From Matthew 9:14-17 – Reckoning with the New Covenant. Two things stand out in this encounter, which at first glance do not seem connected. But they are.

In the first instance, this question of fasting is posed to Jesus. John’s disciples and the Pharisees practiced regular fasting as a spiritual exercise. It is interesting to note however, that while God instituted a number of feasts for the Israelites, He commanded only 1 fast – on the Day of Atonement. Fasting always includes some element of mourning in it. To ignore this element leads to a superstitious use of fasting to somehow bend the arm of God against His will.

Because of this element of mourning, while Jesus was among them as God incarnate, the time of fasting and mourning was not appropriate.

Now while Jesus was here, the rest of the world hadn’t stopped. There was misery going on all around. The effects of sin had not been eradicated. But we see then that there are seasons to life – which ebb and flow but do not change the entire picture. There will be seasons of God’s outpouring, and seasons of seemingly little Spirit activity. There will be times when God’s movements are easily discerned, and times when they are more hidden from view. Times of mourning, and times of great joy. No one thing like these dominates all at all times. And so He told them that at the present, fasting was not appropriate for His disciples, but in days ahead, it would be. Serving God cannot be reduced to religious observances, no matter how pious they may seem.

Connected to this, is that Jesus begins to unpack the reality of an entirely new age dawning – the age of the New Covenant. And He introduces the idea in very instructive way. With the similes of patching old garments and putting new wine into new wineskins, He graphically communicates a most important reality.

In essence – contrast to how they were living out their religious lives under the Old Covenant (with all of the invented innovations) He in effect says: I have not come to repair an old system. I have come to make everything new. I have not come to revise Judaism but to institute its fulfillment. This is the New Covenant, not the Old one. And such a Covenant requires a New People, a regenerated people – recreated to receive the fullness of what it is Christ is bringing. They cannot accept what He is bringing in their old state – THEY need to be new as well. No one can serve Christ in the power of the old flesh.

Beloved, we are no longer under the Law of Moses, but have received new life in Christ. We worship in Spirit and in truth, not according to the letter of the Law. We are being conformed to the image of Christ by the influence of the indwelling Spirit of Christ so that we begin to love and live out holiness as naturally as God Himself. This is His goal in us. Not conformity, but transformation. To go back to the old, would be ruin.

Nowhere was this reality divinely displayed for us in greater clarity and power than on the Mount of Transfiguration. There, where Moses (representative of the Law) and Elijah (representative of the Prophets) are seen with Jesus – the voice of the Father says: “This is my beloved Son; listen to Him” He, is above all.