Event 45 — New Wine, Old Wineskins
“Why don’t Your disciples fast?” Jesus answers with a wedding, a torn coat, and a burst wineskin — three pictures that say the same startling thing: something brand new has arrived.
The bridegroom has come — and He brings new wine
John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast, and they’re puzzled that Jesus’ disciples don’t. Jesus answers with a wedding: He is the bridegroom, and no one fasts at a wedding — the time of His presence is a time of joy. (He adds a shadow: “the bridegroom will be taken away” — the first quiet hint of the cross — and then they will fast.) Then He gives two homely pictures that explain why the old religious forms cannot simply absorb what He is bringing: you don’t sew a new, unshrunk patch onto an old garment (it tears worse), and you don’t pour new, still-fermenting wine into old, brittle wineskins (they burst). The kingdom is gloriously new — not a patch-up of the old system but new wine that needs new wineskins: hearts made fresh and ready for joy.
The text
Underlined words (like the bridegroom) link down to their original-language card in Word secrets below.
18John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” 19And Jesus said to them, “While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
21No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results. 22No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”
Mark 2:18–22 (NASB95)📖 Read all three accounts
Read Mark 2:18–22, Matthew 9:14–17, and Luke 5:33–39. Luke adds a wry last line: “no one, after drinking old wine, wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough’” — a nod to how naturally we resist the new thing God is doing.
What the original words mean
Five words behind three vivid pictures.
Fasting expressed sorrow, repentance, or longing for God to act. The devout fasted twice a week as a badge of piety, and John’s disciples fasted in stern expectation of the coming judgment. So the question is sincere: why does this teacher’s circle feast when serious people fast?
↑ Back to the passageA loaded image. In the Old Testament, God is the husband of His people (Hosea 2; Isaiah 62:5). By calling Himself the bridegroom, Jesus quietly claims that role — and announces that the long-awaited wedding has begun. You don’t mourn at a wedding; His presence turns the fast into a feast. The joy isn’t frivolous; it’s the joy of the King arriving.
↑ Back to the passageThe first faint shadow of the cross falls here, early. The bridegroom will be “taken away” — a word with a hint of violence — and then His friends will fast. Joy now, in His presence; grief later, at His death; and (the Gospel will show) joy again at His return. Even at a wedding, Jesus sees the whole road ahead.
↑ Back to the passageNew cloth hasn’t shrunk yet; sew it onto an old, already-shrunk garment, and the first wash makes it pull and rip — “a worse tear.” Jesus isn’t a new patch on the old religious coat of Pharisaism. What He brings is not a repair of the old system but something whole and new.
↑ Back to the passageWine was stored in goatskin bags. New wine is still fermenting and expanding; only a fresh, supple skin can stretch with it. Pour it into an old, dried-out skin and the pressure bursts it — you lose both. The life Jesus brings is too alive, too expansive, to be contained by rigid old forms. It calls for new wineskins: renewed hearts.
↑ Back to the passageOne answer, three pictures
🏺 Fasting, weddings, and wineskins in Jesus’ world
The Law required only one fast a year (the Day of Atonement), but by Jesus’ time the devout fasted twice a week as a mark of piety (the Pharisee in Luke 18:12 brags about it). Fasting fit times of mourning and earnest seeking. A wedding, by contrast, was the great celebration of village life — days of feasting where mourning would have been unthinkable; rabbis even excused wedding guests from certain religious duties so they could rejoice. And wineskins were a daily-life item everyone understood: bags sewn from whole goat hides. Fresh wine fermented and swelled, so it went into new, elastic skins; old skins had already stretched and dried hard, and would split. Jesus reaches for the most ordinary objects — a coat, a wine bag — to make an extraordinary point: the new thing God is doing in Him will not fit inside the old religious system. It is a fulfillment so full that the old containers can’t hold it.
📜 Not abolishing the old — bursting it open into something greater
Jesus is not trashing the Old Testament — elsewhere He insists He came “not to abolish but to fulfill” the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17). The point is that fulfillment is bigger than the forms that pointed to it. The old covenant’s rituals were always anticipating something; now the reality has come, and it bursts the old wineskins the way a grown oak bursts the acorn that held its promise. The prophets had foreseen exactly this newness: “I will make a new covenant… I will put My law within them and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:31–34). New wine, new wineskins, new hearts — the wedding of the new covenant, with Jesus as the Bridegroom.
How it ties to the rest of Scripture
| Passage | Connection |
|---|---|
| Isaiah 62:5 | “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you” — the wedding image. |
| Jeremiah 31:31–34 | The promised “new covenant” written on the heart — the new wine that needs new wineskins. |
| Matthew 5:17 | “I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” — the new bursts, but does not trash, the old. |
| Revelation 19:6–9 | “The marriage supper of the Lamb” — the wedding feast this joy points toward. |
Resources to explore
Play the video here, then dig into the text and its background.
🎬 Watch & listen
- Video: BibleProject — Luke 1–9Overview with study notes and downloads.
- Podcast: An Overview of LukeHow Jesus’ kingdom reframes the old religious expectations.
📖 Study tools
- Mark 2:22 interlinear + Strong’sSee “new wine… fresh wineskins” in the Greek.
- Full passage (Mark 2:18–22, NASB95)Read the whole text on Bible Gateway.
🔗 Cross-reading
- Hosea 2:19–20“I will betroth you to Me forever” — God the husband of His people.
- John 3:29John the Baptist: the friend who rejoices at the Bridegroom’s voice.
Discussion questions
- By calling Himself the bridegroom, what is Jesus claiming — and why does His presence turn a time of fasting into a time of joy?
- He hints that the bridegroom will be “taken away,” and then His friends will fast. How does that early shadow of the cross shape the way we read the joy?
- New cloth tears an old coat; new wine bursts an old skin. What “old containers” do we sometimes try to force the living newness of the gospel into?
- Jesus isn’t abolishing the old but fulfilling it so fully it bursts. How does seeing fulfillment (not rejection) change how we read the Old Testament?
- Only after all that does the question reach us: Luke notes how we cling to “the old is good enough.” Where might we be resisting a new thing God wants to do?