We have seen that there are a series of five conflicts at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel. We come now to consider the second and third of them. As you recall, the first concerned the authority of Christ to forgive the sins of the paralytic. We come here to the problem of associating with disreputable types, and the question of fasting.
We begin with the calling of Levi. Jesus returned to the seaside, and taught a multitude of people there (v. 13). And in our next verse, we come to the beginning of our second controversy. As Jesus was passing by (probably back into Capernaum), He passed by the work station of Levi, a despised tax collector (v. 14). He calls him in the midst of his work, and Levi dropped everything, just as the four fishermen had done earlier, and followed Christ. By piecing together various gospel accounts, we know that this Levi is Matthew, the author of the first Gospel.
In the next scene, Jesus made some trouble in the foyer of eternity. Jesus invited sinners to come eat with Him. Levi hosted a great banquet, and many disreputable types were gathered there, and they reclined to eat. And so it was that tax collectors and sinners ate with Christ and the apostles. The word sinners is probably a technical coinage of the Pharisees, with reference to a particular class of theological, ecclesiastical and social outcasts. Jesus had no more trouble with them than He did with the leper earlier. He ate with them — there were a lot of these people, and Jesus was willing to associate with them at table (v. 15), which no self-respecting rabbi would ever do. Of course, the self-righteous objected — these people really were a despised class (and not without some reason). Why was Jesus willing to have table fellowship with all these lowlifes (v. 16)? The answer is found in the reason He came. The Lord came for the sick, and not for the righteous. The righteous (or those who believed themselves to be such) do not need help with their unrighteousness (v. 17). They don’t have any unrighteousness, it seems.
This was a foreshadowing meal. It was not an accident that in the midst of a ministry of healing sinners, Christ exhibited His grace in a meal. In the consummation of all things, we will all sit down with Him in that ultimate feast, together with all the saints. Every place setting has been arranged, the table has been set, and not one place card will have to be thrown away because a guest did not show up. Just imagine that meal. Now, consider, the Lord’s Table here is an ordained foretaste of what is to come; we are sitting down at the table of the Lord now to prepare our appetites for eternity. And if in that ultimate meal we will all see that all of us are lowlifes, then that should affect how we picture that conviction in our meals here.
The third conflict then came, and it was a dispute about fasting. Both the disciple of John the Baptist and the Pharisees fasted, but the disciples of Christ did not (v. 18). Why not? The Pharisees fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Jesus answers with a series of incongruities. First, fasting is out of place at a wedding reception; it is obviously inconsistent (v. 19). Second, neither does new cloth go together with old cloth; the end result of such patching is a worse tear (v. 21). Third, new wine is still fermenting, and if it does this in an old and stiff goatskin bottle, the result will be bottles that burst and a big mess (v. 22). And last is the point — the point of all these illustrations is that a faith characterized by fasting is inconsistent with the advent of Christ. Christ mentions coming days when His disciples would fast, most probably referring to the time of His death (v. 20). But upon His ascension, Christianity assumes its character as a religion of disciplined feasting, punctuated from time to time with occasional, particular fasts (Acts 13:2-3; 14:23; 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27).
Unless we watch it, our tolerance of unwise incongruities will grow into rebellious hypocrisies. For example, Christ does not object to the fasting of John’s disciples. But we must remember that John’s ministry was a preparation for the ministry of Christ. And this means that fasting prepares us to graduate into the school of feasting. Christ taught us generally not to mix things that don’t go together. And this means that we must learn to embrace the Christian faith, along with everything that goes with it. Further we must reject all those things which do not accompany it well — even those things which we might believe are dutiful and religious.