The Bridegroom's Feast: Mark 2:18-22

They came with questions sharp as accusations. John's disciples fasted—gaunt and hollow-eyed, denying themselves in preparation for the kingdom. The Pharisees fasted—twice a week, making sure everyone noticed their piety. But Jesus' disciples? They feasted. They laughed. They drank wine at parties with sinners.

"Why don't your disciples fast?"

Jesus smiled, and there was something ancient and knowing in it. "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom, they cannot fast."

Let that sink in. He was calling himself the bridegroom—the groom at the wedding feast of God and His people, the celebration prophets had promised for centuries. To fast now would be like weeping at a wedding, like wearing black to a coronation.

"The time will come," Jesus added, and his voice dropped, "when the bridegroom will be taken from them. Then they will fast."

A shadow passed over the conversation. Taken. Such a strange word. But he did not explain.

Instead, he shifted to images they could touch: "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If they do, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No—new wine goes into new wineskins."

The message was clear, even if they could not fully grasp it: what Jesus was bringing could not be patched onto the old system. It would stretch. It would ferment. It would burst every container religion had built to hold it.

Something entirely new was being poured out.