"How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" He spoke for all of us. My stomach was empty, and it constantly let me know, but that is the way of it. I am supposed to fast with no questions asked. Yet, this teacher, this Yeshua, who seemingly possesses an incredibly thorough understanding of our laws and customs, never seems to fast. Not to mention, his followers never seem to fast either.
"How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is still with them," Yeshua answered, "The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, then they will fast." Before I had time to ponder what he meant by this, he kept going!
"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse." What did that have to do with fasting?
"Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."
I left his talk mulling over those words. So strange and yet, for some reason, so vexingly profound! As a teacher of the Law, this shouldn't be hard for me to understand. It's such a simple question, "Why don't you fast?" And yet he never seems to address the subject at hand.
Fasting, patches, wineskins... I do not understand. Perhaps what the others are saying is true. This is a madman who is only seeking to confuse and agitate teachers of the Law while creating his own following. Yet, I can't get his strange teaching out of my mind! Fasting... patches... wineskins... Fasting... patches... winesk-
Wait... what if instead of looking at this solely from my understanding of those things, I were to turn my understanding of fasting. Yeshua was referring to fasting in the first place, right? Perhaps there is more to his words. I suppose it is time to ask myself, "what is fasting?"
I suppose it is one way of cleansing myself from all that is unclean. It is a form of purification, but we also fast in mourning to remind ourselves of the frailty of flesh. But are these the real reason for my fast? No, I fast because it is expected of me. I feel no more cleansed from my fast than I expect a pig would feel if it stopped eating for 40 days. I feel no sense of cleansing... no sense of...
Is that it? Am I the old wineskin? Am I the patch which refuses to shrink? Am I expecting to be preserved by my fast only to find that I am still decaying? If yes, then why? Am I not a pharisee; a teacher of the law, one chosen for the task of mediating The LORD's mercy on his people, Israel? Yet I feel... No I know, that I am nothing but an old, crusty, skin which no amount of ritual can keep from bursting when the cleansing wine of my fast pours right though me. I am not preserved, and neither is the meaning behind my fast. It is nothing. But should it not be something?
How then do I become like a new wineskin? How do I become like a cloth suitable to repair the garment? Perhaps at my next encounter with Yeshua, I shall ask him.
-From the Eyes of a Pharisee
