the critics and others.
Incidentally, how did the questioners know his followers were not fasting? Did that indicate the practice was, for whatever reason, expected to be paraded? If the sequence of the text indicates the passage of time, it means that Jesus had already said (see above) fasting needed to be unremarkable; certainly not paraded.
So my questions lead to questions.
However, surely clear it is that Jesus wanted these around him to recognise that "things" could not remain the same. Big, very big, changes were in progress! Would the difference be permanent?
So, consider Luke's report: more fully: They said to him, “John’s disciples(b) often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom(c) fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them;(d) in those days they will fast.” He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better’” (Luke 5:33-39 NIV). "They" were concerned, or mystified, about the fasting practice missing in Jesus' circle, in contrast to amongst John's people.
Moreover, Jesus later pointed out that John himself had fasted: “For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon’ (Luke 7:33 NRSVUE). John was a very prominent person. He surely must have eaten and drunk, so I take Jesus' words as relating to fasting and abstinence.
However, subsequent to Jesus coming on the scene, a change had happened, a puzzling and unexpected change seen in fasting (non) observance - what did it mean? Where would it end? Is it just that being mournful does not fit being at a party? That was the simple meaning of Jesus' initial words, especially in Matthew.
But then he said more. A new phase had been reached in God's dealings with the world. This generation was, as it were, the "guinea pigs" for the new life. This was not a matter of patching up the old religion. The old had served its purpose. (You may recall the slogan about being well-worn but having worn well?) Once Jesus came, no good result would come from trying to hold on to the old.
Actually, a huge dislocation was upon them. Jesus' death on the execution cross would create a new and perfect way to join God's family, a way open to everyone. It would make no sense to cling to the former ways and risk God's final word. There was (is) a kingdom to enter.
This Jesus illustrated by someone wanting to store wine. They could risk the lot by insisting on using the old skin. The skin had to be new. It had to be stretchy to allow for fermentation. Some years later the Romans incidentally forced a drastic change in the practice of the ancient Hebrew religion. Today, even if it were possible, there would be no point to acting as in the days of King David, etc. In fact it would be quite futile. The old sacrifices could never finally deal with the impenetrable and unyielding sin barrier between us and God.
Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the way; the Way, which sadly was not welcome to all.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life!” Jesus answered. “Without me, no one can go to the Father” (John 14:6 CEV) - so Jesus said to them, and to us.
The "old wine" had the better taste? The comfort of a matured "drop" and familiarity. (These days the issue of years of cellaring may be quite significant.)
Jesus' way is(was) new, even though it relates to and arose out of the old. It made demands of transformed understanding. This is no change for change's sake. This new life is eternal life which God gives. God's gift had long been offered - it was implied in the sacrificial system of centuries gone. Now, the final clear offer was made, and is made.
Long ago, the writer of Hebrews spelled it out for us: And so, dear brothers and sisters,[a] we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death,[b] Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:19-22 NLT). Yes, a new and living way for those needing to be made clean. An open way for people.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9 NRSVUE). So Paul put it long ago. Before him, Jesus had said: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13 NIV). The need is to ask; the question is, how willing are you to ask, coming empty-handed, quite undeserving, but desperately needing mercy? You are welcome in Christ's kingdom.
The believing people of Jesus' generation faced huge change and new thinking. In a way hard for us to appreciate it must have been really challenging for the original hearers of the good news Jesus is, and Jesus brought. Their culture had a fixed mindset. We see something of that struggle in the subsequent pages of the New Testament (see, for example, Acts 11, Acts 15, Galatians).
In various parables and moments of (conversational) teaching Jesus had progressively revealed the nature of the new wine, and its new skins. Here is an extract from John (there is a lot more!): Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (John 6:32-40 NRSVUE). See what Jesus says about himself, and those who come to him. This was really new! People were offended by Jesus that day - were they so attached to their old wine they could not contemplate the truth?
For those who remained attached to Jesus, I think the previously unimagined development of belief in God is summed up in these words of his, from after his resurrection: Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20 NIV). Can you see the implication of Jesus' statement? The truth could now be known by all those willing to hear it. The offer was free and with no prior conditions. This was(is) new wine.
ADDENDUM
1. Wine
Note: Old wine is better? I guess we would say grape juice fermented to produce alcohol and allowed to sufficiently mature. (The wines of today may be a bit different to those of Jesus' day?)
I was sad and disappointed to discover in recent years that alcohol, unfortunately, is a carcinogen. Following medical advice may keep the drinker's health risk lower. The specific drug (alcohol) I think I can safely assume was the same in Jesus' day? Dosage from imbibing then was probably quite a lot lower. (Certainly ancient wine could cause intoxication.)
How about Paul's advice to Timothy: Don’t drink only water. You ought to drink a little wine for the sake of your stomach because you are sick so often (1 Timothy 5:23 NLT)? No doubt it was the best advice he could come up with. Perhaps the water was well below our standard. Wine was regularly mixed with water, which may have disinfected the water.
Jesus made "best wine" from water (John 2)? If it was over 450 litres, that seems to be a lot of it!
Everyone has to make and follow their own choice in this. (Information links below.) I hope you, reader, have considered your own risk of alcohol induced disease.
2. Fasting
An ancient instance of fasting comes from the period of the reconstruction of Jerusalem. The Babylonian empire, the destroyers of the first Temple, had fallen to the Persians. Jerusalem was being re-established. We read of an occasion (in about 444 BC) of corporate admission of failure and of self-abasement to God in community.
On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads (Nehemiah 9:1 NIV).
What is this "fasting"?
From the Hebrew Bible in Leviticus we find instructions which may be taken to apply to going without food on one specific day (The Day of Atonement). However, consider these contrasting (valid) translations of that earlier directive to ancient Israel:
On the tenth day of the seventh month of each year, you must go without eating to show sorrow for your sins, and no one, including foreigners who live among you, is allowed to work (Lev 16:29 CEV).
“And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves[a] and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (Leviticus 16:29 ESV).
“This shall be a statute to you forever: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble yourselves[a] and shall do no work, neither the native-born nor the alien who resides among you (Leviticus 16:29 NRSVUE).
As we see, the word used in the Hebrew Bible here may validly be taken as meaning fasting, or afflict yourselves, or humble yourselves. (This can be seen in the marginal readings.) Not so the word here in the Greek Bible (LXX), which is about being humble, not necessarily about being hungry.
In this use of words I find a pointer to what true fasting could be about.
The specific Leviticus observance was strongly sanctioned, though this same passage favours here cessation from normal activity as the meaning of the word which may be translated "fast": Those who do not deny themselves on that day must be cut off from their people. I will destroy from among their people anyone who does any work on that day (Leviticus 23:29-30 NIV). "That day" was the Day of Atonement, the day the High Priest sprinkled sacrificial blood in the appointed place to atone for his own sins and the sins of the people.*
The first hungry fasting instance I find in Hebrew Bible text comes from Judges (below), during conflict which I would call civil war - Abraham's people at war with Abraham's people.
Then all the people of Israel, the whole army, went up and came to Bethel and wept. They sat there before the LORD and fasted that day until evening, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD (Judges 20:26 ESV). Things had gone badly for their side!
I will not attempt to deal with the relevant incident account in Judges; I merely cite the instance of not eating used for religious purposes. This fits with the later example from Nehemiah (above) and other instances, such as with the adulterer King David in 2nd Samuel chapter 12.
Nonetheless, if there is to be fasting, surely the prophet Isaiah, two hundred or so years later than David, leaves us in no doubt about what kind of fasting God wants. Here is his lengthy proclamation:
(6) “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
New Testament instances re fasting
CEV [a] 4.2 without eating: The Jewish people sometimes went without eating (also called “fasting”) to show their love for God or to show sorrow for their sins.
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