Like old wine skins

January 19, 2015 Monday, 2nd Week in Ordinary Time

1st Reading: Heb 5: 1- 10Gospel: Mk 2:18–22
One day, when the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting, some people asked Jesus, “Why is it that both the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but yours do not?” Jesus answered, “How can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and on that day they will fast. “No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear away from the old cloth, making a worse tear. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the wine would burst the skins and then both the wine and the skins would be lost. But new wine, new skins!”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
The custom in Jesus’ time was that people were supposed to dine only with those whose values they share. The Pharisees took Jesus to task for dining with sinners, for it meant that he also shared their sinful values. Jesus justified his action by the fact that he came to call sinners, not the self righteous But like old wine skins that couldn’t stand the acid content of new wine, the Pharisees who were too conservative resisted Jesus’ new way of love.
Despite Jesus’ explanation, his enemies did not stop digging further into his dining escapades with public sinners. In today’s Gospel they attacked him again by pointing out that unlike John the Baptist, he was always eating and drinking and hardly fasting. Jesus took the chance to announce that the time of John the Baptist was over and it was now the time to rejoice because the bridegroom had arrived. He used this metaphor of marriage to explain the new relationship he was trying to establish between God and humanity. The time of preparation through fasting (John the Baptist’s time) was over and it was now time to rejoice because the kingdom of God was at hand. To fast on food at such a time was as ridiculous as pouring new wine into old wine skin.
This Gospel passage reminds us that God has set time for everything so that we may place all things at their proper time. We should then examine ourselves if we are in step with God’s time. Many people are unhappy because they swim against the current of God’s wisdom. They resist God’s ways because they find His ways too “acidic”. God will take them as they are, for even if God were to force his grace upon them, they’d burst like old wine skins reacting to new wine.-Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website:www.frdan.org.
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