There Are Appropriate Times for Everything (9:15-17)

Most of us might have responded, "Look, you want to talk about fasting? I fasted forty days in the wilderness." But Jesus avoids seeking human honor for what he did before God in secret (6:16-18), and makes his point instead by three illustrations.

It was inappropriate for groomsmen to fast until after a wedding banquet had ended. Weddings lasted seven days, and participants-the NIV's guests of the bridegroom means either the groomsmen (compare Jn 3:29) or the guests-were expected to participate joyfully. Sages even interrupted their schools to hail passing bridal processions (ARN 4A).

New cloth had not yet shrunk, and when it began to shrink after being patched onto a garment that had finished its shrinking, the patch would tear loose from the garment, making the tear worse (Mt 9:16). In the same way, old wineskins had been stretched to the limit as wine fermented and expanded in them. Because old wineskins had already been stretched to the limit, if they were filled with new wine it would ultimately burst them when it expanded. Traditional rituals must never become a straitjacket that hinder us from celebrating sinners' embrace of the good news of God's kingdom.