Some asked Jesus why if the Pharisees fasted and the disciples of John fasted, why didn’t his group fast. Jesus responds that when a marriage celebration was going on no one acts the way they do in their other life.
We went though a wedding a while back. We lived our normal lives until the day of the wedding. At that time, we suspended our normal lives and didn’t worry about anything. It was a night to celebrate. The next day we slowly came back to reality.
God was in their midst. There was reason to celebrate. They could get back to a sort of normal routine when he was gone.
Weddings change everything. After the vows all relationships are forever redefined, and what worked before will not work now. After the vows the couple become responsible for and to each other. Parents “lose” children and “gain’ children. After the wedding the nature of how the couple have been regarded has changed.
We can fool ourselves into thinking that we are the same people, that the wedding hasn’t changed us, but time will reveal to us the fundamental change that has occurred.
Jesus uses unshrunk cloth on old cloth and new wine in old wineskins to illustrate that this fundamental shift cannot be overlaid on existing frameworks. It is wholly different. And if you attempt to just place it within an existing structure, it will damage the existing framework, much like if you continue to act as if you are single, you will damage the marriage.
Prayer: Help me understand the radical nature of being joined to You, how relationships are totally redefined, not just modified. Help me to live in this new relationship and resist the temptation to make it just an extension of old thinking. Give me eyes that are willing to accept something new.
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