Mark 2:18-22 - Jesus Blows Up Religion - June 6, 2021

In comparison to the other gospels, Mark’s gospel reads almost like an action thriller. Even though we’re only in the second chapter, Jesus has already been incredibly busy. He’s been baptized and tempted (Mark 1:9-13). He’s driven out demons (Mark 1:21-28); relieved the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-34); preached throughout Galilee (Mark 1:35-39); cleansed a leper (Mark 1:40-45); and gave a paralytic his legs back (Mark 2:1-12). But in our text for this morning, Jesus does something no one would expect: he blows up religion.

We tend to think of Jesus as a kind of a kind, gentle, even somewhat timid teacher. But when you read the actual accounts of his ministry, you get a totally different picture. Jesus seems to go out of his way to poke the tiger, to offend the elitists of his time: the religious leaders. He knew that the Pharisees are spying on him and his disciples, trying find some way to discredit him – in today’s terms – “cancel” him from Israelite society. And yet when all of the other devout Jews – the Pharisees and John’s disciples included – were fasting, Jesus allowed his disciples to eat. This was a brazen, “in-your-face” rejection of a near universally accepted and centuries old tradition. It would be like us not putting up a tree at Christmas or not having lilies here on Easter. Why would anyone blow up such a precious, almost sacred, tradition?

The first reason is rooted right in the Old Testament. God had only commanded his chosen people to fast on one day of the year – Yom Kippur, the Great Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29, 31; 23:27). On that day God wanted every Israelite to go hungry from sunrise to sunset – as a visible sign of their contrition and repentance over their sin. Certainly, the Israelites could fast at other times for other reasons – especially in times of crisis, death, or when taking a vow – but those fasts were to be voluntary, private and personal (Jeremiah 52; Zechariah 8:19; Matthew 6:16-18). The Jews later added additional fasting days to mourn the destruction of Jerusalem (Zechariah 7) and very devout Jews would fast every Monday and Thursday – to recall that Moses went up Mt. Sinai on a Thursday and came down on a Monday (Luke 18:12). The thought was: “If a little fasting is good, more is better.” For devout Jews, fasting was a big deal; something they did over a hundred days a year.

But we’re not Jews and we aren’t living in the OT; what should we think about fasting? Well, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. Martin Luther said that it “may serve a good purpose” in preparing to receive Holy Communion (Holy Communion, IV), by using our stomachs as an instrument to focus our hearts and minds on our desperate need to eat this meal. Many doctors and dieticians recommend alternating periods of fasting and feasting in order to maintain good health. And, today, I will agree with them. Not necessarily because fasting leads to better physical health – I’m no doctor – but because if we can retake control of our stomachs, we can be set free from the false religion of dieting.

Yep, you heard that right. Dieting has become a religion in our country, a religion run by unordained priests who claim to possess secret nutritional knowledge, who demand costly sacrifices of time and money, who hold out the ever-elusive promise that you too can have a perfectly sculpted physique and a perfectly healthy body – if you simply buy their books and do exactly what they tell you. And what do you get out of it? Guilt. You eat a slice of wedding or graduation cake and you feel guilty. So you confess your sin: “I shouldn’t have eaten that. I’m bad.” You vow to do penance: “I’ll just eat a salad tomorrow.” You engage in cult-like rituals: “I’ll go for a walk or run.” Guilt…confession…penance…ritual? It’s a religion! And do you know what happens? The religion of diet and exercise robs you of the joy of freely eating the food that your good and gracious God has provided for you (James 1:17).

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that all dieting or fasting is bad. While God has not commanded us to fast in the New Testament (Colossians 2:20-23), fasting can be a good way to discipline ourselves, to remind our bodies that they belong to us – not the other way around (1 Corinthians 9:27). It’s good to occasionally remind yourself that you don’t have to eat every time you feel hungry; that not every desire needs to be acted on; not every itch needs to be scratched. Fasting can help your prayer life – it frees you to fold your hands rather than cook; your mouth from chewing to speaking to your Father in heaven. Fasting can help you recognize and confess your sinfulness, too. When your stomach aches with hunger your body is reminding you of the poor, miserable, decaying and dying and starving sinner that you are. It reminds us that we are little more than dust and that to dust we will return (Genesis 3:19). So fasting can be good. But here’s the key: it’s not good enough to please God. God is not more or less pleased if you eat only vegetables or only protein or pass on the gluten; whether you drink soy milk or Miller Lite; whether you eat dessert or not. Even when God commanded his OT people to fast, he didn’t do it for his own good, but for theirs. But in the NT, whether you fast or diet or not is irrelevant to your relationship with God.

But back to the question at hand: why didn’t Jesus’ disciples fast like other devout Jews? Jesus answers: The friends of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. Jesus’ point is pretty obvious, isn’t it? You don’t fast at a wedding – you feast. And being with Jesus is like being at a wedding reception that never ends. Where Jesus is, there is joy. He turns mourning into dancing, grief to joy, death to life (Psalm 30:11-12). He forgives sins and raises the dead. Fasting and Jesus simply don’t go together. He goes on: but the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then on that day they will fast. Jesus is most likely alluding to Good Friday. I doubt the disciples enjoyed an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet as their Savior hung on the cross bleeding and dying. But, when Jesus is present, there can only be joy and feasting. That’s one of the reasons why if you add up the calendar days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, you come up with 46 days, not the 40 days of Lent we usually refer to. Why? The Sundays don’t count. Sundays are a break from the fast of Lent. They are little, weekly reminders that while Jesus would die, he would also rise again – which is a reason to feast, not fast.

But the real issue runs deeper than what or when you choose to eat. It has to do with the demon called Religion and all the ways we cook up to try to get right with God on our own. John Calvin famously stated that “the human mind is…a perpetual forge of idols.” [1] In other words, our minds can take a good thing, a blessing from God, and make an idol of it. Take fasting for example. Like the nutritionists say, fasting can be a good and healthy practice. But if we take fasting and make a good, meritorious work out of it – one that makes us right with God – then we’ve turned it into an idol. And then all you’re left with is Christless, grace-less, salvation-less Religion (just ask any of your Catholic friends who give up meat during Lent – ask them if they feel joyful and free or guilty and burdened).

Jesus illustrates how salvation by grace and salvation by works are incompatible: No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the patch shrinks, the new tears away from the old, and a worse tear is made. Jesus didn’t come to be a patch-job on the Law given on Mt. Sinai, a band-aid to be applied to the few times we’ve ripped up God’s Law. You can’t stitch Jesus on the torn rags of religion and have him stick. He’ll rip the thing to shreds, just like the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom on Good Friday (Matthew 27:51). That’s the day God put Religion out of business once and for all. When Jesus, God’s only-begotten Son, laid down his life for the sins of the world – the sinful world and God were reconciled once and for all (2 Corinthians 5:19-21). How can you possibly improve on what Jesus did? How can you add to it? In fact, if you try, Jesus says that you end up destroying both. If you try to add your good works to Jesus’ completed work of salvation, you end up voiding the blank check of God’s grace. So what should you do with the old Religion of works? Well, what do you do with an old, worn out pair of pants when you have a perfectly good new pair? You throw them away! And what are you going to do with the old, torn up cloth of your good works when God has already covered you in righteousness in Baptism (Galatians 3:27)? You’ll get rid of your own filthy rags and put on the spotless robe of Jesus’ righteousness instead (Ephesians 5:25-27).

Jesus paints another picture of the incompatibility of grace and works: No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will pour out, and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins. Trying to squeeze Jesus into Religion is like pouring bubbly, fermenting wine into wineskins that are all stiff and stretched out. They can’t handle the pressure. They will burst Jesus says. That word, burst, comes from the same word as the word fulfill – as in, do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy them but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). Jesus figuratively poured himself into the old wineskins of the Law and filled them up to overflowing by his perfect life and innocent death. Jesus “ruined” the power of the Law that stood over us by keeping it for us (2 Corinthians 3:7-11).

Therefore, Jesus is the end of Religion; the end of negotiating with God, the end of deal-making and bargaining, of obedience and commandment keeping as a way to earn God’s favor. God doesn’t want it; you don’t need it. You are already at peace with God through faith in Jesus (Romans 5:1). That’s the good news that Christianity is supposed to be broadcasting to the world. Christianity is not about rules and regulations but about the good news that Jesus has fulfilled and therefore saved us from the demands of the Law. Don’t believe those demonic “coexist” bumper stickers that equate Christianity to Islam and Judaism and Hinduism. Those man-made religions are all about trying to deal with God on our terms – in terms of obedience and law-keeping. It’s a waste of time and energy – and, eventually, eternity. God and man are reconciled in Christ. You and God are reconciled and at peace in through faith in Christ. Period. And that’s a reason to rejoice.

You may want to diet or exercise – your doctor may even order you to do it, but don’t do it to make yourself right with God. You will want to keep the commandments, but don’t do it because you think that the filthy rags of your good works (Isaiah 64:6) will ever appease God’s wrath over your sins. You will want to come here regularly to remember your Baptism, to hear the words of Absolution, to receive the body and blood of your Savior – and you might even want to fast before church on Communion Sundays – but don’t do it for God, do it for yourself – to remind yourself of how sinful you are and how badly you need to receive God’s grace in this meal. Go ahead and fast and diet and exercise and obey with all your heart – but when you’re all dried up and worn out and starving, come here. Come here to feast on the Gospel truth that the bridegroom is here with tables overflowing with forgiveness, joy, and salvation. Because when you have Jesus, you don’t fast, you feast. Amen.   

[1] https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.xii.html